"Song" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... snapped back, quite as irritably. "And he's dead right, too. You take it from me, that the fewer people in this country you trust, the better for you. Why, the rottenness of this country is a proverb. 'It's a place where the birds have no song, where the flowers have no odor, where the women are without virtue, and the men without honor.' That's what a gringo said of Honduras many years ago, and he knew the country and ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... tennis court. All the children were most cunning, especially Quentin as Cupid, in the scantiest of pink muslin tights and bodice. Ted and Lorraine, who were respectively George Washington and Cleopatra, really carried off the play. At the end all the cast joined hands in a song and dance, the final verse being devoted especially to me. I love all these children and have great fun with them, and I am touched by the way in which they feel that I am their special ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... lamentation was for Ollavitinus, the son of Gioga, who, having been stripped of his seal's skin, would be for ever parted from his mates, and condemned to become an outcast inhabitant of the upper world. Their song was at length broken off, by observing one of their enemies viewing, with shivering limbs and looks of comfortless despair, the wild waves that dashed over the stack. Gioga immediately conceived the idea of rendering subservient ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... back to the Union colonels, and they accepted at once. That long line of dead and wounded, and the mournful song of the wind through the trees, affected the colonels on both sides. More flags of truce were hoisted, and the officers in blue or gray rode forward to meet one another, and to talk together as men who bore no hate in their hearts for ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler
... after Andrew had concluded his song, the fair daughter of their hostess entered the house. Andrew's first glance bespoke the lover, and the smile with which she returned it showed that the young fisherman and cadger was ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... bereavement quite as keenly as Fanny, and she declared, if the ox-heart cherries were fairer and more abundant now, their sweetness was bitter to her taste, and it seemed like devouring so much beauty and song to eat them; for beauty had been banished and song silenced, to bring them to such a yield. Fabens could not deny that the gloom invaded his heart also, and he took no comfort in the cherries, while he missed the music of the birds, and missed the songs of joy that the birds prompted ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... were very much surprised to find it so, for the time had passed very quickly and pleasantly. We gathered up our things, and started for home. But first we stopped under the old acorn-tree, and sung 'a song to the oak, the brave old oak.' We didn't know the right tune, and so we sung it to the air of 'there is nae luck about the house.' It wasn't the music we cared so much about, as the beautiful words, they were ...
— No and Other Stories Compiled by Uncle Humphrey • Various
... ready to burst their bonds. The boat became indistinct in the starry gloom—a mere shadow—and faded in the distance. The sound of oars became fainter and fainter. Then, after a little, there was wafted back to him from far out in the lake a man's voice—the wild snatch of a song. The Mormons were gone! They were not to be ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar and to anticipate the skies.— Yet few remember them! They lived unknown, Till persecution dragged them into fame, And chased them up to Heaven. Their ashes flew— No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song; And History, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... politician will devour the poet. To be a member of the States, and to live amid daily jostlings and excitements, is not for the delicate nature of a poet. His song will cease, and that is in some sort to be lamented. Swabia has plenty of men, sufficiently well educated, well meaning, able, and eloquent, to be members of the States, but only ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... very striking was their appearance—the variously coloured mules, following the bell-mare which went in advance as a leader, winding slowly down the crooked path, and the peons in their picturesque costumes shouting, laughing, or singing wild snatches of song as they were moved by fury, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... journey along, with a laugh and a song, We see, on youth's flower-decked slope, Like a beacon of light, shining fair on the sight, ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... passed. Summer had come round again. Fresh green leaves quivered on the trees of the Forest, though the pines still wore their dark clothing. The song of the birds was heard, and the little brooks murmured along their course with a ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... dance. A flute-player sits in their midst, beating time with his foot, while they file past and perform their various movements in rhythmic sequence, the military evolutions being followed by dances, such as Dionysus and Aphrodite love. Hence the song they sing is an invitation to Aphrodite and the Loves to join in their dance and revel; while the other (I should have said that they have two songs) contains instructions to the dancers: 'Forward, lads: foot it lightly: reel it bravely' (i.e. dance actively). It is the same with the ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... thunder-god, who feasted at night on the goats which drew his chariot, and in the morning, by a touch of his hammer, brought them back to life; and that of Orpheus in the beautiful Greek legend, the master of divine song, who moved the streams, and rocks, and trees, by the beauty of his music, and brought back his wife Eurydike from the shades of death. In our Western fairy tales we still have these Ribhus, or Arbhus, transformed, through various changes of language, into Albs, and Elfen, and last into our English ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... for truly it was dreadful to see the long shudders that ran over the silent, huddled thing, to see certain red threads broadening into very rivulets. At last the ambulance, then the all-concealing curtain, the reviving music, a song, a pretty dance, and ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... time past, and replied in a very distracted manner to the remarks of the gentlemen round about him, who were too much engaged with their own talk and jokes, and drinking, to pay much attention to their young host's behaviour. Mr. Braddock loved a song after dinner, and Mr. Danvers, his aide-de-camp, who had a fine tenor voice, was delighting his General with the latest ditty from Marybone Gardens, when George Warrington, jumping up, ran towards the window, and then returned and pulled his ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... winter was never going to be over; but I was young and had good spirits and was fond of a song, and I used to lie there and sing by the hour. Then I used to go over in my mind all the v'yges I had made and to remember the yarns I had heard, and would go over the talks I had had with Jack and Tom and ...
— A Chapter of Adventures • G. A. Henty
... six—perhaps still nearer seven— When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,[57] To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song— He won them well, and may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... tender bough made lute for maid, * whose swift sweet lays at feast men's hearts invade: She sings; it follows on her song, as though * The Bulbuls[FN452] taught her all ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... rejection of proposals for organic changes in the constitution annoyed Chatham, who declared that it had done much harm to the cause. He was soon irritated with the whigs generally. "Moderation, moderation," said he, "is the burthen of their song;" he would be "a scarecrow of violence to the gentle warblers of the grove, the moderate whigs and temperate statesmen". He tried to force the whigs to follow his lead, but Rockingham had no mind to court Chatham's loud-voiced supporters ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... on each side of it; he then passes around the site from right to left, sprinkling piki crumbs and other particles of food, mixed with native tobacco, along the lines to be occupied by the walls. As he sprinkles this offering he sings to the Sun his Kitdauwi, house song: "Si-ai, a-hai, si-ai, a-hai." The meaning of these words the people ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... All morning I sat alone on my paepae, hearing them beat. The sound carried one back to the days when men first tied the skins of animals about hollow tree-trunks and thumped them to call the naked tribes together under the oaks of England. Those great drums beaten by the hands of Haabunai and Song of the Nightingale made one want to be a savage, to throw a spear, to dance in ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... birds unprisoned soar, The free notes rose. And in the silence wide, Across the seas, across the night, I cried: O sinless soul, whose clear voice blithely rings 'Gainst the blue verge of stars! 'Tis Lilith sings The happy song of love. O Love! the tint Of light divine thou wearest. Thou hast no hint Of storm or turmoil, or of Sin's rough ways, Whose feet to heaven climb, through darkest maze. Ah, Lilith, sure the love that basely weighs, That stoops to count its gifts, and ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... drawing nearer, came the sound of a ribald song, with chorus accompaniment sung by throats obviously ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... SONG. Cinthia to thy power, and them we obey. Joy to this great company, and no day Come to steal this night away, Till the rites of love are ended, And the lusty Bridegroom say, Welcome light of all befriended. Pace out you watry powers below, let your feet Like the ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... a letter published in Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ii. 116, with the song, says:—'The tune is a pretty Irish air, call The Humours of Ballamagairy, to which, he told me, he found it very difficult to adapt words; but he has succeeded very happily in these few lines. As I could sing the tune and was fond of them, he was so good as to give me them. I preserve this ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... approvingly when the dog allowed the bird to peck at the plate of food. After tasting Jan's dinner, the bird, perched on the edge of the dish, lifted its head and sang as though its throat would burst with music. It finished the song, gave a funny little shake of its wings, then flew across the room and lit on the shoulder of the Poundmaster, where it stayed while he ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... who could not hear, the judge who would not hear, and the judge who is not here.' This was one of the witticisms of my clever friend, Mr. Robert Martin—'Bally-hooley'-one of the very few men who can write a good Irish song, and sing it well, into ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... affections, adorations of her life. Swift, incredibly swift, the vision of an opening glory—a heavenly throng!... Then the tired eyelids fell, the head lay heavily on the cushion behind it, and in the little room the song of the robin and the murmur ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... each other, than between species of distinct genera. We see this in the recent extension over parts of the United States of one species of swallow having caused the decrease of another species. The recent increase of the missel-thrush in parts of Scotland has caused the decrease of the song-thrush. How frequently we hear of one species of rat taking the place of another species under the most different climates! In Russia the small Asiatic cockroach has everywhere driven before it its great congener. ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... Perseus. This Tasso was a most excellent craftsman, the best, I believe, who ever lived in his own branch of art. [5] Personally, he was gay and merry be temperament; and whenever I went to see him, he met me laughing, with some little song in falsetto on his lips. Half in despair as I then was, news coming that my affairs in France were going wrong, and these in Florence promising but ill through the luke-warmness of my patron, I could never stop ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... Weigh-words, Jenny Halt-there! was it they who saved the man, or he that saved himself? The man taxed his expiring breath to sow seed of life. Lydiard shall put it into verse for a fable in song for our people. I say it is a good fable, and sung spiritedly may serve for nourishment, and faith in work, to many of our poor fainting fellows! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Dillon and young Fitzpatrick, each with a whiskey bottle in his hand, were guarding the door, at which Stark, the unfortunate owner of Crom-a-boo, was vainly endeavouring to make his exit, which he was assured he should not be allowed to do till he had sung a song standing on the sideboard. And the younger son of Mars, conquered by tobacco and whiskey, was leaning his unfortunate head on the table, and deluging Keegan's feet with the shower which he ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... teachings of the pre-exilic prophets or, like the book of Proverbs, come from the lips of the sages and deal with universal human problems. Some were written by priests or Levites for use in connection with the song service of the temple. Because of this timeless quality, however, an appreciation of them does not depend upon an exact knowledge of their authorship or historical background. It is possible that a few of the psalms in the first part of the Psalter come from the pre-exilic period, but the ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... hope, however vague, that the soul cannot define, and no aspiration, however high, that the wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive. To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles. The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars, the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty loneliness amid ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... the antiquities of the cathedral, and they all talk to us about the English ploughs and threshing-machines and water-power and banks, and I don't know how many other absurdities. The burden of their song is that this place is very backward, and that it could be improved. Let them keep away from us, in the devil's name! We are well enough as we are, without the gentlemen from the capital visiting us; a great deal better off ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... a very rich lord. I have lands in Kent now. I will buy thee such a gown ... such a gown.... The hogs grunted.... There is a song about it.... Let me go to buy thy gown. Aye, now, presently. I remember a great many things. As thus ... there is a song of a lady loved a swine. Honey, said she, ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... could hear the creak of her old splint-bottomed chair as she rocked gently to and fro. Song and creak ceased at once when she caught sight of me, and before I had opened the gate she was hospitably placing another chair on the porch ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... poor, and had assisted us out of pure good-nature. The country at first was level, and the roads smooth and dry. The morning was delightfully cool; and as we trotted along our spirits were high and gay, and snatches of song sprang unbidden to our lips. How delightful these rides in the early morning were! how all nature seemed to be in accord with our feelings! Every bush and tree was noted, every bird-call heard. We would shout ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... were croaking monotonously upon the bank, and numerous nightingales were uttering their low, sweet song in ...
— Yvette • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... and see what's what!" Anastasio Montanez said, examining his rifle springs. Yet he was previous; an hour or more elapsed with no sound or stir save the song of the locust in the brush or the frog stirring in his mudhole. At last, when the ultimate faint rays of the moon were spent in the rosy dimness of the dawn, the silhouette of a soldier loomed at the end of the trail. As they strained their eyes, ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... night, Heard the song, and saw the light; Took their reeds, and softest strains Echo'd ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... song, which the crowd compelled her to repeat, touched lightly the uncertainties of love, expressed ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... they do what the song directs. Then the dance and chorus again, and then the next verse, and so on. This is ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... nature of things and the nature of the mind, is as the strewing and decoration of the bridal chamber of the Mind and the Universe, the Divine Goodness assisting; out of which marriage let us hope (and be this the prayer of the bridal song) there may spring helps to man, and a line and race of inventions that may in some degree subdue and overcome the necessities and miseries of humanity. This is the second part of ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... also ballads of a really fine and spirited character. Sometimes the poems celebrate the common pursuits, occupations, and incidents of life. They rise to the exaltation of the epithalamium, or of the vintage song; at other times they deal with sentiment and human conduct, being in the highest degree sententious and epigrammatic. We must give the credit to Confucius of having saved for us the literature of China, and of having set his people an example in preserving ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... dozens and hundreds, all machine-made and expressionless, in spite of the repeated grimace, the conscious smartness, of "the last new thing," that was stamped on all of them. The fatal facility of the French article becomes at last as irritating as the refrain of a popular song. The poor "Indiens Galibis" struck me as really more interesting—a group of stunted savages who formed one of the attractions of the place and were confined in a pen in the open air, with a rabble of people pushing and squeezing, ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... and stretch out her arms with a happy smile,—and when May morning dawned on the world, it came as a vision of glory, robed in clear sunshine and girdled with bluest skies. Birds broke into enraptured song,—young almond and apple boughs quivered almost visibly every moment into pink and white bloom,—cowslips and bluebells raised their heads from mossy corners in the grass, and expressed their innocent thoughts in sweetest odour—and in and through all ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Sometimes the song came from one part of the Minster, and then all the rest of the vast building was silent; then the music was taken up, as it were in response, in another part; and yet again voices and instruments would blend in one indescribable ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... before the house of Captain Tiago, a heavenly song greeted her like the words of an archangel. It was a sweet, melodious, supplicating voice, weeping the Ave Maria of Gounod. The music of the procession was silenced, the praying ceased, and Father Salvi himself stopped. The voice trembled and brought ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... mournful blast, And sigh'd through the plumes of the dead as he past, Through troublous skies the clouds flitted fast, And the moon her pale beam faintly cast, Where the red cross banner stream'd, But each breeze bore the shouts of the Moslem throng, Each sigh was echoed by Paynim song; Where the silvery ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... Press—(cheers)—still he found that some of our foreign contemporaries were nearly as good. ("Hear, hear!") He wished to introduce the Signora MANTILLA from Spain—(applause)—who had consented to sing a political song in Spanish, emphasizing her opinions by a dance after each verse. (Great cheering.) The Signora MANTILLA then gave a demonstration, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 10, 1892 • Various
... title of a poet, though never of the highest, was much strengthened. The verses which diversify the narrative in the Second Part of "The Pilgrim's Progress" are decidedly superior to those in the First Part, and some are of high excellence. Who is ignorant of the charming little song of the Shepherd Boy in the Valley of Humiliation, "in very mean clothes, but with a very fresh and well-favoured countenance, and wearing more of the herb called Heartsease in his bosom than he that is clad in silk ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... too good to have things happen, Bat," Standing went on presently. "Hark at the roar of the falls. What is it? Five hundred thousand horsepower of water, summer and winter. Listen to the drone of the grinders." He shook his head. "It's a great song, boy, and they never get tired of singing it. There's only thirty-six of 'em at present. Thirty-six. We'll have a hundred and thirty-six some day. Look down there at the booms." He stood pointing, a tall, ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... (Poet. iv. 13), names no one before Aeschylus. He recognizes, it is true, a long process of growth, with several stages, from the dithyramb to the drama; and it is not difficult to see what these stages were. The first step was the addition to the old choric song of an interlude spoken, and in early days improvised, by the leader of the chorus (Poet. iv. 12). The next was the introduction of an actor (upokrites or "answerer''), to reply to the leader; and thus we get dialogue added to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... always fond of elfin tricks. He would disguise himself—now as a blind boy, again as an old witch, and once more as a dwarf. There was a song about him all over Britain, which ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... be supposed that the blameless youth was an ascetic in his College days. The other old manuscript Mr. Gardner sends me is marked "'Song for Knights ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... revelations of Scripture and with the dictates of natural religion. He made his will with minute and elaborate provisions, leaving bequests, remembrances, and rings, to all his friends. Then he indulged himself with music, and listened particularly to a strange song which he had himself composed during his illness, and which he had entitled 'La Cuisse rompue.' He took leave of the friends around him with perfect calmness; saying to his brother Robert, "Love my memory. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... song of four verses, in which the doctor invokes in succession the spirits of the air, of the mountain, of the forest, and of the water. Gal[^u][n]lat[)i], the word used in the first verse, signifies, as has been already explained, "on high" or "above everything," and has been used by translators ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... of thirty-five, of middle stature, but very hardy and brave. He was one of the most intelligent of the French kings, vigorous of brain as of body. Few could resist his delicate compliments and the promises he knew how to lavish. The glamour of his personality has survived even until now. In a song still popular he is called "the gallant king who knew {225} how to fight, to make love and to drink." He is also remembered for his wish that every peasant might have a fowl in his pot. His supreme desire was to see France, bleeding and impoverished by civil war, again ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... there, there solely in song Besides, where earth and her uses to men, their needs, Their forceful cravings, the theme are: there is it strong, The Master said: and the studious eye that reads, (Yea, even as earth to the crown of Gods on the mount), In links ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... typical American in his enterprise and versatility. His voice is the first I hear in the morning, and the last at night. Little wonder that there are twenty robins to one bluebird, or wood thrush, or catbird. The song sparrow is probably our next most successful bird, but she is far behind the robin. We could never have a plague of song sparrows or bluebirds, but since the robins are now protected in the South as well as in the North, we are exposed to ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... his ship in shape for the battle. The men, too, said that they had had a "plum-pudding voyage" of it so far, and they were perfectly ready for a fight. The forecastle poet was set to work, and soon ground out a song, of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... barge was gliding swiftly down. Its worn and clumsy sail seemed as white and graceful as the wings of the swans in the sun. Its dull and tangled coils of cordelles caught an unwonted charm from the sunbeams. Its merry crew was singing a song, which came ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... and can only embrace an infinitely small part of nature; few of our wishes can be fulfilled; privation and sufferings await us at every moment. "Privation is thy lot, privation! That is the eternal song which resounds at every moment, which, our whole life through, each hour sings hoarsely to our ears!" laments Faust. What remains, then, for man? "Everything cries to us that we must resign ourselves." "There are few men, however, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... never travels alone.' Scarcely had the unfortunate Quen recovered his natural attributes from the effect of the disgraceful occurrence which has been recorded (which, indeed, furnished the matter of a song and many unpresentable jests among the low-class persons of the city), than the magnanimous Empress reached that detail of the tree-planting ceremony when it was requisite that she should deposit the living emblems of the desired increase and prosperity upon the leaves. Stretching ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... court, or the cell itself might be below the surface of the soil. The legend of the troubadour who discovered King Richard of England's place of captivity by singing without the walls had always been present in his mind, but no such plan would be practicable here. He knew no song which his father, and his father only, would recognize; and even did he know such a song, the appearance of anyone loitering in the open space outside the moat round the Bastille singing at intervals at different points would have instantly attracted the attention of the ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... irony of Fate! Among the stud thus sold, in a fit of pique, for "an old song" was Surplice, the winner of the next year's Derby and St Leger. Lord George had actually had the great prize in his hand ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... my children," she exclaimed, "we are surely not going to stop here. It's so precious slow! You shall take me to the Chamber of Horrors—eh? just to finish the evening. I want to hear Legras sing 'La Chemise,' that song which all Paris is running ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... his studio at Home, engaged for hours upon a picture, deftly shifting palette, cigar, and maul-stick from hand to hand, as occasion required; absorbed, rapid, intent, and then suddenly breaking from his quiet task to vent his constrained spirits in a jovial song, or a romp with his great dog, whose vociferous barking he thoroughly enjoyed; and often abandoning his quiet studies for some wild, elaborate frolic, as if a row was essential to his happiness. His very jokes partook of this bold ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... one is about to take place, to celebrate the farewell—the departure to other regions—of a songster whose family fame for many ages has been renowned. Monsieur and Mademoiselle, to-night is to be heard for the first time in this century the 'Song of the Swan.'" ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... there is some "sourish foreign stuff that nobody ever drinks"; has called for a bottle of it; has found it Burgundy, such as all France cannot now produce, has cunningly kept his own counsel with the widowed landlady, and has bought the whole stock for "an old song." Sometimes he knows the proprietor of a famous tavern in London, and he recommends his one or two particular friends, the next time they are passing that way, to go in and dine, and give his compliments to the landlord, and ask ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... Edmund himself was seen advancing from the door; the song ended in a scream of laughter and dismay, and the window was hastily shut. Edmund smiled a little, but very little, and said, "True enough, I am afraid I have used ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... if you yourself resent them and break out quoting Burns. Now the Highlands can't support a population larger than the mountain counties of Kentucky. Now your Kentucky feud is a mere disgrace to civilization. But your Highland feud is celebrated in song and story. Every clan keeps itself together to this day by its history and by its plaid. At a turn in the road in the mountains yesterday, there stood a statue of Rob Roy painted every stripe to life. We saw his sword and purse in Sir Walter's house at Abbotsford. The ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself as she guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other notes of the Southern poet's haunting song stole soundless from her lips; for it was only her heart that was singing there in the sun, while her silent, smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... While she, also, possessed the guileless trustfulness of the latter, and seemed never so happy as when she nestled peacefully in the arms of one she loved, and listened to a simple story of the good in other days, or was charmed by some beautiful song or hymn, which it was her delight to ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... a true work of art is always the poem or the song that is hidden in it. A work of art by a man of talent is generally ranked by the fact that it is the work of a man who analyses a song before he sings it. He puts down the words of the song first—writes it, that is—in prose. Then he lumbers it ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... evening breezes blew on his bare, fevered head, he laughed at himself for an idiot. How did he know that Macdonald wanted Sheba O'Neill. All the evidence he had was that he had once seen the man watch her while she sang a sentimental song. Whereas it was common talk that he would probably marry Mrs. Mallory, that for months he had been her almost daily companion. If the older woman had lost the sweet, supple slimness of her first youth, she had won in exchange a sophisticated grace, a seductive allure that made her the envy of all ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... begins with a rather long introduction, discussing the geography, history, and institutions of Africa. Much space is here given to spiritual beliefs as a stimulus to the development of music. Then follows a discussion of song-poems and of the early music to which they were set. The actual contents begin with a treatment of songs, tales, and proverbs of the Ndau tribe by C. Kamba Simango. The reader, if he has found the details ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... the song Hippy executed a most astonishing figure, ending on "merrily" with a funny pas-seul that turned the sorrow of the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... to his face. So firm is our belief in the humanising influence of poetry that we would rather, by a thousand times, that all the reviews should perish, and all the satirists be consigned to Orcus, than behold the total cessation of song throughout the British Islands. And if we, upon any former occasion, have spoken irreverently of the Nincompoops, we now beg leave to tender to that injured body our heartfelt contrition for the same; and invite them to join with us in a pastoral pilgrimage to Arcadia, where they shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... of his pocket again and began to drink once more, swallowing it down as he walked, and then his ideas began to get confused, his eyes grew dim, and his legs as elastic as springs, and he started singing the old popular song: ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... flame colored ribbon, and seated him in state on the top of a hillock, with his lance in his hand, his gun in the hollow of his arm, his tomahawk in his belt, and his kettle by his side. Then they all crouched about him in lugubrious silence. A funeral harangue followed; and next a song and solemn dance to the booming of the Indian drum. In the gray of the morning they buried him as he sat, and placed food in the grave for his journey ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... remained unfinished. We decided to move on. As we plunged more deeply into the wood our spirits rose—reaching a point where they burst into song—on the part of the three men—"O Welt, wie bist du wunderbar!"—the lower part of which was piercingly sustained by Herr Langen, who attempted quite unsuccessfully to infuse satire into it in accordance ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... music—for instance, the haunting popular song, Fire Streak, about the burial of a spaceman—at orbital speed—in the atmosphere of his native planet. And fragments of history, such as covered wagons. All sorts of subjects, ideas and pictures were swirling inside ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... the softer form of the rain power, and to think of the fringes of the rain-cloud across the light of the horizon. Gradually the idea becomes personal and human in the "Dove's eyes within thy locks,"[10] and "Dove's eyes by the river of waters" of the Song of Solomon. ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... correlated with special modes of behaviour and special organic and visceral accompaniments, a period also of maximum emotional excitement. The combats of males, their dances and aerial evolutions, their elaborate behaviour and display, or the flood of song in birds, are emotional expressions which are at any rate coincident in time with sexual periodicity. From the combat of the males there follows on Darwin's principles the elimination of those which are deficient in ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... no ballroom warbler. And why? Because I am practical. Mine is no squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cottage, a sweet mountain- meadow, a grove of redwoods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long row of blackberries and two short rows of strawberries, to say nothing of a ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... "Always the old song, missus!" exclaimed her husband. "Thank you kindly, sir—you have been a good friend to us, and so was Dr. May, when I was up to the hospital, through the thick of his own troubles. I believe you are ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... hours a day to learning incomprehensible rubbish by heart out of books and reciting it by rote, like parrots; so that a finished education consisted simply of a permanent headache and the ability to read without stopping to spell the words or take breath. Hawkins bought out the village store for a song and proceeded to reap the profits, which amounted to but little ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... already said that I busied myself somewhat with literature. One day I happened to write a little song, of which I was proud. It is well known that authors, under pretext of asking advice, willingly seek a kindly audience. I copied my little song and took it to Alexis, the only one in the fortress who could appreciate a poetical work. After ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... a wife, then?" said the Fairy, laughing at him. "Do you expect one to come and look for you? Fly up, and sing a beautiful song in the sky, and then perhaps some pretty hen will hear you; and perhaps, if you tell her that you will help her to build a capital nest, and that you will sing to her all day long, she will consent ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow
... a whole summer of looking for it in France. Do you see those little winking flashes all along where the infantry are moving? Some of them are from bayonets, but most are from knives. A great man with the knife is the Bulgar. Did you ever hear that song about him they sang at a revue the British 'Tommies' had at Saloniki? It was a parody on some other song that was being sung in the halls in London, and went something ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... attention, and suddenly a faint whistle came from his lips. Without removing his eyes from Arabian he whistled several times a little tune of five notes, like the song of a thrush. Arabian meanwhile returned his gaze rather ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... window looks out upon unsullied nature. Everything around is fresh and pure and wholesome. Through the open casement, the scent of the pines blows in with the breeze from the neighbouring firwood. Keen airs sigh through the pine-needles. Grasshoppers chirp from deep tangles of bracken. The song of a skylark drops from the sky like soft rain in summer; in the evening, a nightjar croons to us his monotonously passionate love-wail from his perch on the gnarled boughs of the wind-swept larch that crowns the upland. But away below in the valley, as night draws on, a lurid glare ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... cent. interest, and the jewels of the ancient family were bartered away for arms and provisions, to carry on the war. A large collection of splendid diamonds were sold for something like an old song. Most of these got into the hands of Europeans. I saw some in the hands of an European gentleman, who assured me that he had been fortunate enough to get them for a fourth, and some of them for a ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... last sea-song had resounded over the smooth waters of the bay; the last drunken shout, oath, and challenge were voiced; the last fight ended in helplessness and maudlin amity, and the red-shirted men were sprawled around on the moonlit ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... prince knew propriety, who does not know it?' 3. Wu-ma Ch'i reported these remarks, and the Master said, 'I am fortunate! If I have any errors, people are sure to know them.' CHAP. XXXI. When the Master was in company with a person who was singing, if he sang well, he would make him repeat the song, while he accompanied it with his own voice. CHAP. XXXII. The Master said, 'In letters I am perhaps equal to other men, but the character of the superior man, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge
... Moore, with evident partiality for the subject of his song, declares that the magnanimous character of Malachy was the real ground of peace under such provocation, and that he submitted to the encroachments of his rival rather from motives of disinterested desire for his country's welfare, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... schools I was best pleased, because poetry, religion, and philosophy were completely combined into one; and I only maintained that first opinion of mine with the more animation, when the Book of Job and the Song and Proverbs of Solomon, as well as the lays of Orpheus and Hesiod, seemed to bear valid witness in its favor. My friend had taken the smaller work of Brucker as the foundation of his discourse; and, the farther we went on, the less I could ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... his field. As Mr. Bancroft remarks, he brought to his country's service an undaunted courage and a devoted heart. His services during the Revolution are known to almost every reader. Every one seems to have liked him, for he had a very happy turn for humor, sang a good song, and was ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... oil, made in the likeness of things that creep and things that fly. On the day following the image of Adonis was carried down to the shore and cast into the sea by women with dishevelled hair and bared breasts. At the same time a song was sung, in which the god was entreated to be propitious in the coming year. This festival, like that at Athens, was held late in summer; at Byblus, where the mourning . ceremony preceded, it took place in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... beneath their pictured dome The gilded courtiers throng; The broad moidores have cheated Rome Of all her lords of song. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... express this changed conception is the Gita Govinda—the Song of the Cowherd—a Sanskrit poem written by the Bengali poet, Jayadeva, towards the close of the twelfth century. Its subject is the estrangement of Radha and Krishna caused by Krishna's love for other cowgirls, Radha's anguish at Krishna's neglect and lastly ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer |
