"Serenade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her, and their young cheeks touched as they listened and peered down into the gloom of the narrow street. Suddenly there was a stir below, and the sound of other feet coming quickly from the Piazza del Gesu; and though the serenade was not half finished, another choir and other instruments struck up a chorus, loud and high, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... hour later three coyotes began a fearsome serenade. Beth sat up abruptly, as terrified as if she had been but a child. She endured it for nearly five minutes, hearing it come closer all the while. Then she could bear it no more. She rose to her feet, caught up her blanket, and almost ran towards ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... rival, there was quite a manifestation, and every one was deeply moved. At the end of the third act all the young men were sent off by the ladies to find all the musicians they could get together, and to my surprise and delight on arriving at my hotel a charming serenade was played for me while I was at supper. The crowd had assembled under my windows at the Albemarle Hotel, and I was obliged to go out on to the balcony several times to bow and to thank this public, which I had ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... occupied by George Sand, she who had been defamed and ostracized by their grandmothers. Febrer had visited the monastery with a nonagenarian, who had been one of the youths that had gone dressed as Moors to serenade the Frenchwoman. He could not remember any details nor could ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to be called Julie. So. M. Maniera turns to the right to see who was talking to him like that. Nobody there! He rubs his ear and asks himself, if he's dreaming. Then Mephistopheles went on with his serenade... But, ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... strangest parts of this terrible tale, Foote used to relate, was the fact that on the night the murder was committed he arrived at his father's house in Truro, and was kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he fancied it might be a serenade got up by some of the family to welcome him home, but not being able to discover any trace of the musicians, he came to the conclusion that he was deceived by his own imagination. Shortly afterwards, however, he learnt that the murder had been committed at the same hour of ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," or the "Skylark," or one of Colcott's glees, or one of Mendelssohn's two-part songs, or Schubert's "Serenade," or Beethoven's "Adelaide"; or maybe an interlude of piano, one of Mozart's Sonatas, or "Der Freyschutz," and then a Kyrie, Dona Nobis, Gloria, or Agnus Dei, one or all, until it was time to retire. And still it ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... impertinent Honour, we may chance to lose, 'tis true; but our down-right Honesty I perceive you are resolv'd we shall maintain through all the dangers of Love and Gallantry; though to say truth, I find enough to do, to defend my Heart against some of those Members that nightly serenade us, and daily show themselves before our Window, gay as young Bridegrooms, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... and that glorious ride home by moonlight, when it's probably the only outing of the kind we'll have this summer? The boys were going to take their banjos and mandolins, and they counted on us to help serenade—" ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... between them, he told her another secret: that Watts McHurdie had asked John to get his guitar after midnight, and play an accompaniment to the accordion, and that Watts and Ward and Jake Dolan and Gabriel Carnine were going out serenading. Further he told her that Watts was going to serenade Nellie Logan at the Thayer House, and that Gabriel Carnine was going to serenade Mary Murphy, and that Philemon Ward was going to serenade Miss Lucy, and that he, John Barclay, had suggested that it would be ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... A soft serenade rendered by violins, with a harp accompaniment, was followed by a gay mazurka, played by all the instruments together,—and this ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... think my Saxon countrymen had herded long enough with the Normans, to fall into the tone of their melancholy ditties. What took the honest knight from home? or what could he expect but to find his mistress agreeably engaged with a rival on his return, and his serenade, as they call it, as little regarded as the caterwauling of a cat in the gutter? Nevertheless, Sir Knight, I drink this cup to thee, to the success of all true lovers—I fear you are none," he added, on observing that the knight (whose brain began to be ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... "A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought of such a thing. Lying ill and alone, he sends me the sweetest token of his regard—my favourite air, his own setting—the last song I ever heard him sing. And you wonder that I value so pure, so disinterested a love!" protested ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... heard this melody, Now poketh John, and said, "Why sleepest thou? Heardest thou ever sic a song ere now? Lo, what a serenade's among them all! A wild-fire red upon their bodies fall! Wha ever listened to sae strange a thing? The flower of evil shall their ending bring. This whole night there to me betides no rest. But, courage yet, all shall be for the best; For, John," said he, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... if Dame Rumor said he cherished a latent desire for a nearer title than either of these. Dorris said they were only firm and true friends; and the tenor of their talk seemed to prove that she was right, for as she turned from the old-time spinnet, where she had been singing the lovely little serenade ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 5, Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 5, May, 1886 • Various
... sounds so fittingly to time and place, as do its simple sonorous tender chords when heard through the thickets of rose-laurel or the festoons of the vines, vibrating on the stillness of the night under the Tuscan moon. It would suit the serenade of Romeo; Desdemona should sing the willow song to it, and not to the harp; Paolo pleaded by it, be sure, many a time to Francesca; and Stradella sang to it the passion whose end was death; it is of all music the most Italian, and it fills the pauses of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little Serenade— ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... sort of cavalier swagger, and every now and then making his corslet vibrate passionately. On the top of a blade of grass sat a brown little Juliet—a most reserved, discreet little Juliet, but evidently much interested in Romeo's serenade. When he sang she put her head to one side and moved as if uncertain whether to descend from her balcony. When he stopped, which he did at frequent intervals, being as it were timorous and tongue-tied, she took her foot from the ladder ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... saloon, we paused for an instant to look through the port-hole at a pale-faced girl with big eyes and a wonderful bright red dress, singing "The Angels' Serenade," while an excitable bear-leader turned her music for her. Near her stood a lanky girl who adored actors and tenors, and lived in the hope of meeting some of those gentlemen of the footlights, who plough their way so calmly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... reflections! but my master expects thee, honest Lopez, to secure his retreat from Donna Clara's window, as I guess.—[Music without.] Hey! sure, I heard music! So, so! Who have we here? Oh, Don Antonio, my master's friend, come from the masquerade, to serenade my young mistress, Donna Louisa, I suppose: so! we shall have the old gentleman up presently.—Lest he should miss his son, I had best lose no time in ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... accompanied the musicians, and seemed in no very elevated rank of life) stood bare-headed beneath; and in his upward look there was a devotion, a fondness, a respect, that brought back to Lucilla all the unsparing bitterness of contrast and recollection. And now the serenade began. The air was inexpressibly soft and touching, and the words were steeped in that vague melancholy which is inseparable from the tenderness, if not from the passion, of love. Lucilla listened involuntarily, and ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prairie, beyond a line of woods, while the bands of horses were feeding in a low meadow close at hand. There sat Jack C., cross-legged, in the sun, splicing a trail-rope, and the rest were lying on the grass, smoking and telling stories. That night we enjoyed a serenade from the wolves, more lively than any with which they had yet favored us; and in the morning one of the musicians appeared, not many rods from the tents, quietly seated among the horses, looking at us with a pair of large gray eyes; but perceiving a rifle leveled at ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... a serenade in your dream, you will have pleasant news from absent friends, and your anticipations will ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... imparting to the sound of the chorus a manly youthfulness hitherto unknown to me. On fine evenings they glided down the Grand Canal in a large illuminated gondola, stopping before a few palaces as if to serenade (when requested and paid for doing so, be it understood), and generally attracted a number of ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... just come out of the sea. Papa and I have been bathing at the Eldorado. We swam round the Castello until we were opposite your windows, and sang 'Funiculi, funicula!' in the water, to serenade you. Why didn't you hear us? Papa has a splendid voice, almost like Tamagno's in the gramophone, when he sings the 'Addio' from 'Otello.' Of course we kept a little out at sea. Papa is so easily ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... you with open arms," Ned grinned. "Here. I'll put these cuffs on again, with one arm locked carelessly. You can draw the bar out when you pull right hard. Now, eat what you need and take a run up the slope. We'll follow you with a serenade of bullets. When you join the outlaws down in the canyon you'll be ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... one tiny penetrating note dominated all. He knew that the singer of that note was four-footed. Have you ever heard a cricket's serenade? It was something like that. Have you ever heard a tree-creeper talking to itself? It was something like that also. He looked down and saw, as he expected, a round fur ball rolling in and out the grass-stems. At times the ball sat up ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... get out over the roofs. But such music does not go up. What could have been the intention of this assault we could not conjecture. It was a time of profound peace through the country; we had ordered no spontaneous serenade, if it was a serenade. Perhaps the Boston bands have that habit of going into an alley and disciplining their nerves by letting out a tune too big for the alley, and taking the shock of its reverberation. It may be well enough for the band, but many a poor sinner ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... change in the weather? A storm is blowing up. I'm speaking figuratively ... I might as well out with it, Johnnie,—there's a report, growing in strength, that a mob of townspeople is scheduled to come your way to-night, some time, and treat you to a serenade of protest and the traditional yokel hospitality of mobs ... a coat of tar and feathers and a ride on a ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise and fling her One poor sou for her serenade? One poor laugh from the antic finger Thrumming a ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the scene and the mood, and in the sixth line Porphyria may enter. Take a middle-period poem, A Serenade at the Villa, for an instance of more deliberate description, flashed by the same ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... depart en masse; however, be it what it might, their first care was to obtain a light—at some sacrifice, for the lamp-post had been newly painted; and, secondly, happening to pass Mr. Spohf's, they must serenade that gentleman with pathetic negro-melodies—about the loss of one "Mary Blane," and an injunction to "Susannah" not to sob,—until driven by the police into another beat, there to lose one of their ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... Pogner promise that the victor should receive the maiden's hand without her consent being asked. He fears lest the capricious fair one may yet refuse to marry him, and decides to make sure of her by singing a serenade under her window that very night. But when he sees the handsome young candidate step forward and receive the support of Pogner, (who has already made his acquaintance, and who evidently is inclined to favour him,) the widower ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... your early hunting-matches there; to have my sleep disturbed by break of day, with heigh, Jowler, Jowler! there Venus, ah Beauty! and then a serenade of deep-mouthed curs, to answer the salutation of the huntsman, as if hell were broke loose about me: and all this to meet a pack of gentlemen savages, to ride all day, like mad-men, for the immortal fame of being first in at the hare's death: to come upon the spur, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... brilliant and silvery, his violins scintillant and electric, at moments winding a lazy, happy, smoke-blue thread through the sunburnt fabric of the score. His horns glow with soft, fruity timbres. The new sweetness of color which he attains in his songs, the pale gold of "Morgen," the rose of the Serenade, the mild evening blue of "Traum durch die Daemmerung," shimmers throughout his orchestra scores. Never have wind instruments sounded more richly, dulcetly, than in that "Serenade fuer dreizehn ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... it is hard to tell how such strength was given in such slight sentences,—but from the time when he contemptuously tossed out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and passion. "I dream now," said ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... eyes were shining with a real purpose as he played. "I'll suggest their thoughts for them," the old man was chuckling to himself. "Who can resist these dreamy love-songs?"—he was playing Schubert's "Serenade." "Twilight and music! If the moon would only show her face at the window! I'm letting loose a whole flock of cupids. Oh, I know, I know, I've heard their whispers—they tell you there is no death or loneliness—or separation—lying little rascals! But sweet, oh, wondrously sweet to listen to. ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the passionate serenade." ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... spoke so familiarly to him; and being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest, he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... gondoliers to offending gondoliers, as they passed—apostrophes to liquid names of guardian saints, too melodious for denunciations, hurled back with triple expletives and forgotten the next moment in friendly parsiflage; here and there a strain of ordered music, in serenade, from a group of friendly gondolas swaying only with the tranquil movement of the water; or the mysterious tone of a violin, uttering a soul prayer meant for some single listener, which yet steals tremblingly forth ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... clergy had a quaintness all its own. The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly inaudible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coincidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the guidance ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... evening a couple of young Turkish dandies come round to the khan and favor me with a serenade; one of them twangs a doleful melody on a small stringed instrument, something like the Slavonian tamborica, and the other one sings a doleful, melancholy song (nearly all songs and tunes in Mohammedan countries seem doleful and melancholy); afterwards an Arab camel-driver joins in with a dance, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of the companion, and were greeted with wishes for 'A happy New Year, and many of them,' that we quite realised that nothing serious was the matter. Soon the strains of sweet music, proceeding from the Honolulu choirs, which had come out in boats to serenade us, fell upon our ears The choristers remained alongside for more than an hour, singing English and American sacred and secular hymns and songs, and then went off to the 'Fantome,' where they repeated the performance. The moon shone brightly; not a ripple disturbed the surface of the water; ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... alderman—because Don Custodio saw a long way—and opposed it with all the resonance of his bucal cavity, considering the project too premature and predicting great social cataclysms. No less celebrated was his opposition to a sentimental serenade that some wished to tender a certain governor on the eve of his departure. Don Custodio, who felt a little resentment over some slight or other, succeeded in insinuating the idea that the rising star was the mortal enemy of the setting one, whereat ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... night to discuss the amazing events of the day and swap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of citizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout themselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips—for all his sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight against hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good. And as each of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... statures of the Lincolns, man and wife, was palpable, but this hardly substantiates the story of the President appearing with his wife on the White House porch in response to a serenade, and ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... opens with a great assembly of instruments, and in the middle of the stage is a pupil of the Music Master seated at a table composing a melody which Monsieur Jourdain has ordered for a serenade.) ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere
... toward the Administration. At the time of his departure for Europe in search of health, when surrounded by the chief Federal officials of the city, he significantly omitted words of approbation or criticism, and with equal dexterity avoided the expression of an opinion in the many welcoming and serenade speeches amidst which his vacation ended in August. No doubt existed, however, as to his personal feeling. The selection of Evarts for secretary of state in place of Thomas C. Platt for postmaster general did not make him happy.[1569] ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... horse to move by dint of whip or spur. By the time I had crossed the river into El Afroun, I found my horse so entirely knocked up, that it was clearly impossible to proceed. So, of necessity, I turned into the auberge, and had a very good dinner, enlivened by a serenade from a legion of frogs, croaking dolefully in ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... Neapolitan canzonetta, signore; all about a young man who grieves for his sweetheart, because he thinks she is not true to him, and what he says to her in a serenade.' ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... froid et plus pale, C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard; On s'y couche a minuit, et l'on s'y leve tard; Ses raouts tant vantes ne sont qu'une boxade, Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster; Et n'etait sa foret de mats percant la brume, Sa tour dont a minuit le vieil oeil s'allume, Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... without heeding her). That's a sweet voice for a serenade. Round, full, high-shouldered, and calkilated to fetch a man every time. Only thar ain't, to my sartain knowledge, one o' them chaps within a mile of the ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... your delight Was there to see two hobby-horses fight; Stout Scaramoucha with rush-lance rode in, And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin. For love you heard how amorous asses bray'd, And cats in gutters gave their serenade. Nature was out of countenance, and each day Some new-born monster shown you for a play. 20 But when all fail'd, to strike the stage quite dumb, Those wicked engines call'd machines are come. Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... that he was a Filibustero, but he was universally supposed to be identified with that party; and if he were not so identified, he showed a puerile ignorance of the requirements of a Minister, quite beyond conception, when he received a serenade of five thousand people at New York, who came in procession, bearing aloft the accompanying transparencies, he being at the time accredited to ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... flageolet. I did not care to press any further questions, for fear of implicating Julia in the opinions of those of whom they might be asked. Next morning, at breakfast, I dropped a casual hint about the serenade of the evening before, and I promise you Miss Mannering looked red and pale alternately. I immediately gave the circumstance such a turn as might lead her to suppose that my observation was merely casual. I have since caused a watch-light to be burnt in my library, and have left the ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... of the box were torn apart and whirled away. There was a singular and growing impulse about all this. No one said anything; they were very quiet; yet the crowd grew quickly, as if called together by something in the air. One voice said, "Don't forgit we're all relyin' on yer serenade, Mark," and this raised a strange united laugh that broke brief and loud, and stopped, leaving the silence deeper than before. Mark and three more left, and walked towards the Lyceum. They were members of the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... was born in the courting-days of mankind: the first utterance of speech something between the nightly love-lyrics of puss upon the tiles and the melodious love-songs of the nightingale." "War, the father of all things," goes back to the same origin as language. The serenade is matched by the battle-cry. The fight between two cock-pheasants for the love of a hen-pheasant is war in its last analysis, in its primal manifestation. Selfish hatred is at the bottom of it. It is the hell-fire ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... boys hev all got back from Barrington, and they're pretty gosh darned drunk, most on em, an so nothin would do but they must go an rig up a hoss-fiddle an hunt up some pans, an go an serenade the silk stockins. They wuz a givin it tew Squire Woodbridge, wen I come by. I guess he won't git much sleep ter night," and with this information ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... public speech was in September, 1884, when the people of Washington carried him the news of Cleveland's election to the Presidency. He came to his porch and responded briefly, almost inaudibly, to the serenade, but he was full of the gratification which Southern people felt over that event. He declared that he did not know that there was enough manhood in the country as to break loose from party ties and elect a President. The fact had revived his hope for the whole ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... or the planets and their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, "Very superior pyrotechny this evening"? Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,—"The heavens and the earth and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has not his ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... my serenade. Come along! There's no time to waste. Jakko turned red some minutes ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... back in the month of (September, isn't it? tr)y [Tach]ez] to let us know the day; we have determined to give you a serenade or charivari [mock serenade]. The company of the most distinguished artists of the capital M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and the Abbe Bardin [passionate lover of music, who had a great many artists to see him], the ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... back to us in the month of September, will you not? Try to let us know the day as we have resolved to give you a serenade (or charivari). The most distinguished artists of the capital—M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and the Abbe Bardin, the coryphees of the Rue d'Amboise (and my neighbours), Maurice Schlesinger, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Poh, poh! what, baulk a serenade? 'Twould be an outrage to the courtesies Of this great city. Faith! his ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... song. The other birds having finished all the crumbs stood chirping and twittering in the grass. Then, as if by a given signal, all of them, including the one on Henry's hand, united in a single volume of song and flew up into the crevices of the green roof. He felt that a serenade had been given to him, one that few human kings ever enjoyed. The little flying people of the forest had united to do him honor, and he was pleased, ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... with flowers and branches of trees, with happy devices, prevailed everywhere. The peasantry all well dressed." Subsequently, a curious incident occurred. "Some hundreds of miners from the mountains came to serenade their king. They are a particular race of Saxon origin, and for centuries have preserved their customs, language, and manners. Their countenance is interesting; I saw five or six in a room. They have a resigned silent melancholy, arising, I believe, from being ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... Chit looks after his interests, rules his household, and makes him comfortable; her people acquiesce. All marriages are easily arranged and easily dissolved among the Burmans. A young man may offer sweets, serenade a girl a few times; if he is acceptable, there's a family dinner, with much chewing of betel nut, and that ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... the spot; and Matthew, to help on the joke, calls in the parish clerk and others to sing a mock requiem. As Ralph does not succeed in dying, Matthew counsels him to put on a bold face, and claim the lady's hand in person, after treating her to a serenade. He agrees to this, and while the serenade is in progress the lady enters; he declares his passion; she rejects him with scorn, and returns his letter unread; whereupon Matthew reads it in her hearing, but so varies the pointing as to turn the sense ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... in some mysterious manner transferred to Tebbes, you would on the very first evening wonder what was the curious serenade which you heard from the desert. If you sat at the fall of day reading at the door of your tent, you would look up from your book and listen. You would have an uneasy feeling and be uncomfortable at being alone in the tent. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, ragged book, THE PIRATE, the figure of Cleveland - cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness - moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple islanders - singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... three limbs were gnarled and twisted in such a way that he could seat himself and arrange his body in such a way that he could have enjoyed a night's slumber with as much refreshment as if stretched out upon a blanket on the ground. But the serenade below was not calculated to soothe his nerves into soft, downy sleep, and he shuddered at the thought of sitting where he was for four or five hours, with the pattering feet below him, varied by a yelp or howl, when he should feel ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... North-West; for it is his longest day this year. The hill-tops rejoicing will ere long be at their ruddiest, and blush Good-night. The thrush, in green dells, on long-shadowed leafy spray, pours gushing his glad serenade, to the babble of brooks grown audibler; silence is stealing over the Earth. Your dusty Mill of Valmy, as all other mills and drudgeries, may furl its canvass, and cease swashing and circling. The swenkt grinders in this Treadmill ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Fair" was to exhibit. The Mayor of Akron called upon them and invited them to a concert, where, in response to loud calls, Barnum gave a short speech; they were afterward tendered a reception and a serenade at the hotel. The next day they were escorted to Buchtel College by the founder of the institution, Mr. J. R. Buchtel, and the Reverend D. C. Tomlinson. The students received Barnum enthusiastically, and he gave them one of his ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Society drawing-room duets sung with the frisky married ladies who liked nice boys, and had made tinkling music for the twinkling small feet, and the strident voice of Lessie Lavigne of the Jollity Theatre, and now must serenade outside a Convent-close in beleaguered Gueldersdorp, where the whitest of maiden lilies bloomed, tall and pure and slender and unharmed, in a raging tempest of fire and steel ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... but none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an anonymous Pescatoria amorosa printed about 1550. It is a Venetian serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... difficulty; but the evening passed, and we retired undisturbed. Not long afterward a series of indescribable sounds broke the stillness of the night, and the tramp of feet was heard outside the house. Mr. R. called out, "It's a serenade, H. Get up and bring out all the wine you have." Annie and I peeped through the parlor window, and lo! it was the company of volunteers and a diabolical band composed of bones and broken-winded brass instruments. They piped and clattered and ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... young man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her house playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign that she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... place that Chonita Iturbi y Moncada have before, and many caballeros want to marry with her, but she no pay much attention; only now I think like Enrique. Ay, he sing so beautiful, Senor, no wonder si she loving him. Serenade her every night, and ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... Thurio to get a 'consort' (probably of viols) to play a 'dump' under Silvia's window. He goes to arrange for some of his friends to attend for this purpose. The serenade takes place in the next Act, where, in the 2nd scene, line 17, it is called 'evening music,' but does not include the 'dump,' for Thurio has 'a sonnet that will serve the turn,' so they ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... to show that she heard, and went on playing. There was seldom any pretense of good feeling between them now. She tuned the violin to minor, and poised the bow over the strings, in some doubt as to her memory of a serenade she wanted to ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... more than nibble it; they neither ate nor talked, and yet they looked anything but unhappy. Detached from their surroundings, as they sat over their coffee, they might have been taken to be three poetic gentlemen listening to a serenade. ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington
... met by all the grandees of the place, who welcomed us as big men, and escorted us to a large stone house in the town overlooking the river. On the way to this domicile, a number of black singers were formed in line to serenade us, and they danced and sang in real negro peculiarity, with such earnest constancy that, although a novel sight, we were glad to be rid of them long before they were tired of performing. All inquisitive about other people's concerns, the Panganyites at once ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... good touch you have!" she said, sitting down by the piano, and apparently quite unaware of the storm. "I love music dearly, and I thought perhaps you'd let me come and listen to your playing for a little while. The fingering of that 'Serenade' is awfully hard, isn't it? I thought I should never get it, myself—never did, really well, in fact! Do you like ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... changeful past, and looking into the dreamy future, the whippoorwills and plovers piping to them from the cloverfields, the crickets chirping them a cheerful welcome, and the river saluting them with its ceaseless serenade! ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... 'Nature's so fearfully lacking in tact. Fancy her singing an epithalamium in a poor fellow's ears, when he doesn't know a single human woman nearer than Paris.' To make matters worse, the day ended in a fiery sunset, and then there was a full moon; and in the rosery a nightingale performed its sobbing serenade. 'Please go out and give that bird a penny, and tell him to go away,' Paul said to a servant. It was all very well to jest, but at every second breath he sighed profoundly. I'm afraid he had become sentimental. It seemed a serious pity that what his heart was full of should spend itself ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... thing most aggravating Is the cool and calculating Way in which he tunes his harpstring To the melody of sharp sting; Then proceeds to serenade you, And successfully ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer, who lived on the road to Tiberias. One morning his fellow-residents prepared a discordant serenade for him. They pointed out to Levi with animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money even ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... enjoying his vacation the better for its lateness. He had bolted his supper early enough to secure his favorite chair in the best part of the piazza: a mandolin orchestra was playing a waltz from "The Serenade," and playing it well, the Judge thought. He threw away the match with which he had lighted his third cigar—to keep off the mosquitoes, he blandly told his conscience—and leaned back in the Morris chair, ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... music; concert; strain, tune, air; melody &c. 413; aria, arietta[obs3]; piece of music[Fr], work, number, opus; sonata; rondo, rondeau[Fr]; pastorale, cavatina[obs3], roulade[obs3], fantasia, concerto, overture, symphony, variations, cadenza; cadence; fugue, canon, quodlibet, serenade, notturno [Italian], dithyramb; opera, operetta; oratorio; composition, movement; stave; passamezzo [obs3][Italian], toccata, Vorspiel [German]. instrumental music; full score; minstrelsy, tweedledum and tweedledee, band, orchestra; concerted piece[Fr], potpourri, capriccio. vocal music, vocalism[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the song from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... on with the air, and singing to it): 'Tis I, who come to serenade your lilies, and pay my devoir to your ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... and was invited to most houses. He proved himself quite a ladies' man; no lazy, grumbling dandy, but a smiling, assiduous beau. He had not been in New York a month, before he was known to have sent a number of bouquets to different belles, and was supposed to have given more than one serenade to his sister's friend, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... going to serenade us," cried Phil. "That's Mr. Sparling all over. What do you think of that, Mrs. Cahill? You never were serenaded by a circus band ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... long. First came the howl of a wolf, to be answered by others from every quarter of the compass. This serenade went on for a bit, till the jackals chimed in with their harsh bark. I had been caught by darkness before this when hunting on the Berg, but I was not afraid of wild beasts. That is one terror of the bush which travellers' tales have put too ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... gain'd the Maid by the usual Methods that such Creatures are render'd Obsequious, and under her Conduct methoughts I sail'd prosperously on without the least Rub to my suppos'd Happiness; 'tis true I was at a constant Charge of Presents, Treats, and now and then a Serenade according to the Spanish Customs. But I remember at one of these Midnight Scenes of Gallantry, I saw something that gave me a great deal of Uneasiness; drawing up my Musick under the Lady's Window, besides her Face, which was at the ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... in him. He thought of bridegrooms, youth, strength; but it was as the hollow echo of a far-off regret, some vague sunrise of gold over hills of dream. Then a beautiful tenor voice began to sing Schubert's Serenade. It was as the very voice of hopeless passion; the desire of the moth for the star, of man for God. Death, death, at any cost, death to end this long ghastly creeping about the purlieus of life. Life even for a single instant ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... was located in the rear of the stage. The orchestra would attract attention anywhere. The music was a cross between the noise made by a boiler shop during working hours and a horse fiddle at a country serenade. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... murderous game there trespassed the innocent love-lilt of a bird. I risked him the flash of an eye as he stood, a becking black body on a bough, his yellow beak shaking out a flutey note of passionate serenade. Thus the irony of nature; no heed for us, the head and crown of things created: the bird would build its home and hatch its young upon the sapling whose roots were ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... control him during the day, and was entertaining those present with genial, even lively, conversation. The pleasant entertainment was interrupted by the announcement that a delegation of German workingmen were about to serenade Mr. Lincoln. Proceeding to the balcony, there were seen the faces of nearly two thousand of the substantial German citizens who had voted for Mr. Lincoln because they believed him to be a stout champion of free labor ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... she decided on "The Angel's Serenade"; she knew it by heart, and adored playing it. There was something brightly-sweet and brightly-sad in those strains of loveliness; she could almost hear the soft flutter of angelic wings, almost see the silvery sheen of them astir. And, oddly, all that sheen and stir, all that ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... great matter," said Ferloga. "Take me with thee to Emain Macha, and at each ninth hour let the widows and the growing maidens of Ulster serenade me[FN18] with the song: 'Ferloga ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... plenty of singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and reed-pipes were never silent. One serenade followed another, and even at the table a new song rang ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "This is the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunave was born to-day—a beautiful princess, Queen of Butaritari." So I was told it went in endless iteration. The song was of course out of season, and the performance only a rehearsal. But it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves from our new ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was received by the Governor, Prince William of Prussia, and the Austrian commander, while the Prussian and Austrian troops, with their bands, gave a torchlight serenade before the hotel windows. On the rest-day which Sunday secured, the Queen saw the good nurse who had brought the royal pair into the world. Her Majesty had also her first introduction to one of her future sons-in-law—an unforeseen kinsman then—Prince Louis of Hesse, whom she noticed ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... Haydn, accompanied by his friends, was wont to wander about Vienna by moonlight, and serenade his patrons with trios and quartets of his own composition. He happened one night to stop under the window of Bernardone Kurz, a director of a theatre and the leading clown of Vienna. Down rushed Kurz very excitedly. "Who are you?" he shrieked. ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... variations of his few and simple tones, on a low and very sweet timbre, he belied his unoscine perch in the tree of bird life, and sang to himself. Now and then he was drowned out by the shrilling of cicadas, but it was a delightful serenade, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. A few days before, I had made a careful study of the syrinx of this bird, whom we may call rather euphoniously Trogonurus curucui, and had been struck by the simplicity both of muscles and bones. Now, having summoned his mate in regular ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... voice, supported by others more harsh, began a prayer that had the voluptuous rhythm of an Italian serenade. A passing wave of sentimentality seemed to stir the guests. Cotoner, who stood near the altar, in case Monsignor should need something, felt moved to tenderness by the music, by the sight of that distinguished ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... friends, seated on sofas in the portico, enjoying the cool breeze of the night, and eating fruits and ices, while some of their servants at a little distance, on the river's bank, were performing a simple serenade. Emily was now accustomed to the way of living in this warm country, and was not surprised to find Mons. and Madame Quesnel in their portico, two hours ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... first wooed a heart that should never have given itself to me! Ay, young Colonna, many a night has my boat been moored beneath the starlit Sorgia that washes her proud father's halls, and my voice awaked the stillness of the waving sedges with a soldier's serenade. Sweet memories! bitter fruit!" ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... included, who pronounced him a noble boy, and admired him to my satisfaction. Then came a letter from Lilly, saying mother had decided to remain in Clinton, and wanted us to join her there. O my prophetic soul! My heart went below zero! Then Colonel Allen sent to Port Hudson for the band to serenade us, and raised my spirits in anticipation of the treat. While performing my toilet in the evening, Waller Fowler arrived, on his way to Vicksburg, bringing a letter to Miriam from Major Drum! Heaven only knows how it got here! Such a dear, kind letter, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... pastime that the boys kept it up, till a series of water-wheels, little mills and cataracts made the once quiet brook look as if a manufacturing town was about to spring up where hitherto minnows had played in peace and the retiring frog had chanted his serenade unmolested. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... passionate repetition of the word "Amie." She thought she recognized the voice, and the sound of her own name uttered in such ardent tones made her heart beat and her color rise, for it seemed to signify that the serenade was for them. As the last melodious murmur ceased, there came a stifled laugh from below, and something fell into the balcony. Neither dared stir till the sound of departing feet reassured them; then creeping forward Amy drew in a lovely bouquet of myrtle, roses, and great German ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... overtures, choruses, masses, cantatas, sonatas, fantasias, arias! What tenderness was in his soul!—Listen to the "Last Greeting;" what fancy and emotion! listen to the "Fisher Maiden" and "Post Horn;" what refinement! listen to the "Serenade;" what devotion! hear the ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Duncan, in surprise; "I wish somebody would serenade me. I think it was the most romantic thing Bob ever did. He's wild about you, and so is Somers they have both told me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... are preceded by a band of music: a big drum, hand tambours, basket rattles, conch shells, and a nutmeg-grater. The members of this goodly company dance and sing as they pass rapidly along the streets, occasionally halting in their career to serenade a friend. Now, they pause before a cottage, at the door of which is a group of 'mulaticas francesas,' or French mulatto girls. The maskers salute them in falsetto voices, and address them by their Christian names as ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... there are some five or six young ladies, who, it is alleged, have been promised "passes" to go South whenever they are disposed to do so,—carrying, of course, all the information they can for the enemy. The bands of the regiments are also sent to serenade them, and on these occasions orders are given to suppress the national airs, as being offensive to these traitors ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Life? Blackwood The Confession Blackwood The Milling Match between Entellus and Darcs Moore Not a Sous had he Got Barham Raising the Devil Barham The London University Barham Domestic Poems Hood 1. Good-night 2. A Parental Ode to my Son 3. A Serenade Ode to Perry Hood A Theatrical Curiosity Cruikshank's Om The Secret Sorrow Punch Song for Punch-drinkers Punch The Song of the Humbugged Husband Punch Temperance Song Punch Lines Punch Madness Punch The Bandit's Fate Punch Lines written after a Battle Punch The Phrenologist ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... the Smoke Screen; while your dry bed of balsam boughs may turn out to be rain trickling down your neck, Niagara-like, and your resting place a veritable Lake Erie. Your fragrance of a thousand flowers may be the pungent aroma of the skunk, borne by the evening breeze; and your evening serenade perhaps will be made by an immense number of "no see ems" whose shrill and infinitely fine soprano is paid for in so many installments of blood, to say nothing of the furious itching and nights of "watchful waiting." Even to enjoy Nature in her finer moods you must always pay a price, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... people from some of the pressure of taxation. Towards the end of this year, 1790, the Assembly had decreed the discharge of the debts of the State; and (whether or not they might prove able to execute what they decreed) the people were highly delighted. It was the custom to serenade the royal family on New Year's morning. On this New Year's day, the band of the National Guard played under the king's windows an opera air which went to the words, "But our creditors are paid, and we are consoled." They would play nothing but this air; and ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... said, when she had finished her "Serenade." "I believe you've really got some music in you! You brought out that crescendo passage very well indeed. We want a little more delicacy in these arpeggios, and then it will do. Your touch has improved ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... were standing before a fraternity house, and as the music ceased, Jack Collings suggested: "Let's serenade them. You lead, Hugh." ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... sight of Gray Stoddard standing near the girl who was playing, a watchful eye upon her music to turn it for her. She clutched the window-sill and stood choking and blinded, fighting with a crowd of daunting recollections and miserable apprehensions. The young violinist was playing Schubert's Serenade. From the violin came the cry of hungry human love demanding its mate, questing, praying, half despairing, and yet ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... too," said Eve. "Though she lives in the belt of sunburn, she is white as snow,—milk-white, with hazel eyes. She has hair like Sordello's Elys. She is a girl that dreams. Let us serenade her till she ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... appeal! Have we not tried them? Now we have only one weapon left—retaliation. Sometimes we are able to avenge our martyrs. The two fiends who guarded Marie Spiridonova were shot by the members of her Society. She was only a girl too—about the same age as you. We Anarchists do not serenade women and make them compliments, but we think it an honour to kiss the hand of such as Marie Spiridonova. She was tortured, starved, outraged, and came through worse than death to be transported to a convict settlement. Now she is in the Malzoff Prison. She ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... to her side and looked out. The band at the barracks had just begun their nightly serenade, and the music traveled across the bay to strike upon our ears so softly, that it sounded ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... continuous from chateau and cottage to stop and partake of refreshment. Sometimes he would run far into the night before hauling up, but usually his rest was broken by bands of music turning out to serenade him, and at one place, where there was no band, an enthusiastic admirer blew a hunting horn most of the night under his window. It was a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... serenade. Sir H. Mann had mentioned, that he was about to give an entertainment of this kind in his garden to the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... will look more tolerantly on my intentions as partially confided to you this night. I will not see you here again to say good-by. I wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping lion.' I will not close my eyes to-night—fact is, I haven't time. Our serenade at Josie's was a prearranged signal by which she is to be ready and at the station for the five morning train. You may remember the lighting of three consecutive matches at her window before the igniting of her lamp. That meant, 'Thrice ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... in his intended serenade, with jealous eyes watched the proceedings of the stranger, fully expecting that either Vrouw Margaret or Vrouw Isabelle would appear at the window. At length it opened, when, instead, the more portly form of Vrouw Van Arent herself came into view. She gazed ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... New World now and then pursued the wandering star in her travels at immense expenditure of time and money, as well as of floral decorations. This is young America's way of showing his admiration for a favorite actress. He is silent and unobtrusive. He makes his presence known by the midnight serenade beneath her windows; by the bouquets which fall at her feet on every representation, and are sent to the room of her hotel at the same hour each day; by his constant attendance on the departure platform at the railway station. We are not sure that this silent worship ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... doubt but that a serenade was meant. Though the custom was of much use, it was the first time that a similar honor had been paid beneath the window of Donna Violetta. The studied privacy of her life, her known destiny, and the jealousy of the despotic state, and perhaps ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my hip was so inflamed that I could only sleep in a sitting posture. Seated with my back against a tree, the smoke from the fire almost enveloping me in its suffocating folds, I vainly tried, amid the din and uproar of this horrible serenade, to woo the drowsy god. My imagination was instinct with terror. At one moment it seemed as if, in the density of a thicket, I could see the blazing eyes of a formidable forest monster fixed upon me, preparatory to a deadly leap; at another I fancied that I heard the swift approach ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... so silly? When madre was talking to him last night, and when I was singing my pretty serenade, he heard nothing at all. He ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... Von Weber Serenade Schubert The Nightingale Delibes Overture, "Stradella" Flotow Berceuse, "Jocelyn" Godard Selections, No. 11, "La Boheme" Puccini Am Meer Schubert Introduction, ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... am sure our man's inside. Let me see the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am indignant: I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him up—and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reserved mouth, the unfortunate gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... jug of water drawn that morning from the well. With a sprig of box or other evergreen they would sprinkle those they met, wishing them the compliments of the season. To pay their respects to those not abroad at so early an hour, they would serenade them with the following lines, which, while connected with the "new water" tradition, contain much that is of doubtful interpretation, and are a fascinating ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... your lattice, love, A serenade in praise of you; The moon is getting rather high, My voice is, too, my ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... the dwelling of the delinquent, having provided themselves with old trays, pots and pans, and anything by means of which a horrible din can be raised, and proceed to serenade the offender. To be the subject of such a demonstration is regarded as a signal disgrace and a most emphatic mark of popular odium. Mr. Warde Fowler tells me, on the authority of a German book on marriage, etc., that "the same sort of din is made at ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... courts of Granada, of Cordova and of Seville were peopled with poets, or, as they were termed, with makers of Ghazels. It was they who gave us the dulcimer, the hautbois and the guitar; it was they who invented the serenade. We are indebted to them for algebra and for the canons of chivalry as well.... It was from them that came the first threads of light which preceded the Renaissance. Throughout mediaeval Europe they were the only people that thought." The book is dedicated to Edgar ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... such ill part, that, for mere peace' sake, he was obliged to lead her to the door and shut her out: and then, undressing himself, he stepped into bed; and, in defiance of the straw which everywhere stuck out, and a quilt of a hundred-weight,[21] he sunk into a deep slumber under the agreeable serenade of those clamorous outcries which Mrs. Sweetbread still kept up on ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... no account forget the serenade with which the gentlemen boarders proposed to honour the Miss Pecksniffs. The performance was both vocal and instrumental, and the description of the flute-player ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... tenant's daughter, who comes to present her landlord with a nosegay of violets, joins. Fritz makes her sit beside him, and for the first time remarks the growing loveliness of the young maiden. While they are feasting a gipsy, Seppel, plays a serenade in honor of the birthday, which makes a deep impression on fair Susel. When the latter has departed, the joviality of the company increases. Hanczo and Friedrich, two friends laughingly prophesy to the indignant Fritz, that he will soon be married, and David even makes a bet, which, should he ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... to promise him to revenge his Death, if it should so happen. He brought some of his chief Men into his Cabin, and 2 of them having a Drum, and a Rattle, sung by us, as we lay in Bed, and struck up their Musick to serenade and welcome us to their Town. And tho' at last, we fell asleep, yet they continu'd their Consort till Morning. These Indians are fortify'd in, as the former, and are much addicted to a Sport they call Chenco, which is carry'd on with a Staff and a Bowl made of Stone, which they ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... Saint, "you're fond of hymns, "And indeed that musical snore betrayed you, "Myself and my choir of cherubims "Are come for a while to serenade you." ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... resemblance between the mode of life and thought their talk betrayed, and that of the same class of girls at La Chatre; and how in the midst of Venice, to the sound of the rippling waters stirred by the gondolier's oar, of guitar and serenade, and within sight of the marble palaces, her thoughts flew back to the dark and dirty streets, the dilapidated houses, the wretched moss-grown roofs, the shrill concerts of the cocks, cats, and children of the little French provincial town. ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... This was like a serenade of the East designed to give her a welcome to Egypt, like the voice of this great, black Africa speaking to her alone out of the night, speaking with a fierce insistence, daring her not to listen to it, not to accept its barbaric summons. A sort of animal romance was ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... at all intimate with Field will forget the enjoyment he took in trolling forth, in a quaint, quavering, cracked, but tuneful recitative, one stanza of "Ossian's Serenade": ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... whole of that exquisite serenade—dear to American college students—with a freedom and a fire which hinted that he had sung it at least once before on some more appropriate occasion. Perhaps to some dark-eyed maiden of that elegant Greek colony of Manchester it had come ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... father, "this is the eve of May, I need not ask if you intend to offer to Mary the homage of a serenade. It is the custom of your countrymen to pay this attention to young girls, and you would not omit this opportunity were it not for the advice of a man of experience. Geronimo, listen to the words of calm reason: do not rashly expose yourself to the danger ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... would be wiser in going back to Pergolese, Campagnole. The Mefistofole was good—of the school of the foreign master. Aida and Otello, no. I confess to a weakness for the old barleysugar of Bellini or a Donizetti-Serenade. Aren't you seduced by cadences? Never mind Wagner's tap of his paedagogue's baton—a cadence catches me still. Early taste for barley-sugar, perhaps! There's a march in Verdi's Attila and I Lombardi, I declare I'm in military step when I hear them, as in the old days, after ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... even ready to give him at all times of the year such presents as hams, capons, turkeys, and Chinese fruit. He was the first to applaud any tax imposed by the Government, especially when he scented behind it a chance of securing the contract for its collection. He always kept orchestras on hand to serenade Government officials of all grades from governor to the lowest Government agent, on their birthdays, saint's days, or when any occasion, such as the death of any of their relatives, or a birth in the family connection should afford a pretext. He even went so far as ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal |
