"Songster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... credential; And was received with all the due grimace By those who govern in the mood potential, Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face, Thought (what in state affairs is most essential), That they as easily might do the youngster, As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... devout, half defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands. But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song, sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... undiscovered, but pallid and remorseful, gained the casement. Softly raising his head, he peeped within. The room was full of music; he seemed to grow blind for a moment, when lo! upon the kitchen-table sat the mysterious songster, an ebony-hued negress, scouring the tinware, and singing away. Just as he was peering through the window, the ebony songster discovered him. The soldier's limbs sank beneath him, and the black specimen ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... singer among the birds than the Mockingbird. But it should be remembered that a bird's song cannot be separated from the associations which it calls up in one's memory. So that the performance of an ordinary songster may be more pleasing to one than that of some finer one because of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... note of the whippoorwill, the nocturnal songster that mourns unseen. It was succeeded by the sharp tones of a saw-whet and the distinct mew of a cat-bird. A wild pigeon began to coo softly in another direction and was answered by a thrush. The listener vaguely realized ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... them in sight of the melancholy songster. Seated in a corner of the cave, with his massive head on his fore-paws, the picture of dejection, was the most enormous creature they had ever seen or dreamed about. He was rather like an elephant, but much more immense and without a trunk: a huge, ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... songster is an especial favorite with American poets. Bryant does not disdain to write a long poem that has ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... remembered the words of the Bar Senestro: "They sing but for the Jarados." He quietly reached up and caught the songster in his hand, and he held it up to the astonished crowd. Still the song continued. Chick held him an instant longer, and then gave him a toss high into the air. He shot across the temple, a streak of melody, silver, dulcet, to the far corner of ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... was up, the puzzling songster visited the little grove under my windows, and I heard his whole song, of which it now appeared the three notes were merely the conclusion. The performance was eccentric. It began with a soft warble, apparently for his sole entertainment, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... to the Young Gent'n are completed. I do not exactly see why the Goose and little Goslings should emblematize a Quaker poet that has no children. But after all—perhaps it is a Pelican. The Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin around it I cannot decypher. The songster of the night pouring out her effusions amid a Silent Meeting of Madge Owlets, would be at least intelligible. A full pause here comes upon me, as if I had not a word more left. I will shake my brain. Once— twice—nothing comes up. George Fox recommends waiting on these occasions. I wait. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... this occasion brought him so many calls for his services that he gave up everything and devoted himself to his tuneful art. "Your Mission" so gladly welcomed at Washington made him the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and helped him ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... pay any heed to Rube, sheriff," Kiddie interposed. "It's a special hobby of his to know a bird by its notes. The songster you're listenin' to now is just a whip-poor-will. It starts every evening precisely at sunset. When it quits singing, we reckon it's time to crawl ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... his face to where the songster was perched in the top branches of a wild-fig, and Bootea, said in a low voice: "Sahib, it is said that the shama is a soul come back to earth to sing of love that men ...
— Caste • W. A. Fraser
... houses, and flogged or branded if hunger forced them into beggary. On a fine spring day Sir Ralf Sadler invited the ladies out to a hawking party on the banks of the Dove, with the little sparrow hawks, whose prey was specially larks. Pity for the beautiful soaring songster, or for the young ones that might be starved in their nests, if the parent birds were killed, had not then been thought of. A gallop on the moors, though they were strangely dull, gray, and stony, was always the best remedy for the Queen's ailments; ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... eye, brown; color, slate color, somewhat lighter beneath; top of head and tail, black; reddish under the wings; arrives in May, leaves in October; nests in bushes; lives in gardens and woodside thickets; has a sharp cry not unlike the mewing of a cat, but is a gifted songster. ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... it. The sedge-bird ceases at times as if from very weariness; but wake the bird up, says White, by throwing a stick or stone into the bushes, and away it goes again in full song. We have but one real nocturnal songster, and that is the mockingbird. One can see how this habit might increase among the birds of a long-settled country like England. With sounds and voices about them, why should they be silent, too? The danger of betraying themselves to their natural enemies would ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... privileged and insolent, inquires perpetually what you say. Besides these, swallows of various kinds, little wrens, {87d} almost exactly like our English ones, and night- hawking goat-suckers, few birds are seen. But, unseen, in the depths of every wood, a songster breaks out ever and anon in notes equal for purity and liveliness to those of our English thrush, and belies the vulgar calumny that tropic birds, lest they should grow too proud of their gay feathers, are ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... replenished with snow, the voices of the streams and ouzels increase in strength and richness until the flood season of early summer. Then the torrents chant their noblest anthems, and then is the flood-time of our songster's melody. As for weather, dark days and sun days are the same to him. The voices of most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the Ouzel sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm. Indeed no storm can be more violent ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... moss-covered ground and lain there hour after hour, listening to the wood-bird's song. Sometimes he would even find a reed and try to pipe a tune as sweet as did the birds, but that was all in vain, as the lad soon found. No tiny songster would linger to hearken to the shrill piping of his grassy reed, and the Prince himself was soon ready ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... midnight in the "blank height of the dark," suddenly hushes his carol and drops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed wreaths and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, glorious place, "bridal of earth and sky," decked well with bridal garlands, bridal perfumes, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... cathedral ringing for a new dean! It is impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the forests of Cayenne, but we are determined, as soon as a Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the distance measured."[175] But the most remarkable songster of the Amazonian forest is the Realejo, or organ-bird. Its notes are as musical as the flageolet. It is the only songster, says Bates, which makes any impression on the natives. Besides those are the Jacamars, peculiar to equatorial America, stupid, but of the most ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... notes died away, the nightingale, with throat of pride, poured forth his melodious chants, and his most complicated, learned, and sweetest compositions to those who had met beneath the thick covert of the woods. Near the songster, in the dark background of the large trees, could be seen the glistening eyes of an owl, attracted by the harmony. In this way the fete of the whole court was a fete also for the mysterious inhabitants of the forest; ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... small fowls of Carthage, one of which he gave me, I promising him a little powder in return when we came to Ghat. We noticed a small black bird with a white throat. But all through this desert we listen in vain for some songster. There is no reason for ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... hill-sides, "Puh p'a teh, pub p'a teh"; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song, and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who shared his bed, and whose choral propensities ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... World its Being draws; By whom Earth's plenteous Table's spread, At which each living Creature's fed; Who gave the Breath of Life, and whence This fine Variety of Sense; Whose Hands unfold the azure sky, Sublimely pleasing to the Eye; Who tun'd the feather'd Songster's throat, Giving such softness to his note, To fill the Ear with dulcet sound, And pour sweet Music all around; Who on the teeming Branches plac'd Such various Fruit to please the Taste; What bounteous Hand perfum'd the Rose, And ev'ry scented Flow'r that blows, And wafts its fragrance ...
— The Methodist - A Poem • Evan Lloyd
... songster adventured on with the "Amsterdam Maid," another stanza and chorus. The soft bell-like tones, the salty words, the air, like all the chanteys, both sad and reckless, caressed Martin's ears like a siren charm. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... the lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed praise Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, "Served him right! 'tis not at all surprising; The worm was ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... all he could for love-sick boys and girls, yet they had never enough! Nearer and dearer to hearts like ours was the Ettrick Shepherd, then in his full tide of song and story; but nearer and dearer still than he, or any living songster, was our ill-fated fellow-craftsman Tannahill. Poor weaver chiel! what we owe to you!— your "Braes of Balquidder," and "Yon Burnside," and "Gloomy Winter," and the "Minstrel's" wailing ditty, and the noble "Gleneiffer." Oh! how they did ring above the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... heard many of my songs. I'm namely in the world for the best songs wit ever strung together. Are you for war? I can stir you with a stave to set your sinews straining. Are you for the music of the wood? The thrush itself would be jealous of my note. Are you for the ditty of the lover? Here's the songster to break hearts. Since the start of time there have been 'prentices at my trade: I have challenged North and East, South and the isle-flecked sea, and they ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... wren, an active songster now, From off the hazel-bough pipes shrill, Woodpeckers flock in multitudes With beauteous hoods ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... after-dinner habits. The Salvation Army do not enforce total abstinence from tobacco as well as from alcoholic drinks as a condition of membership or soldiership, but a member of the Army must be a non-smoker before he can hold any office in its rank, or be a bandsman, or a member of a "songster brigade." And in other religious organizations there are yet a few of the "unco' guid" who look askance at pipe or cigarette as if it were a device of the devil. But the numbers of these misguided ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... tunes the men whistled to him. His notes were clear, loud, metallic and yet soft; their variety was astonishing, and his powers of imitation wonderful; there was not a bird of the forest that he did not imitate so exactly as to deceive. I would on no account allow this songster to be disturbed, and the consequence was that his rich note was the first thing heard at dawn of day, during the greater part of our residence in ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... distance, and an interval of silence was succeded by an earnest discussion of the cause of this prodigy. One supposition only could be adopted, which was, that the strain was uttered by human organs. That the songster was stationed on the roof of the arbour, and having finished his melody had risen into the ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... What could the gay little minstrel be? Somewhere I had heard such minstrelsy—but where? There were runs in it that bore some resemblance to certain strains of the Carolina wren's vigorous lays, but this songster's voice was of a finer quality and had less volume than that of the Carolina. The little bird was found flitting among the pines, and continued to sing his gay little ballad with as much vigor as before. Indeed, my presence seemed to inspire him to redouble his efforts and to sing with ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... a great favorite for the cage, being preferred by many to the Canary. Whatever he may lack as a songster he more than makes up by his wonderful beauty. These birds are very easily tamed, the female, even in the wild state, being so gentle that she allows herself to be lifted from the nest. They are also called the Painted Finch or Painted Bunting. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... she played less feverishly, but there was nothing slipshod about her performance. The chubby songster found time to proffer brief explanations in asides. "They want the patriotic stuff. It used to be all that Hawaiian dope, and Wild Irish Rose junk, and songs about wanting to go back to every place from Dixie to Duluth. But now seems it's all these here flag ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, sir,—but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... From photograph by S. J. Eddy Hen and Chickens. " " " Chickens Drinking A Happy Family. From photograph by J. M. Eldredge Just Arrived Pig looking over a Fence Feeding the Pigs Old White Horse A Little Songster Pussy Willows Paper-Makers A Butterfly Grasshopper and Cricket. Illustration by Alice Barber Stephens Spider and Web A Woodmouse Little Freehold. By S. J. Carter An Interesting Family. By S. J. Carter Frog and Lily-pads Four little Friends A Bird's House Feathered Travelers Over the Nest A Bird's ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... burden at every sixth word. The gallant Captain had executed but a small portion of his ditty, when the Holstein farmer rose quickly from his chair, and addressed the songster at the moment when he had reiterated for ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... drama has a share, and an important share, in the lyrical estro to which he gives birth. This it is which has imparted any verve, variety, or dramatic character they possess, to the ballads contained in this production. Turpin I look upon as the real songster of "Black Bess;" to Jerry Juniper I am unquestionably indebted for a flash melody which, without his hint, would never have been written, while to the sexton I owe the solitary gleam of light I have been enabled to throw upon the horrors and mystery ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... for pay in the halls of the nobility or upon the boards of the theatre. Some first-rate songsters have been produced among them, whose merits have been acknowledged, not only by the Russian public, but by the most fastidious foreign critics. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid to a songster was paid by Catalani herself to one of these daughters of Roma. It is well known throughout Russia that the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a Moscow Gypsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before a splendid audience in the old Russian capital, stepped forward ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into the blue expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes flashed with a fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet the music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At times bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches of her slender, agile fingers, she fondly stroked the quivering ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... form one of the attractions of Bermuda. The male red bird, the Cardinal Grosbeak, a remarkably sweet songster, wears an entire suit of vivid carmine, and has a fine tufted crest of the same colour, whilst his wife is dressed more soberly in dull grey bordered with red, just like a Netley nursing sister. The blue birds have dull red breasts like our robins, with turquoise-blue backs and wings, glinting ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... make secure places for their spawn; and all this labor they did with their mouth and body, without hands. Presently a little bird, not far from me, raised a song, and while I was looking to see the little songster, its mate, with as much grass as it could hold in its bill, passed close by me, and flew into the bush, where I perceived them, both together, busily employed in building their nest, and singing as their work went ...
— Anecdotes for Boys • Harvey Newcomb
... Male. Female. | Actor Actress. | Lion Lioness. Arbiter Arbitress. | Peer Peeress. Baron Baroness. | Poet Poetess. Benefactor Benefactress. | Sorcerer Sorceress. Count Countess. | Songster Songstress. ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... of darkness as—Shall I tell you the truth? You think you sing for the Dawn, but you sing in reality to be admired, you—songster, you! [With contemptuous pity.] Is it possible you are not aware that your poor notes raise a smile right through the forest, accustomed to the fluting ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... the redbreast it is bliss to hear The dulcet notes the little songster breeds; But ah, more blissful to a mother's ear The fair report of seven ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... success. If e'er he dozed, at break of day, The cobbler's song drove sleep away; And much he wish'd that Heaven had made Sleep a commodity of trade, In market sold, like food and drink, So much an hour, so much a wink. At last, our songster did he call To meet him in his princely hall. Said he, 'Now, honest Gregory, What may your yearly earnings be?' 'My yearly earnings! faith, good sir, I never go, at once, so far,' The cheerful cobbler said, And queerly ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... eyes in a terrible death battle between two great beasts of prey, yet it is no less real and intense in the case of the bird pouring forth a beautiful song, or the delicate violet shedding abroad its perfume. To realise the host of enemies ever shadowing the feathered songster and its kind, we have only to remember that though four young birds may be hatched in each of fifty nests, yet of the two hundred nestlings an average often of but one lives to grow to maturity,—to migrate and to return to ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... Lorand, was thinking that he had but one more day to live; and then—adieu to the perfumed fields, adieu to the songster's echo, adieu to the ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... your mate, and are crying for her," the girl said, stretching out her little brown hand compassionately toward the crouching songster. "Your companions have gone to the South, and you wait here, trusting that your mate will come back, and not journey to summer lands without you. Is not that so, my poor bird? Ah, would that I could go with you where there are always flowers, and ever can be heard ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... out a report for this fellow!" said the policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10] passes in an hour's time! ... I shall ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... the little songster poured out his joy in liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air like dancing sunbeams turned to music—so light, so rippling, so joyously alive, that the girls' hearts ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... marmalades, icy tongues reduced by ether to a temperature of minus sixty, Finnane haddock, and oaten meal of rarest bolting, indicated and offered to gratify the erratic taste of a Caledonian. Again, upon another, a Strasburg pie displayed its delicious brown, the members of the emerald songster of the fen lay whitely delicate, and accompanying absinthe revealed the knowledge of Gallic preferences. Upon the fourth, smoking and olent Rio, puddings of Indian, cakes composed of one third butter, one third flour, one third saleratus, and the crisping bean, surmounted ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... doorway he looks out upon the unfrequented road and up to Old Clump, the mountain in the lap of which his father's farm is cradled, the mountain which he used to climb to salt the sheep, the mountain which is the haunt of the hermit thrush. (His nieces and nephews at the old home always speak of this songster as ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... bird," replied the Dewdrop, turning in politeness half round on its pillow; "thank you for thinking of me in my loneliness." And away the songster flew, first to his home, and then, after some outstanding duties and civilities, over to his thicket among the May blossoms. The extreme beauty of the night seemed to dispel all care, and to have a decidedly inspiring effect ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... chained beside his kennel is more invariably present, no caged songster more incontestably anchored. If you need his services, you have but to seek his address between the hours mentioned. You may do so with the same assurance of finding him on duty that you would feel, if you left a jug of water out of doors over night in a blizzard, ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... the air is calm, the sky serene, Though wide the broad and leafy arms are spread, Yet still the scars of recent wounds are seen; Their shelter henceforth seems but insecure; The winged tribes disdain the frequent lure, Where many a songster lies benumb'd or dead; And when I would the flow'ry tendrils train, I find my late ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... had been singing to very thin houses, chanced to encounter a Glow-worm at eventide and prepared to make upon him a light repast. The unfortunate Lampyris Splendidula besought the Songster, in the sacred name of Art, not to quench his vital spark, and appealed to his magnanimity. "The Nightingale who needlessly sets claw upon a Glow-worm," he said, "is a being whom it were gross flattery to term ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... Christian what the forest is to him who delights in nature. He who walks through the forest laughing, talking, and singing, hears not the sweet notes of the songster nor sees the wild things. He who would see and hear the things that delight the nature-lover must steal softly and silently along, watching his footsteps, hiding in the shadows, and thus he may see nature as she is. Likewise he who comes ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... "Bends to his knee the yielding horn, then sends "Through Pluto's heart the bearded arrow sure. "Not far from Enna's walls, a lake expands "Profound in watery stores, Pergusa nam'd: "Not ev'n Caisters' murmuring stream e'er heard "The songster-swans more frequent. Woods o'ertop "The waters, rising round on every side; "And veil from Phoebus' rays the surface cool. "A shade the branches form; the moist earth round, "Produces purple flowers: perpetual spring "Here reigns. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... twitter, to fashion little crystal stanzas, and to hurl themselves about the valley as if catapults propelled them. One songster perched on the iron rail of the bridge and practised a vocal lesson, cocking his head from side to side and seeming ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... is sung as follows:- the first line of each verse is given as a solo; then the tune is continued by a chorus of whistlers, who whistle that portion of the air which in Lilli burlero would be sung to the words, Lilli burlero bullen a la. The songster then proceeds with the tune, and sings the whole of the verse through, after which the strain is resumed and concluded by the whistlers. The effect, when accompanied by the strong whistles of a group of lusty countrymen, is very striking, and cannot be adequately conveyed ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... not know until a month after, when Leo Vesschi found her at the restaurant and told her, that out in the new pest-house, that other songster and prisoner, the gay little chestnut vender, Pietro Tobigli, had called lamentably upon the name of his God and upon "Libra Ogostine," and now lay still forever, with the corduroy waistcoat and its precious burden tightly clenched to ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... account of the insinuation that he gave up music because it hindered his success in cherry-stealing. He likes cherries, it is true; and who can blame him? But he would need to work hard to steal more than does that indefatigable songster, the robin. I feel sure he has some better reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. But, however he came by his stillness, it is likely that by this time he plumes himself upon it. Silence is golden, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... song-book that formed one of the ornaments which he placed in the room he was preparing for Florence Dombey. Other common titles are the 'Prentice's Warbler,' which Simon Tappertit used, 'Fairburn's Comic Songster,' and the 'Little Warbler,' which is mentioned two or three times. Of the songs belonging to this second period, some are embedded in ballad operas and plays, popular enough in their day, but long since forgotten. An example is Mr. Jingle's quotation ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... fellow appeared relieved from a state of great embarrassment; for, pursuing the direction of the voice—a task that to him was not much less arduous that it would have been to have gone up in the face of a battery—he soon discovered the hidden songster. ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... Marquis marchioness Mayor mayoress Patron patroness Peer peeress Poet poetess Priest priestess Prince princess Prior prioress Prophet prophetess Proprietor proprietress Protector protectress Shepherd shepherdess Songster songstress Sorcerer sorceress Suiter suitress Sultan sultaness or sultana Tiger tigress Testator testatrix Traitor traitress Tutor tutoress Tyrant tyranness Victor victress Viscount ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... fierce eye, and Roome's[359] funereal frown. Lo, sneering Goode,[360] half-malice and half-whim, A fiend in glee, ridiculously grim. Each cygnet sweet, of Bath and Tunbridge race, Whose tuneful whistling makes the waters pass: Each songster, riddler, every nameless name, All crowd, who foremost shall be damn'd to fame. Some strain in rhyme; the Muses, on their racks, Scream like the winding of ten thousand jacks; 160 Some, free from rhyme or reason, rule or check, Break Priscian's head ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... in vain for the birds to appear, we examined the nest before us, we found that it held two thrush eggs and one of the cowbird. The impertinence of this disreputable bird in thrusting her plebeian offspring upon the divine songster, to rear at the expense of her own lovely brood, was not to be tolerated. The dirty speckled egg looked strangely out of place among the gems that belonged to the nest, and I removed it, careful not to touch nest or eggs. So pertinacious ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... the 20th, and staying over the show. I have written to Adam Ferguson, who will come with a whoop and a hollo. So will the Ballantynes—flageolet[77] and all—for the festival, and they shall be housed at Abbotsford. I have an inimitably good songster in the person of Terence Magrath, who teaches my girls. He beats almost all whom I have ever heard attempt Moore's songs, and I can easily cajole him also out to Abbotsford for a day or two. In jest or earnest, I never heard a better singer in a room, though his voice is ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... is it for women as well as men, without the least remorse, to ensnare, to cage, and torment, and even with burning knitting-needles to put out the eyes of the poor feather'd songster [thou seest I have not yet done with birds]; which however, in proportion to its bulk, has more life than themselves (for a bird is all soul;) and of consequence has as much feeling as the human creature! when at the same time, if an honest fellow, by the gentlest persuasion, and the softest ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... here entwine In lovely comradeship their am'rous arms; Here grasses spread their undecaying charms. And every wall is eloquent with vine; Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign, And as we stroll along their tree-lined way, The songster trills his rapture-breathing lay From where he finds inviolable shrine. And yet, within this beauty-haunted place War keeps his dreadful engines at command. With scarce a smile upon his frowning face, And ever ready, unrelaxing hand ... We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers, A tiger ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... songster of habits quite similar to the brigadier we used sometimes to hear, but rarely saw, on our way over to the "Aunt Hannah lot," an adjunct of the Old Squire's farm, to reach which we crossed a tract of sparse woods. Its notes, prolonged on a very sharp, high key, resembled ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... ears of those who know how to overcome timidity and shyness. Birds naturally so impetuous are restless and uneasy under observation. One must pose in silence until his presence is forgotten or ignored. Then the delicious melody, the approving comments of the songster's companions, and the efforts of ambitious youngsters to imitate and excel, are all part ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... decreed Companion of our lives to be, I'll seek the moral songster's meed, An earthly immortality; Most vain!—O let me, from the past Remembering what to man is given, Lay Virtue's broad foundations fast, Whose glorious turrets ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... when always, on waking in the morning, I had a song rising to my lips." At present, it seems, being a drunkard, he has no such song. Ay, dear Lamb, but note this, that the drunkard was fifty-six years old, the songster was twenty-three. Take twenty-three from fifty-six, and we have some reason to believe that thirty-three will remain; which period of thirty-three years is a pretty good reason for not singing in the morning, even if brandy has been out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... featherd songster chaunticleer Han wounde hys bugle horne, And tolde the earlie villager The ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... Each little songster strives to raise Its highest warbling notes of praise, For all these blessings given:— Ere Sol emerges from behind The eastern hills, the lark we find Soars, as it were on wings of wind, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... above the murmur of the gentle fall of water over the stones, rose that musical note once more. It was made by a bird, Joe thought, and yet, judged by the actions of the Indians, how potent with meaning beyond that of the simple melody of the woodland songster! He turned, half expecting to see somewhere in the tree-tops the bird which had wrought so sudden a change in his captors. As he did so from close at hand came the same call, now louder, but identical with the one that had ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or even down at the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do not hear him after the first week ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... The songster heard his short oration, And, warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And found a ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... quaint inflection, which suggest all hope, and are so striking because heard while snow may be yet upon the ground; he may not have the wild abandon of the bobolink with that tinkle and gurgle and thrill; he is no pretentious songster, like a score of other birds, but he is a great part of the soul of early summer, for he is telling, morning, noon and night, how good the world is, how he approves of the sunshine, and how everything is all right! And so the young man approved much of the song-sparrow, and was interested ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... out into the yard, to get a better look at the little songster as he sat swinging at the top of the old apple tree. Just then he flew across the orchard and down to the creek, alighting among the willows ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... Massachusetts. The Mocking-Bird is familiar in his habits, frequenting gardens and orchards, and perching on the roofs of houses when singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners, however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the attacks ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Vernal songster, thou art here, With the flowers thou dost appear; Yes, sweet little Whippowil, Thou art singing by the rill; Where the silver moonbeam plays Thou dost chant thy hymn of praise; Thy shrill voice I love to hear, And I'd have thee warble near. ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... Song-Sparrow, beguiled by southern winds, has already made his appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... of day-old puppy. 280 Handsome is this noble damsel, Noblest she of all the country, Even like a ripening cranberry, Or a strawberry on the mountain, Like the cuckoo in the tree-top, Little bird in mountain-ashtree, In the birch a feathered songster, White-breast bird ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... could distinguish. Again, one called out, "Hark! Hark! Hear him singing!" I listened, but not a sound reached my ear. Was it strange that I felt a momentary pang? Those that look out at the windows are darkened, and all the daughters of music are brought low. Was I never to see or hear the soaring songster at Heaven's gate,—unless,—unless,—if our mild humanized theology promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope I shall always love ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... "Maybe they're right too. I'll tell you what. The lad's head is stuffed with wind. He goes about with notions swishing round inside that head of his, as much the plaything of nature as the reed that whistles in the wind at the riverside and fancies itself a songster." ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... poems in my scrap-book testify that another songster, early in Field's Chicago life, enjoyed his friendship and inspired his pen along a line it was to travel many a tuneful metre. The first, with frequent erasures and interlineations, bears date May 25th, 1894, and was inscribed, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... "gun." The "gun" we used was a powerful pair of field glasses. On the way we counted the number of bird-homes we saw. Just as we were thinking about stopping and having breakfast we heard a most ecstatic song. Creeping close to the place where the sound came from, we discovered the songster to be a song-sparrow. Focussing our "gun" upon the bird we made note of its coloring and marking, making sure that if we heard or saw another we would recognize it at once. While we were eating our breakfast, there was a dash ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... difficult at first to understand why it should be so much more common than other birds. It is not large or strong, or swift on the wing, and it seems to have none of those advantages which would help it to defend itself against enemies. It is not handsome, and it is not a sweet songster, so that man is not disposed to give it much protection. He is often prompted to destroy it, because of the injury which it does to ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... the former than the latter of Chaucer's categories; for a "smale foule" he is, a little bird-like fellow, who maketh melodie also, and warbles like a cock-robin; we cannot liken him to any more dignified songster. Moreover, he will sleep all night with open eye; for he will not be in bed till five to-morrow morning; and pricked he is, and that sorely, in his courage; for he is as much, in love as his little nature ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... heart broken, poor bird?" exclaimed the young man, taking up the hapless songster, yet warm and palpitating. "To die in the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... One songster did offer some excuse for the poverty of his appearance, telling us his hard case, how that he was occupied in declaring his passion to a beauteous damsel, when she was "all over him in a minute," and, while he was making love to the pretty stars above, she cleared out all his pockets ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... legs dabbling in the sparkling water in the broken marble tank of a once magnificent fountain. There she sate alone in the sunshine, and carolled, with wide-opened throat, like any other nature-made songster. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... from the Scriptures, and then pulled off his coat and hung it on a nail. Then he made a few extemporaneous remarks, after which he salivated the palm of his right hand, took the self-cocking songster in his left, and proceeded to wear out the gads over the ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... anemone, Loved wind-flower of the spring, You fill our hearts with gladness, For with your smile you bring The vitalizing sunshine, The fruitful April shower, The pipe of feathered songster, ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... Thy spirits sister, the lorn nightingale, Mourns not her mate, &c. The reason for calling the nightingale the sister of the spirit of Keats (Adonais) does not perhaps go beyond this—that, as the nightingale is a supreme songster among birds, so was Keats a supreme songster among men. It is possible however—and one willingly supposes so—that Shelley singled out the nightingale for mention, in recognition of the consummate beauty of Keats's Ode to the ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... as there would have been had a little bird perched upon the prison-wall and warbled its song of love to him while strongly secured in his cell-more tantalizing because he could hear the notes, but not see the songster. ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... Gorla Mustelford's dances were likely to do, even with the aid, in her case, of long explanations on the programmes. When the final verse seemed about to reach an unpardonable climax a stage policeman opportunely appeared and moved the lively songster on for obstructing the imaginary traffic of an imaginary Bond Street. The house received the new number with genial enthusiasm, and mingled its applause with demands for an earlier favourite. The orchestra struck up the familiar air, and in a few moments the smart errand-boy, ...
— When William Came • Saki
... the songster" (chardonneret) "of the sacred grove," said Alexandre de Brebian, which was witticism number two. Finally, the president of the agricultural society put an end to the sedition by remarking judicially that "before the Revolution the greatest nobles admitted men like ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... me, O Lord, Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing, I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word, Had known upon what thoughts of thee his ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... love for you. And as I lay a-listening and thinking, came one by the window singing 'John O'Bail', and I heard voices in the tap-room and the clatter of pewter flagons. On a settle outside the tap-room window, full in the sun, sat the songster and his companions, drinking new ale and singing 'John O'Bail'—a song I never chanced to hear before, and I shall not soon forget it for lack of schooling"—and she sang softly, sitting there, clasping her knees, and swaying with ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... with contemplation fed, And thousand fancies buzzing in my brain, A sweet-tongued songster perched above my head, And chanted forth her most melodious strain; Which rapt me so with wonder and delight, I judged my hearing better than my sight, And wished me wings with her a while ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... who sang even as to-day in the days of my youth and joy, whose nest is built over the window that was so often a frame for that dearest-loved face. The song brought with it the recollection of all the little songster had outlived—the love, hope, and fear that had sprung up and grown and died, since I had first heard his warbling. And I broke into those quiet tears that are now my only expression of a grief ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bulbuls; these are detained by a ligature, passing over the shoulders of the bird, and tied under the breast, leaving his wings and legs free. The bulbul, though not the bird known by that name in Persia, is a pretty songster; but he is as desperate a fighter as a gamecock. Those, therefore, who delight in cruel sports, bring their little pets to these shops, where no doubt birds of the best mettle are to be found; and on the result of a battle, money ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... buzzing thing, Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,— (N.B. They call the insect Bob, I know, I heard a printer's devil call it so)— So fondly tells his admiration vast No one can call the chastened strains bombast, Though epitheted substantives immense Claim for each lofty ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... grandmother sit still while she washed up and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling, too—loud, dear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up to the perch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened, as if in wonder, to this new songster, whose ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... universally admitted to be the most enchanting of warblers; and many might be tempted to encage the mellifluous songster, but for the supposed difficulty of procuring proper food for it. In the village of Cossey, near Norwich, an individual has had a nightingale in cage since last April; it is very healthy and lively, and has been wont to charm its owner with its sweet and powerful strains. The bird appears ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... twilight, Went I to the flowery meadows, There to rock upon the common, Where the Sun retires to slumber; There I heard a song-bird singing, Heard the thrush simple measures, Singing sweetly thoughts of maidens, And the minds of anxious mothers. "Then I asked the pretty songster, Asked the thrush this simple question: 'Sing to me, thou pretty song-bird, Sing that I may understand thee, Sing to me in truthful accents, How to live in greatest pleasure, And in happiness the sweetest, As a maiden with her father, Or as wife beside her husband.' "Thus the song-bird gave me ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... peccable—beings stand on a higher level than marionettes, however faultlessly contrived to perform certain evolutions. The truth of the matter is set forth with poetic insight in Andersen's story of the Nightingale—the immeasurable difference between the artificial bird and the real songster, whose melodious raptures somehow touched a chord in the listener which all the nicely-calculated trills and cadences of the ingenious mechanical toy failed to set in motion. In like manner we repeat that ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... considerable number of his successors, such as Dunbar, and Maitland of Lethington, who were learned men, and wrote with a learned air, even when writing for the people. The Reformation, as surely as it threw down every carved stone, shut up the mouth of every profane songster. Wedderburne's "Haly Ballats" may have been spared for a time by the iconoclasts, because they had helped to build up their own temple; but they could not survive long,—they were cast in a profane mould, they were sung to profane tunes, and away they must go into ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
