"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hastily and loudly exclaiming 'Mr. and Miss Apsley' (which ended with a crow) he stuffed his red pocket handkerchief into his mouth and escaped. At the sound of the names, Merton had turned towards the inner door, open behind him, whence came a clear and piercing trill of feminine laughter from Miss Blossom. Merton angrily marched to the inner door, and shut his typewriter in with a bang. His heart burned within him. Nothing could be so insulting to clients; nothing so ruinous to ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... retire—not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... that my method of playing the trill could be greatly improved and I also knew that I lacked force and endurance in certain passages. Fortunately, although a comparatively young man, I was not deceived by the flattery of well-meaning, but ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... were in the air. The trill of the blue-bird was a thrill; and the first song of the robin was full of lilac and apple blossoms. The softened winds fell to zephyrs, and whispered strange mysterious legends to the brown silent trees, and murmured lovingly over the warming beds of the slumbering ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... districts, I used to notice him, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming his arrival, with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and the ph[oe]be's clear, vivacious assurance of his veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in his lay he describes a circle or an ellipse in the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange-flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Sits hush'd his partner nigh; Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, But where ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... our sires begun Be rent asunder by hell's minion, Trade! If jarring interests and the greed of gold, The corn-rick's envy of the mined hill, The steamer's grudge against the spindle's skill,— If things so mean our country's fate can mould, O, let me hear again the shepherds trill Their reedy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... Fate ordain The Camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright; Or if the graces of that fair domain, Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite; If trumpets sound the clang that Warriors love, Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove, In flowing bowls drown every vain regret, Enjoy the PRESENT, and the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... attend, and hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty; Strange things I'll tell, which late befell ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... An act of gracious condescension follows. Her Ladyship has the supreme delight of leading a scion of Royalty to a chair of state in her drawing-room, to hear Sir Raucisonous bleat and Miss Quaver trill. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... cold, pure rill Of water trickling low, afar With sudden little jerks and purls Into a tank or stoneware jar, The song of a tiny sleeping bird Held like a shadow in its trill. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... laugh trilled high with a note of silver, above the chatter of the crowd and the blare and rhythmic trill of the orchestra. "I've had an ice-cream, and I'm going to have a new doll and a doll-carriage," said she. "Oh, Ellen!" She left her father and mother for a second and clung to Ellen, kissing ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... invented a flying-machine, or dofunny, as we scientists would term it, in 1600 and something, whereby he could sail down from the woodshed and not break his neck. He could not rise from the ground like a lark and trill a few notes as he skimmed through the sky, but he could fall off an ordinary hay stack like a setting hen, with the aid of his wings. ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... sleep, the careless sing; they pretend to cheer others by their humming; they trill: "Hoy! troly lolly!" Piers shall feed every one, except these useless ones; he shall not feed "Jakke the jogeloure and Jonet ... and Danyel the dys-playere and Denote the baude, and frere the faytoure, ..." for, all whose name is entered "in the legende of lif" must take life seriously.[656] ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... you sing that at Della Scala, remember the poor devil who taught it to you in a hovel. Soaked as those old walls are with music from the most famous lips the world ever applauded, they hold no echoes sweeter than that last trill. After all, there is no passion—no pathos—comparable to a perfect contralto crescendo. It is wonderful how you Americans squander voices that would rouse all ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... flower. He wrote for it as one of two persons who had shared life together might address the other, well aware with what complexity and profundity a smile, a gesture, a brief phrase, would reverberate. No one has caressed it more lightly, more tenderly, more voluptuously. No one has made of the piano-trill, for instance, more luminous and quivering a thing. And because he was so sensitive to his medium, the medium lured from out ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... back to a small distance. The shepherdess, as soon as she found herself disengaged and alone, revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt and treachery in those around ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, but longs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... at the front door, and say, 'Beautiful, beautiful: why, Huldy, I never see any thing like it.' And then when her work was done arternoons, Huldy would sit with her sewin' in the porch, and sing and trill away till she'd draw the meadow-larks and the bobolinks, and the orioles to answer her, and the great big elm-tree overhead would get perfectly rackety with the birds; and the parson, settin' there in his study, would ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Pipe not from the bough or bush; Come to me with thy lustrous eye, Azure-melting westerly, The raptures of thy face unfold, And welcome in thy robes of gold! Tho' the nightingale broods—'sweet-chuck-sweet' - And the ouzel flutes so chill, Tho' the throstle gives but one shrilly trill To the nightingale's 'sweet-sweet.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... here, though delightfully Arcadian and quite idyllic (hayricks are so romantic, and I always adored cows—in pictures), is dreadfully quiet, and I freely confess that I generally prefer a man to a hop-pole (though I do wear a wig), and the voice of a man to the babble of brooks, or the trill of a skylark,—though I protest, I wouldn't be without them (I mean the larks) for the world,—they make me long for ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... spite of his stentorian proclamation of its tonic a few seconds before, and could not begin the repetition till the concert-master had plucked the first note of the air on his violin. A short time before I heard Mme. Patti perform the feat of beginning the trill which accompanies the melody by the orchestra in the middle of the dance song in "Dinorah" without a suggestive tone or chord after a hubbub and gladsome tumult that seemed, to have lasted several minutes. A new bass, Signor Mirabella, appeared in "I Puritani" on October 29th—a musical singer with ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... between his knees, playing on it as on a cello; then he caught it to his breast again in a sudden fury of improvisation—an arpeggio, light and running, his fingers barely touching the strings—the snatch of a theme—a trill, low and passionate—the rush of a scale. He toyed with the Stradivarius ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... are animated, all speeches are brisk.... A rattling conversation is in progress about a well-known songstress. The people are lauding her as divine, immortal.... Oh, how finely she had executed her last trill that evening! ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... laughing women, wrestlers and ball players, dancing couples and grape pickers. The pause appealed to her as a man who climbs naked from a deep subterranean shaft, carrying a burning torch in his hand; the trill seemed like a bird that ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... melancholy softness; when hovering over his food he gave a spiteful chuckle; when pleased to see an old friend he seemed to say: "How do you do?" with a plaintive cooing. In battle his scream was wild and commanding, a succession of five or six notes with a startling trill that was inspiring to the soldiers. Strangers could not approach or touch him with safety, though members of the regiment who treated him with kindness were cordially recognized by him. Old Abe had his particular friends, as well as some whom he regarded as his ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... of love's garden! How trill her tears, th' elixir of my senses! Ambitious sickness, what doth thee so harden? Oh spare, and plague thou me for her offences! Ah roses, love's fair roses, do not languish; Blush through the milk-white veil that holds you covered. If heat or cold may mitigate ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... beldame now, Time-trenched on cheek and brow, Whom I once heard as a maid From Keinton Mandeville Of matchless scope and skill Sing, with smile and swell and trill, "Should he upbraid!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... all that train: Joy to great Chaos! let division reign:[385] Chromatic[386] tortures soon shall drive them hence, Break all their nerves, and fritter all their sense: One trill shall harmonise joy, grief, and rage, Wake the dull church, and lull the ranting stage;[387] To the same notes thy sons shall hum, or snore, And all thy yawning daughters cry, Encore! 60 Another Phoebus, thy own Phoebus, reigns, Joys in my jigs, and dances in my chains. ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... her sable wings, All earthly things to darken, The woodland choir grows mute and still, To thy sweet trill to hearken; Though 'gainst thy breast there lies a thorn, And thou woeworn art bleeding, Yet, till the bright day dawns again, Thou singest, ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... in visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... rose-colored robes, dispensing hospitality in his home, took up his whole attention. She was really radiant. She sang and played twice for the company, and her perfectly true high soprano filled the whole house. To Maria it sounded as meaningless as the trill of a canary-bird. In fact, when it came to music, Ida, although she had a good voice, had the mortification of realizing that her simulation of emotion failed her. Harry did not like his wife's singing. He felt like a traitor, ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... long breath. "My sister Solly is married." Smiles broke all over her little face. She hid it in Sally's skirts, and a little peal of laughter like a bird-trill came ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... pour forth his liquid song, and from another far away came the same song like an echo. Dick looked up but he could not see the bird among the branches. Nevertheless he waved his hand toward the place from which the melody came and gave a little trill in reply. Then ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... There was a little trill of derisive laughter from the other side of the room, where Lord Robert had put the spray down noisily and turned to look out into the street. Then John Storm drew himself up and said in a ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... and, in spite of herself, burst into a trill of laughter which was so merry and contagious that the grave stranger beside him looked up at her with an interested and amused smile as though seeing her ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... of beast in wild-wood still, To thunder-roll, to bugle-trill, To maiden singing on the hill, To every sound Thy voice, responsive, straight doth fill ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... offended. During his mental uncertainty the natural physical hesitancy had resulted in Barbee's gaining a lead of a dozen steps. Hence when a white figure flitted out from the shadows to the boy's side, Longstreet was not near enough to hear the whispered words; the soft trill of a laugh he caught, to be sure, and immediately recognized as Mrs. Murray's. Then she had drawn away from Barbee, called good night and passed on to the hotel, so close to Longstreet that her skirts brushed ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... gleams of lustre tremble through the grove, And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine Are harp'd around, and flutt'ring pinions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide warbling from yon ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... interrupted by gasps for breath, whereupon Roseen, still vigorously footing it, would take up the tune after a fashion of her own, her voice imitating as nearly as might be the sound of a fiddle. Overhead a lark was soaring, and his trill, wafted down to them, mingled with their quaint human music; far away over that brown and purple stretch of bog the plovers were circling, their faint melancholy call sounding every now and then. The sun would soon set, the air was already turning a little chilly, and the dew was ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... melancholy lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo - ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... thrush clad all in brown, the robin jerking his spasmodic throat, the oriole drifting like a flake of fire, the jolly bobolink and his happy mate, the mocking-bird imitating the notes of all, the red-bird with his one sweet trill, and the busy little wren, are all making the trees in our front yard ring ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... sun regain'd his power, When the last breeze from hawthorn bower, Or Druid oak, had shook away The rain-drops 'midst the gleaming day, Perhaps the sigh of hope return'd And love in some chaste bosom burn'd, And softly trill'd the stream along, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... canorous and horn-like quality to the crowing of Gildersleeve's rooster, and his hens chant cheerily as they kick the litter about. But it wasn't these cheerful sounds that wakened us with a start. There! Hear that? Hear it? Two or three long-drawn, reedy notes, and an awkward boggle at a trill, but oh, how sweet! How sweet! It is the song-sparrow, blessed bird! It won't be long ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... it opposite each other, one singing, the other playing a guitar; between them, more in the background, stands an abbot, acting as music-director. With his baton raised, he is awaiting the moment when the Signora shall end, in a long trill, the cadence which, with her eyes directed heavenwards, she is just in the midst of; then down will come his hand, whilst the guitarist gaily dashes off the dominant chord. The abbot is filled with ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... tunes He would bow at nights or noons That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure, When he made you speak his heart As in dream, Without book or music-chart, On some theme Elusive as a jack-o'-lanthorn's gleam, And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted with the yellow lamps. ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Marie had that sensation of lost identity which has confused us all. In her walk she passed the loops dangling ready for her men. A bird, poised for one instant on the turret, uttered a sweet long trill. She could hear the river. It was incredible that all those unknown faces should be swarming below her; that the garrison was obliged to stand tied; that Lady Dorinda had braved the rabble of soldiery and come out to wait weeping at the scaffold ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... stops), I began playing "Money Musk," and "Old Dan Tucker." Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... were having their hour of silence. Not a trill sounded from among the softly moving leaves, not a chirp, not a twitter. The stillness seemed almost oppressive. The one brilliant spot of colour in the landscape was a large scarlet macaw, asleep on ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... skies fling out their pink and purple banner; and stars throb, and glow, and flash, with a radiant life that is not of the earth;—where great rivers have not yet put on the majesty of manhood, but trill over pebbles, curl around rocks, ripple against banks, waltz little eddies, spread dainty pools for gay little trout, dash up saucy spray into the eyes of bending ferns, mock the frantic struggles of lost flowers and twigs, tantalizing them with hope of a rest that never comes, leap headlong, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... dreams, As down the loneliest forest-dell I strayed, Lo! from a neighboring glade, Flashed through the drifts of moonshine, swiftly came A fairy shape of flame. It rose in dazzling spirals overhead, Whence, to wild sweetness wed, Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill: The very leaves grew still On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me, Heart-thrilled to ecstasy, I followed—followed the bright shape that flew, Still circling up the blue, Till as a fountain that has reached ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... bells peal far at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of the chiming bell. There I hung and looked, and there In my gray face, faces fair Shone from under shining hair. Well I saw the poising head, But the lips moved and nothing said; And when lights were in the hall, Silent ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flocks of thousands, in a wonder of full song, all eagerly pressing on towards the hills but they left their songs behind them, as it were, to be sung by the other birds. In the pastures and cultivated fields the chipping sparrows, newly arrived from the South, took up the trill with an accent of their own, and all the pine warblers sang it, each with an individuality that slightly but clearly marked him from his fellow. I think all birds show this slight but definite individuality in manner and voice and are probably known to their neighbors of the same clan, as we are, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... fair calm eve on wood and wold Shone down with softest ray, Beneath the sycamore's red leaf The mavis trill'd her lay, Murmur'd the Tweed afar, as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... jasmine!" grandmother and little Emily exclaimed, at the same moment. And a mocking-bird, flying by, stopped a moment to trill a sweet strain, as if he, too, was glad to welcome back this lovely blossom of ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 15, April 12, 1914 • Various
... is so well described by Nuttall, but is apparently unknown by the author of the Report, is one of the most common in the woods in this vicinity, and in Cambridge I have heard the college yard ring with its trill. The boys call it "yorrick," from the sound of its querulous and chiding note, as it flits near the traveller through the underwood. The cowbird's egg is occasionally found in its nest, as mentioned ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... look came in her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail of ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... delighted him to see her cheeks dimpling as he talked, and the pretty quiver, that never quite left the tiny mouth, red and sweet as an unplucked berry. It pleased him still more when she began to talk to him, in a voice whose fresh, unsullied ring stirred his senses like the trill of birds on a glowing summer morning. Then she took to questioning him, with bashful inquisitiveness, upon the details of his approaching marriage. Her thoughts about engagements and honeymooning, not openly expressed, but evident enough from the tenor ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... that ease and certainty which make each highest one a triumph of expression purely, and not a physical marvel. The gradual growth and sostenuto of her tones; the light and shade, the rhythmic undulation and balance of her passages; the bird-like ecstacy of her trill; the faultless precision and fluency of her chromatic scales; above all, the sure reservation of such volume of voice as to crown each protracted climax with glory, not needing a new effort to raise force ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... the wild bird, called again with a mellow, warbling trill, and then struck up the quaint old madrigal with the bird's song running through it. Carew leaped to his feet, with a flash in his dark eyes. "My soul! my soul!" he exclaimed in an excited undertone. "It is not—nay, it cannot be—why, 'tis—it is the boy! Upon my heart, he ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... and hot and the cheep and trill of the gophers, and the chatter of the kingbirds alone broke the silence. A cloud of butterflies were fluttering about a pool near, a couple of big flies buzzed ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... admitted Grace, bolder now that she could see the end of the woods. "I don't see how he got loose. I used the running bow-line, and a couple of clove hitches. Our old knots came in useful, but they didn't hold evidently. Hark! Wasn't that a whistle! Sounded like Margaret's trill." ...
— The Girl Scout Pioneers - or Winning the First B. C. • Lillian C Garis
... no pathos there! It's just one trill of laughter and merriment, a sunbeam and effect. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... on the hill, The vales are decked with countless flowers, While hums the bee, the song birds trill Sweet ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... my cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in the gloom. And a voice, ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... melancholy, that I was loth to let him take his journey tomorrow; but he began to be pretty well, and after dinner my wife and Barker fell to singing, which pleased me pretty well, my wife taking mighty pains and proud that she shall come to trill, and indeed I think she will. So to the office, and there all the afternoon late doing business, and then home, and find my brother pretty well. So to write a letter to my Lady Sandwich for him to carry, I having not writ to her a great while. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... platform, bought him the Graphic, the Athenaeum, and a paper-cutter, and stood on the step conversing till the whistle sounded. Then she put her head into the carriage. "Black face and shining eye!" she whispered, and instantly leaped down upon the platform, with a trill of gay and musical laughter. As the train steamed out of the great arch of glass, the sound of that laughter still rang in ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Sahibs' mercy." So they lay still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... breast was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n' ote therewith be fill'd, And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves does ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I who wear ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... Mellicent gasped with amazement, while Rosalind gave a trill of laughter, and threw up ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... the full moon, with forehead flower white, and cheek ruddy bright with rosy light; whereupon the mother rejoiced, as did the eunuchs and attendants and all the company; and Sophia was delivered of the after birth whilst all in the palace sent forth the trill of joy.[FN148] The rest of the concubines heard it and envied her lot; and the tidings reached Omar son of Al- Nu'uman, who was glad and rejoiced at the excellent news. Then he rose and went to her and kissed her head, after which he looked at the boy; and, bending over him, kissed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... alcove with lips whitening under their crimson patches of paint, beating her fan restlessly on the empty air, and breathing rapid and audible breath. And now, at this last word of Israel, though so sadly spoken, and so solemn in its note of suffering, she broke into a trill of laughter, and said lightly, "Ah! I thought your love of the poor was young. Not yet cut its teeth, poor thing! A babe in swaddling clothes, eh? When was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... of what I might call 'natural technic' possessed by every one—some one point which is easy for him. It Is often the trill. It has frequently come under my notice that players with little facility in other ways, can make a good trill. Some singers have this gift; Mme. Melba is one who never had to study a trill, for she was born with a nightingale in her throat. I knew a young ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... I say teach them the scales, to run up and down the gamut! Gradus ad Parnassum's the thing! Classical, classical! Yesterday you made your daughter play that Trill-Etude by Carl Meyer. Altogether too fine-sounding! It tickles the ear, to be sure, especially when it is played in such a studied manner. We stick to Clementi and Cramer, and to Hummel's piano-school,—the good old school. You have made a great mistake ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... the fairies' gifts, she opened the walnut, and out of it hopped a little dwarf like a doll, the most graceful toy that was ever seen in the world. Then, seating himself upon the window, the dwarf began to sing with such a trill and gurgling, that he seemed a veritable ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... shadow of the trees beyond our table. The voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There was a moment's hushed silence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a woman's voice, clear, strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird-like trill of the mountain yodel. The sound rose and fell, and swelled and soared. A silence. Then, in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices within the pavilion answered the call. Again a silence. Again the wonder of the woman's voice flooded the stillness, ending in a note higher, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... at the sight of God's beautiful universe—a rapture of love awakened by a morning in spring, by the blue infinity of the sky, by the eternal loneliness and sublimity of the sea. Or, in some moment of susceptibility, the smiles of dear home faces, the tender trill of a voice, a surge of solemn music, may have power over the young heart to change its entire future. And again, it is some vivid experience of temptation and suffering that shapes the great hereafter. For the Divinity that maketh and ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... into the wall of the wigwam, and with head alert—and eyes wide open—watched his companion attentively. Not a movement of the Willow escaped him. She was radiant—and happy. Her laugh, sweet and wild as a bird's trill, set Baree's heart throbbing with a desire to jump about with ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... awakening, torturing, sounded the thing they had so long expected; the impact of a step upon the floor of the porch without; a moment later another, uncertain, and another; a pause, and then, startlingly loud, the trill of an ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds plunged deep into the long trumpet-flowers; from the topmost bough of a locust, heavy with bloom, came the liquid trill of ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... necessary to him that he should be made to know by some signal from her how it was going with her feelings. As he spoke of his danger, there came a gurgling little trill of wailing from her throat, a soft, almost musical sound of woe, which seemed to add an unaccustomed eloquence to his words. When he spoke of his own hope the sound was somewhat changed, but it was still continued. When he alluded to the disposition of his fortune, she was at his feet. "Not ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... in the direction of Upton Wood, thoroughly enjoying their walk. Occasionally, they stopped to gather a few wild flowers, or listen to the joyous trill of a bird. They were at the edge of the wood, when Grace suddenly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... horn until the echoes answered merrily, merrily; now she would trill her songs, until the wild birds answered ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with their harsh, sinister ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... is amiable throughout. It cannot be that they said too much in that letter from Paris." A little trill of bitter laughter escaped her. "We are to continue to make this our home for as long as it shall pleasure us. So long shall it ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... . . only the sounds of nature invaded the quiet of the place: the drowsy hum of diligent bees, the cattle browsing in a field near by, the ecstatic trill of a bird. The world of bustle and flurry with its seething vats of evil and corruption, its sordid discontent and petulance, its ways of pain and darkness, seemed far removed from that place of peace and calm solitude. ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... it was over. A second, and the revel was on. The earth was not silent now. There was no warning trill of prairie owl. As dropped the figures from above there broke forth the Sioux war-cry: long drawn out, demoniac, indescribable. Blood curdling, more savage infinitely than the cry of any wild beast, the others took it up, augmented it by a score, a hundred throats. Again the earth vomited the ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... love to sit the whole day long Beside the window-sill, And listen to the joyous song That warbler loves to trill. ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... adults would not allow me to approach them, and I was obliged to rest contented with sketching their absurdities. To punish this daring, the Jinkomba brought a man masked like a white, with beard and whiskers, who is supposed to strike the stranger with awe: it was all in vain, I had learned to trill the R as roundly as themselves, and they presently left me as ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... trees in full bloom, and the fragrance of the waxen- white flowers clung heavily to the air, breathing forth delicate suggestions of languor and sleep. The measured rush of the near waterfall alone disturbed the deep silence, with now and then the subdued and plaintive trill of a nightingale soothing itself to rest with its own song in some deep shadowed copse. Here, on a couch of heaped-up, stemless roses, such as might have been prepared for the repose of Titania, Lysia seated herself, while Theos stood gazing at her in fascinated wonderment and gradually increasing ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... of his kindling fancy, the symphonic poem he had heard in the garden began again, but at last his imagination made it almost real. He listened once more to Ida's girlish, plaintive voice blending with the murmur of the brook, the sighing wind and rustling leaves, and the occasional trill of a bird. He leaned back in his chair, and his eyes became full of deep and dreamy pleasure. Gradually a heavy frown contracted his brow, and his face grew white and stern as he repeated words that she once had spoken to him: "I meant to compel your respect, and I ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the day. Among so large a company her bonnet would hardly be noticed. If David was satisfied why what difference did it make? She was glad it would be early when they drove by the aunts, else they might be scandalized. But never mind! Trill! She hummed a merry little tune which melted into the melody of the song she ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... from this melancholy contemplation and call for a lamp and his bottle. While I was about this business (our maid-servant would not handle the bottle lest she be damned for it), my uncle would stump the floor, making gallant efforts to whistle and trill: by this exhorting himself to a cheerful mood, so that when I had moved his great chair to the table, with the lamp near and turned high, and had placed a stool for his wooden leg, and had set his bottle and glass and little brown jug of cold water conveniently at hand, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... absent when we arrived. This postmaster turned out to be a first-rate player of Scotch reels on the violin. He was self-taught, and truly the sweetness and precision with which he played every note and trill of the rapid reel and strathspey might have made Neil Gow himself envious. So beautiful and inspiriting were they, that Mr Bain and our host, who were both genuine Highlanders, jumped simultaneously from their seats, in an ecstasy ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate; and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... first piping notes of a canary bird's song were heard, rising so clear and lifelike that even the boys themselves were deluded at first into thinking that they were listening to an actual bird. The canary song ended with a sustained trill, and then, soft and melodious, came the limpid notes of the mocking bird's song. By this time the audience had comprehended that this was in reality a clever human imitation of bird notes, and ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... the first quotation) would automatically preserve its essential trill, the intruder churning is the more obnoxious; and unless the R can be trilled it would seem better for poets to use only the inflected forms of these words, and prefer ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... eyes and drifted away again. The old wife sat still on the edge of the bed. Outside she could hear the sigh of the oaks and the trill of young voices. Two or three tears fell over the wrinkled face, written close with the past, like a yellow page from an old diary. She wiped them away, and looked about the room with its meagre belongings, which Rob had scoured ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... there were scattered cries of Ole! Her companions began to look at the singer anxiously, for the muse was somewhat slow; and she patted her knee and groaned; at last she gave a little start and smiled. Ole! Ole! The inspiration had come. She gave a moan, which lengthened into the characteristic trill, and then began the couplet, beating time with her hands. Such ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... Specklems, "not a singer; why, what does she call that?" And then the vain little bird whistled and sputtered and cizzled away till he was quite out of breath, when his wife laughed at him so merrily, but told him that she liked his whistle better than the finest trill the skylark ever made; and so then Specklems said that after all he thought the crow might be right, but, at all events, the Specklems could do something better than cry "Caw-waw" when they opened ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... Steward's face Not thinking them safe men to receive such a gratuity Only because she sees it is the fashion (She likes it) Prince's being trepanned, which was in doing just as we passed Proud that she shall come to trill Receive the applications of people, and hath presents Seems she hath had long melancholy upon her Sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself Sick of it and of him for it The world do not grow old at all Then home, and merry with my wife Though he knows, if he be not a fool, that ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger |
