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Trill   Listen
verb
Trill  v. t.  (past & past part. trilled; pres. part. trilling)  To impart the quality of a trill to; to utter as, or with, a trill; as, to trill the r; to trill a note. "The sober-suited songstress trills her lay."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books



... Edge of it to his Mouth, converted it into a musical Instrument, and entertained me with an Italian Solo. Upon laying down the Knife, he took up a Pair of clean Tobacco Pipes; and after having slid the small End of them over the Table in a most melodious Trill, he fetched a Tune out of them, whistling to them at the same time in Consort. In short, the Tobacco-Pipes became Musical Pipes in the Hands of our Virtuoso; who confessed to me ingenuously, he had broke such Quantities of them, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... desert's splendors. It seemed to her that the nameless unknown Mystery toward which her life was drifting was embodied in this infinite silence. So sleep would not come to her until dawn. Then the stir of the wind in the trees, the bleat of sheep, the trill of mocking-birds lulled ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... 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 ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... 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 air, ostensibly prospecting for ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... Her Majesty said with a little trill of laughter, "not you, Sir Kenneth. I meant ...
— That Sweet Little Old Lady • Gordon Randall Garrett (AKA Mark Phillips)

... outside my window was still obscure with the shadows of night, but the sky had begun to kindle with the splendors of day. In a group of darksome trees beside a little stream two hundred paces distant a song thrush was wont to trill forth the holy soul of awakening nature in such a paean of deathless Pan as inspired John Keats to utter the melodies of his magic ode. It consecrated the footsteps of the approaching sun, and the hearer was borne back on its swelling current to those pure early ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... into an irresistible trill of laughter. The South Wellmouth station agent joined her. Galusha smiled in a fatherly fashion upon ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... nine. The brightness of the window shade told her that the sun was clear. She sprang out of bed, a trill of happiness in her throat. The shops! Oh, the beautiful, ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... how much snap and go there was to it until I heard Miss Hampton trill it out. Why, she just tosses up that perky chin of hers and turns loose the catchy melody until you felt the warm waves splashin' and saw the moonlight dancin' across the bay! I don't know where or what this Santa Lucia thing is, but she most made me homesick ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... are the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And crown of ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman

... 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 ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... treated as a double triplet—twice three and not three times two—as indicated in the first two bars." Klindworth makes the group a sextolet. Von Bulow has set forth numerous directions in fingering and phrasing, giving the exact number of notes in the bass trill at the end. Kullak uses the most ingenious fingering. Look at the last group of the last bar, second line, third page. It is the last word in fingering. Better to end with Robert Schumann's beautiful description of this ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... flicked down out of the cypress tree and perched on the gate top, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee little trill, and was off again. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... first story to the roof; a professional musician playing the while on the piano—not the old-fashioned thing our grandmothers used, but a huge instrument capable of giving forth all sounds of harmony from the trill of a nightingale to the thunders of an orchestra. And when you reach the roof of the hotel you find yourself in a glass-covered tropical forest, filled with the perfume of many flowers, and bright with the scintillating plumage of darting birds; all sounds of sweetness fill the air, and ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... 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 loveth us is forever showering hints ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... herself back to familiar things as she ran lightly up the stairs; had warmed to a long final trill as she stood in the doorway. The girl looked up in amazement. She had been sitting there, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. It was hard to see what might have been seen in her face because at that ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... down moodily (only inmates of the same room are allowed to descend together, so that you gain no social advantage), when just over my head, from a window on the first story, there broke out a burst of merriment, and a half-intelligible trill of baby-language; then a little round pink face, under a cloud of fair hair, peered out at me through the bars. The utter incongruity of the whole picture struck me so absurdly, that, I believe, I did indulge in a dreary laugh. Then ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... grass, Shed forth your richest perfumes 'neath her feet! And gallant robin, when thou seest her pass, Trill out thy merriest lay her ears to greet; And elm-tree branches, drooping low above her, Whisper to her that I came ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles

... as long as the young man's footsteps resounded on the stony paths; but when they died gradually away in the distance, when nothing could be heard save the monotonous trill of the grasshoppers basking in the sun, she threw herself down on the green heap of rubbish; she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a passionate outburst of tears ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... chirping and twittering and two or three real songs, sustain'd quite awhile, in the mid-day brilliance and warmth. (There! that is a true carol, coming out boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer meant it.) Then as the noon strengthens, the reedy trill of the robin—to my ear the most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, like bars and breaks (out of the low murmur that in any scene, however quiet, is never entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the occasional crunch and cracking of the ice-glare congeal'd over the creek, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... In practicing the trill or staccato tones the pressure of the breath must be felt even before the sound is heard. The beautiful, clear, bell-like tones that die away into a soft piano are tones struck on the apoggio and controlled by the steady soft pressure of the breath emitted through a perfectly open throat, ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini

... of silks and a hum of voices, and now and then a silvery laugh would ring out above these like the trill of a bird in a breezy grove. Later, light airy music floated through the rooms, followed by the rhythmic cadence of feet. A thinly clad shivering little match-girl stopped on her weary tramp to her cellar and caught ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... mistake, indeed, to suppose that the Greek was insensible to natural beauty. The daffodils, crocuses, anemones, and hyacinths, the countless laughter of the AEgean and the gleaming Cyclades, were delightful to his eye, the trill of the nightingale to his ear; but neither he nor the Hebrew could have felt much sympathy with the state of mind of a Wordsworth, to whom nature, in and for itself, had the effect of a living and inspiring power. Neither ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... touches very near the quick of life: the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself on his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognise him. It is not only in the woods that this ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of moods, fitful, anxious, soothed, until the bright upward trip begins anew, with the enchanting burst of chord and descending harmonies. A climactic height is stressed by a rough meeting of opposing groups, in hostile tone and movement, ending in a trill of flutes and a reentry of ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp

... can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrilling in her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... always keep to the coloratura music, and the beautiful bel canto singing; do nothing to strain your voice; preserve its velvety quality.' Patti's voice went to C sharp, in later years; mine has several tones higher. In the great aria in Lucia, she used to substitute a trill at the end instead of the top notes; but she said to me—'Luisa, you can sing ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... quite warm and white, Were waiting for the brooding wing, That from each shell there might take flight A bird, to trill ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... Rosetti too; Trill on, ye two, the song of future years, Move, Palgrave, move, with bosom rent anew, An audience multitudinous to tears; Scratch on with quill unwearied and no fears, The world shall fling thee thy resplendent bays, ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott

... 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, ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman

... down idly at the piano and played a few bars softly to himself—a beautiful, airy sort of melody, as it shaped itself vaguely in his head at the moment, with a little of the new wine of first love running like a trill through the midst of its fast-flowing quavers and dainty undulations. 'That will do,' he said to himself approvingly. 'That will do very well; that's little Miss Butterfly. Here she flits, flits, flits, flickers, sip, sip, sip, at her honeyed ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... first, what to do. But, recollecting 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 ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile

... 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 ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... in Jones' dictionary? If there is to be any difference between the aw and ore sounds either the R must be trilled as it still is in the north, or some vestige of it must be indicated, and such indication would be a lengthening of the o (aw) sound by the vestigial voicing of the lost trill, such as is indicated in the word o'er, and might be roughly shown to the eye by such a spelling as shawer for shore [thus shaw would be [s][o]: and shore would be [s][o]:[e]] and such distinction ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... 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 an one ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... . . 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. Phoebe ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers

... first bar'd his heart before thy view, Told all its inmost beatings—told them true; Nay, e'en the pulse, the secret, trembling thrill, On which the slightest touch alone would trill [Errata: kill]; While thou, with secret aim, collected art, Didst wind around that bold, confiding heart, And, in its warm and healthful breathings fling A subtle poison, and a ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham

... Land! Summer in the heart of England—summer in wooded Warwickshire,—a summer brilliant, warm, radiant with flowers, melodious with the songs of the heaven—aspiring larks, and the sweet, low trill of the forest-hidden nightingales. Wonderful and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July—wonderful to hear them maddening themselves with love and music, and almost splitting their ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... shell; The muffled tramp of the Museum guard Once more went by me; I beheld again Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; Again I longed for the returning morn, The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, The consentaneous trill of tiny song That weaves round monumental cornices A passing charm of beauty: most of all, For your light foot I wearied, and your knock That was the glad reveille of my day. Lo, now, when to your task ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Euxine or Ionian shores Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom. Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom, And little birds through wicker doors left wide Flew in to trill a space from the ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger

... spreads 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

... began suddenly playing a noisy waltz of Strauss, opening with such a loud and rapid trill that Gedeonovsky was quite startled. In the very middle of the waltz she suddenly passed into a pathetic motive, and finished up with an air from "Lucia" Fra poco... She reflected that lively music was not in keeping with her ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev

... 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 ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... from the edge of the sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending cattle had picked it up from a brother or sister on the far side of the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling

... green is 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

... the orchard lot And pears come thumping, falling; When sweet and clear, far off and near, The bobwhite's voice is calling; When crickets trill out on the hill, And dusk comes quick and cool; When all at once, in midst of play, You can't remember what's the way To multiply—you stop and say, 'Time ...
— Zodiac Town - The Rhymes of Amos and Ann • Nancy Byrd Turner

... tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural,—perhaps because the contrast of their repose with the stir left behind, of their redundance of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... The 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

... home. The roses were blossoming and the pinks were sweet, in the old-fashioned flower garden in front of the house; and the smell of the hay came from the fields where mowers were busy, and the trill of a bob-o'-link sounded in the meadow. It was evening when Pitt made his way from his father's house over to the colonel's; and he found Esther sitting in the verandah, with all this sweetness about her. The house was old and country fashioned; the verandah was raised but a step above the ground,—low, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... gloaming, tenfold as desolate. The sky was perfectly clear, and of a soft, blue-grey tinge; illumined by the new moon, a curve of light approaching its western bed. To the horizon reached a fen, blacked with pools of stagnant water, from which the frogs kept up an incessant trill through the summer night. Heath and fern covered the ground, but near the water grew dense masses of flag and bulrush, amongst which the light wind sighed wearily. Here and there stood a sandy knoll, capped with firs, looking like black splashes against ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould

... [Crenellation], and if the note came down on a second instead of the original note it became [Podium] [G: g' b' a']. The quilisma ([Upper Mordent]) indicated a repetition of two notes, one above the other, and we still use much the same sign for our trill. Also the two forms of the circumflex, [Over-slur] [Under-slur], were joined ([Turn]) and thus we have the modern turn, so ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... heard, the gods have heard my prayer; Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still You struggle to look fair; You drink, and dance, and trill Your songs to youthful love, in accents weak With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love! He dwells in Chia's cheek, And hears her harp-strings move. Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath Past withered trees like you; you're wrinkled now; The white has left your teeth, And settled ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin

... ancient music, from the time of Lully, one finds constantly a little cross marked over the notes. Often this certainly indicates a trill, but it seems difficult to take it always to mean such. However, perhaps fashion desired that trills should thus be made out of place. I have never been able to find an explanation of this sign, not even in the musical ...
— On the Execution of Music, and Principally of Ancient Music • Camille Saint-Saens

... 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

... first note the ponies raised their heads from where they were cropping the sedge, and at the second, one of the sturdy little fellows uttered a shrill neigh, while at the third note, which turned into a trill, the little animals dashed off at a canter, scattering the sandy earth behind them as they tore after the utterer of the ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn

... the forests and lowland plains with their graceful movements. Squirrels[1], of which there are a great variety, make their shrill metallic call heard at early morning in the woods; and when sounding their note of warning on the approach of a civet or a tree-snake, the ears tingle with the loud trill of defiance, which rings as clear and rapid as the running down of an alarum, and is instantly caught up and re-echoed from every side by ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... 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 admiration—with exquisite delight—and ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... song of the Cerulean Warbler as "extremely sweet and mellow," whereas it is a modest little strain, says Chapman, or trill, divided into syllables like zee, zee, zee, ze-ee-ee-eep, or according to another observer, rheet, rheet, rheet, rheet, ridi, idi, e-e-e-e-ee; beginning with several soft warbling notes and ending in a rather prolonged but quite musical squeak. The latter and more rapid ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... 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 ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... lustily in the trees; the throaty trill of the tufted bulbul sounding inexpressibly sweet,—the thyial, too, like a glorified canary, made music ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... Then, as the 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, Some rustic ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield

... leaves with thronging thoughts, and say, Alas! how many friends of youth are dead; How many visions of fair hope have fled, Since first, my Muse, we met.—So speeds away Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing, Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine! Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night, Religion, may we bless thy purer light, That still shall warm us, when the tints decline ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... whispering to me of the country green and cool— Of redwing blackbirds chattering beside a reedy pool; It brings me soothing fancies of the homestead on the hill, And I hear the thrush's evening song and the robin's morning trill; So I fall to thinking tenderly of those I used to know Where the sassafras ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... French language as well as Monsieur de Levizac, but never can penetrate into Flicflac's confidence: our ways are not her ways; our manners of thinking, not hers: when we say a good thing, in the course of the night, we are wondrous lucky and pleased; Flicflac will trill you off fifty in ten minutes, and wonder at the betise of the Briton, who has never a word to say. We are married, and have fourteen children, and would just as soon make love to the Pope of Rome as to any one but our own wife. If you do not make love to Flicflac, from the day ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter-day, proclaiming her 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 Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... roulade the singer ran up the scale to the C in alt, and there paused with a trill as delicious and full as ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... Mary Jane must be near the end of her piece for she was playing again the opening melody with runs of scales after every bar and while he waited for the end the resentment died down in his heart. The piece ended with a trill of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass. Great applause greeted Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped from the room. The most vigorous clapping came from the four young ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... 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 he ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler

... frightened barking cry of a deer comes to you from across the river. The insects are awake all night, and the little workman bird sits on a tree close by you and drives coffin nails without number. With the dawn, the tree beetles again raise their chorus; the birds sing and trill more sweetly than in the evening; the monkeys bark afresh as they leap through the branches; and the leaves of the forest glisten in the undried dew. Then, as the sun mounts, and the dew dries, the sounds of the jungle die down one by one, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... into his little garden, sloping down to the very brink of the Tweed, and embosomed amid natural hazel wood, the lingering remains of a once goodly forest, to see some favourite flower, or to hear him trill, with a skill and execution which would have done little dishonour to Picus himself, some simple native melody upon his Scotch flute. The in-door entertainment consisted of varied conversation, embracing the subjects of literature, politics, and theology, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... that this was not indeed a trap. Better to retreat now than to be taken like fish in a net. He crept out of his place, gave the chittering signal call of the fluff-ball, and heard Jil-Lee's answer in a cleverly mimicked trill of a ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... fast, ran by her side, keeping pace with her flying Indian pony. How beautiful and fresh the picture of her remained in his memory!—the soft white dress she wore, her black hair streaming over her shoulders, her dark eyes flashing delight, her merry laugh rivalling the trill of the blackbird which flew over their heads chattering for very joy. Before him lay the pretty brook with its rustic bridge reflecting itself in the clear water as in a mirror. That path along the bank led down to the willows where the big mossy stones lay in the stream and the silvery salmon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Zeno drank; on stools the pair, With Mahaud musing in the regal chair. The sound of separate leaf we do not note— And so their babble seemed to idly float, And leave no thought behind. Now and again Joss his guitar made trill with plaintive strain Or Tyrolean air; and lively tales they told Mingled with mirth all free, and frank, and bold. Said Mahaud: "Do you know how fortunate You are?" "Yes, we are young at any rate— Lovers half crazy—this is truth at least." "And more, for you know Latin like a priest, ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... 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

... I complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... she is convinced that now you think her perfect," interrupted the saucy girl, with a trill of laughter. Then growing suddenly as gentle and tender as she had been elfish before, she added sweetly, "And Robert, you are right; you have won a real treasure—a perfect darling—as nobody knows better than her ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry

... faces through the crack. Jo wickedly flung the door wide open. "Walk right out, ladies and gentlemen. See the conquering heroine comes," she sang in a voice outrageously shrill. During the trill on the hero, she bowed almost double right in the path of the approaching freshman. Maria Mitchell Kiewit stopped short, her eyes as round as the buttons on ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... in rich men's houses and I've been in jail, But when it's time for leavin', I jes hits the trail; I'm a human bird of passage, and the song I trill, Is, "Once you git the habit, why, ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various

... he'll equal women at paradox. What I mean is this, in our 'Women's Hotel,' We'll have no such thing as the 'Curfew Bell,' And no fixed hour for the cry, 'Out lights!' We will give free way to true 'Woman's Rights,' Which are to thump, strum, tap, twirl, trill, From morn till night at her own sweet will. That's why we cherish, despite male spleen, Typewriter, Piano, and Sewing-Machine! The 'woodpecker tapping' is, indeed, not in it With Emancipate Woman—no, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various

... leave it Sighing on the willow tree; Pass thy gentle fingers o'er it, And awake its melody; The streams tho' icy chains may bind them, Still will murmur back thy trill, And the roses wild, though blasted, On ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... draws 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 cries. Little by little ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... 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

... in the garden of the Square was uttering a long, low, chuckling trill. She ran to the window and peeped out. The bird was on a plane-tree, and, with throat uplifted, was letting through his yellow beak that delicious piece of self-expression. All things he seemed to praise—the sky, the sun, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... her 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 her; then she ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... 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 put up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... thou, MUNATIUS, whether 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 ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward

... Guy, 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 ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... reason for us to be careful then," retorted the elder lady, and Miss Roberta subsided with a sigh as she took her guitar from the wall and began in her gentle old quavering voice to trill out one of her ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... the R, by carrying the tip of the tongue to the top of the palate, so that being grazed by the air that comes out with force, it yields to it and comes back always to the same place, making a kind of trill: R. AR. ...
— The Middle Class Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere

... rush of winter's rain The dripping forests welter, The shepherd opes his door amain, And gives me food and shelter. I touch my chords, I trill my lay, The firelight glances o'er us, And wind and rain, in stormy play, Join in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... the pining lover[1]—it must have some personal purpose of its own. But, sadly enough, that purpose never seems to get fulfilled. Yet it is not down-hearted, and its Coo-oo! Coo-oo! keeps going, with now and then an ultra-fervent trill. What can it mean? ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty: Strange things I'll tell, which late befell ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson

... breathing, Nightingale's long trill, Silver moonlight and the rocking Of the dreaming rill; Nightly light and nightly shadow, Shadow's endless lace— Neath the moon's enchanted changes The Beloved's face. Blinking stars as flash of amber, Snowy clouds on-rush, Tears and happiness and ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... lyric about it which was one of the most admired in his first volume of verse; Charlotta the Fourth heard it and was blissfully sure it meant good luck for her adored Miss Shirley. The bird sang until the ceremony was ended and then it wound up with one mad little, glad little trill. Never had the old gray-green house among its enfolding orchards known a blither, merrier afternoon. All the old jests and quips that must have done duty at weddings since Eden were served up, and ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Miss Scarlett, ending with a fervid trill. Then she turned about, sitting with her feet very wide apart, and faced ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... 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

... all the lights went out, for the fire-flies fled in every direction; but in the darkness Twinkle thought she could still hear the drone of the big bass fiddle and the flute-like trill of the ladybugs. ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum

... answer her. Just before they had started on that thrilling adventure into the forest, which had ended with his carrying her in his arms, she had gone to the piano and had played for him. Now her fingers touched softly the same notes. A little humming trill came in her throat, and it seemed to David that she was deliberately recalling his thoughts to the things that had happened before the coming of St. Pierre. He had not lighted the lamp over the piano, and for a flash her dark eyes smiled at him ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood

... awful. I supposed he would be glad to go to sleep in a natural way after a busy day. No, indeed! He would not stay in box or basket, or anywhere but cradled close in my neck. There he wished to remain, twittering happily, giving now and then a sweet, little, tremulous trill, indicative of content, warmth, and drowsiness; if I dared to move ever so little, showing by a sharp scratch from his claws that he preferred absolute quiet. One night, when all worn out, I rose and put him in a hat ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... grove, little birds live at ease, I wish not to wander from you; I'll still dwell beneath the deep roar of your trees, For I know that my Joe will be true. The trill of the robin, the coo of the dove, Are charms that I'll never forego; But resting through life on the bosom of love, Will ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield

... impossible for him ever to look at Charlotte in just that fashion. He thought with a thrill of indignant pride that there was a maiden who would have the best of love as her right. Then sitting there he heard a quick tread and a trill of whistle as meaningless as that of a robin, and young Eastman himself came alongside. He ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... 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 whip-poor-will, ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... still 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 and mumbled ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various

... pledge thee, if we fast or dine, We yet shall loosen, line by line, Old ballads, and the blither trill Of our-time singers—for there will Be with us all the Muses nine When we ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley

... very large village, to be sure, the little cluster of brown chalets and the tiny pink-washed church beside the pine-wood; but to Kirl it was a whole world looking on and admiring. He blew his three notes louder with a more and more cheerful trill all down the street. At the cross-roads below the church the greatest caution had to be exercised to keep the frisky kids from going the wrong way, but it was worth the trouble. Only think how well it looked to drive ...
— Brave and True - Short stories for children by G. M. Fenn and Others • George Manville Fenn

... a song-sparrow above our heads gave one liquid trill, so inexpressibly sudden and delicious, that it seemed to set to music every atom of freshness and fragrance that Nature held; then the spell was broken, and the whole shore and lake were vocal with song. Joining in this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... the meadows and fill all the air with sweetness, They sing only in the present, and they sing because they must; They are wanton in their pureness, and in all their fine completeness, They trill out their lives forgotten to the silence ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... 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 ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett

... 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 ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... that, as times goes on, the parties will grow more and more alike—the strong becoming more docile and the weaker one more robust. Take time, love each other, court and be courted, and only the best results trill come ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long

... spring weather. Even Hannah's care-worn face was softened into contentment and enjoyment. As for Reuben's honest phiz, it was a sight to behold in its perfect satisfaction. Even the negro driver of the heavy wagon let his horses take their time as he raised his ear to catch some very delicate trill in a bird's song, or turned his head to inhale the perfume ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!—" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes—the fairy ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke

... so long as we're together," sang Patty with a little trill, as she danced about the room. Then she seated herself at the old, square piano, and began to sing ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... Hermit's song consists of a single plaintive note, and that the Veery's resembles that of the Wood-Thrush! These observations deserve to be preserved with that of the author of "Out-door Papers," who tells us the trill of the Hair-Bird (Fringilla socialis) is produced by the bird fluttering its wings upon its sides! The Hermit-Thrush may be easily identified by his color; his back being a clear olive-brown, becoming rufous ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... with a merry trill of laughter; and "Cobbler" Horn, far from being offended, shot back ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth

... greatest of pleasure," Fomishka said, "but what about the trill, Snandulia Samsonovna? After my verse there ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... back this morning. This is Miss Melville, whom I went to meet. She is going to marry Richard very soon." Marion did not, Ellen noticed with exasperation, make any adequate response to this generous little trill of greeting. The best she seemed able to do was to speak slowly, as if to disclaim any desire to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... Where opening flowers, refreshing odours fling, Cheerful he sits, and forms the banquet scene, In regal splendour on the crowded green; And as around he greets his valiant bands, Showers golden presents from his bounteous hands;[28] Voluptuous damsels trill the sportive lay, Whose sparkling glances beam celestial day; Fill'd with delight the heroes closer join, And quaff till midnight cups ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... that sound! the mavis! can it be? Once more! It is. High perched on yon bare tree, He starts the wondering winter with his trill; Or by that sweet sun westering o'er the hill Allured, or for he thinks melodious mirth Due to the holy season of Christ's birth.— And hark! as his clear fluting fills the air, Low broken notes and twitterings you may ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... The magic touches of a hand That seemed, beneath her strange control, To smooth the plumage of the soul And calm it, till, with folded wings, It half forgot its flutterings, And, nestled in her palm, did seem To trill a song that called ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley

... but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon that age could not overcome he ran and ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... began to play a noisy Strauss waltz, which started with such a mighty and rapid trill as made even Gedeonovsky start; in the very middle of the waltz, she abruptly changed into a mournful motif, and wound up with the aria from "Lucia": "Fra poco."... She had reflected that merry music was not compatible with her situation. The aria from "Lucia," with emphasis ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff

... smiled and took up his fiddle and his bow. His hands were still for a minute, and then the instrument began to sigh and trill. The sounds gathered in strength, soared high, then thinned and sank to no more than the whisper of a tune—and then Pat began to sing. This is part of what ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... 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 ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... the forest's changeful tongue That talketh all the day with me: I trill in every bobolink's song, And every brooklet bears along My greeting ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... 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 Complaining for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... 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, ..." ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... blow her 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

... sweat of roses in a still As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early East, Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets: Rank sweaty froth ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... doubtless, had a right to be insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window where Eugene was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a desire to see the student's face as by a wish to look out ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... Trill-ll! It was not a cheer, but a subdued, breathless gasp that rose from the two camps of fans as the opposing lines rushed at each other. Dick could not help a slight groan, for Adams, of Cobber, reached the pigskin first. ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock

... inland passages, the voyage was turned into a pleasure excursion. Animation of spring clothed the landscape on all sides in its greatest beauty; and our northern forest the voyagers found upon their return was not less charming than "tropic shade" of foreign climes. And the robin sang even a sweeter trill than ever before heard by the crew, for they listened to it now in ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes, And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats. The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores; The merry laughter on the night; the dip and plash of frolic oars,— These tell the tale. On hill and dale the cities ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a clarionet, And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, And utter its heart in ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers

... wanted to tell you for a long time, only I have not liked to. There are days when it makes me so restless that I cannot say my prayers, so I know the feeling must be wrong. Something in the quality of your voice stirs this feeling in me; your trill brings on this feeling worse than anything. You don't know what ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... you will be told that divine service is recommended whenever possible—in short, you are told that you must be good, and that if you are not there will be the deuce to pay. Then the captain will turn to 'Scully' and say, 'Pipe down,' whereupon 'Scully' and the other bosun's mates will blow a trill on their pipes, and all hands will ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday

... 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 ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 15, April 12, 1914 • Various

... beside the little rill That flows to larger river; We heard the mating mocking-birds trill, The robins piped upon the hill, And Cupid strung his little bow and filled his little quiver: Then she, we played, was little Jill, And I was Jack, ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe

... could repeat it. At the season of the year when there is no work or stir afoot except that of the plowman, this strong, sweet refrain rises like the voice of the breeze, to which the key it is sung in gives it some resemblance. Each phrase ends with a long trill, the final note of which is held with incredible strength of breath, and rises a quarter of a tone, sharping systematically. It is barbaric, but possesses an unspeakable charm, and anybody, once accustomed to hear it, cannot conceive of another song taking its place at the same hour and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand

... song of May! How every trill Makes hearts to thrill, And every note's Aleap in our throats. Ah! Sweet lay of love! Story so tender, Old and gray; Yet sing again Love's ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock

... early to the Iden homestead, a picturesque cottage across the river from Riverside Park. The only change Lane noted was a larger growth of trees and a fuller foliage. It was warm twilight. The frogs had begun to trill, sweet and melodious sound to Lane, striking melancholy chords of memory. Joshua Iden was walking on his lawn, his coat off, his gray head uncovered. Mrs. Iden sat on the low-roofed porch. Lane expected to see ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... avoid being the third person at this tryst, I decided to go for a walk and got up. But at that moment a nightingale in the wood suddenly uttered two low contralto notes. Half a minute later it gave a tiny high trill and then, having thus tried its voice, began singing. Savka jumped up ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear: Late, gazing down the steepy linn, That hems our little garden in, Low in its dark and narrow glen, 5 You scarce the rivulet might ken, So thick the tangled greenwood grew, So feeble trill'd the streamlet through: Now, murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen Through bush and brier, no longer green, 10 An angry brook, it sweeps the glade, Brawls over rock and wild cascade, And, foaming brown with double speed, Hurries its ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... a young rising moon Hung in the west as you leaned on the bar And spun a thread of some sweet April tune, And wished a wish and named the falling star. We heard a brook trill in the fields afar; The air wrapped round us that entrancing fold Of vanishing sweet stuff that mortal hold Can never grasp—the mist of dreams—as down The street we went ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... 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 seem ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... little reed-warblers twittering and chattering in amongst the strands which formed their waving home; and every now and then the little bearded tits made their appearance, but only to dart out of sight again in a moment. High over head sang the lark, "trill—trill—trill;" and the soft sweetness of the morning seemed to pervade everything. Now and then red and orange billed moor-hens would lead their dusky little broods from amongst the reeds, and after a short swim, lead them in again when they saw ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... the less, from Song's excess, Sings the blackbird late and early: Nor the bobolink's trill the less Laughs for very happiness, Gurgling through ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... 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 Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... song, quaint stornelli and ritornelli—songs of the people, full of wild and passionate beauty. In these Guido would often join her, his full barytone chiming in with her delicate and clear soprano as deliciously as the fall of a fountain with the trill of a bird. I can hear those two voices now; their united melody still rings mockingly in my ears; the heavy perfume of orange-blossom, mingled with myrtle, floats toward me on the air; the yellow moon burns round and full in the dense blue sky, like the King ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... Gretchen passed from one note to another, now high, now low, or strong or soft; a trill, a run. The violinist, of his own accord, began the jewel song from Faust. Gretchen did not know the words, but she carried the melody without mishap. And then, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls. This song she knew word for word, and ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath

... 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

... languisheth the primrose 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 your anguish, I'll burn, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher

... and 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 ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... him to subject his playing to the test of keenest analysis without detriment to his reputation. For clearness and limpidity of touch and unerring precision, for impetuosity of style, combined with dreamy delicacy, he has few rivals. The evenness and brilliancy of his trill are unequalled, the mechanical process required to produce it being lost to sight in the wonderful birdlike nature of the effect. In the playing of classical music, Mr. Gottschalk has to contend against his own individuality. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... the earth, stone dead!" While she did speak, The hunter breathless fell to earth, stone dead, As falls a tree-trunk blasted by the bolt. That ravisher destroyed, the lotus-eyed Fared forward, threading still the fearful wood, Lonely and dim, with trill of jhillikas[22] Resounding, and fierce noise of many beasts Laired in its shade, lions and leopards, deer, Close-hiding tigers, sullen bisons, wolves, And shaggy bears. Also the glades of it Were filled with fowl which crept, or flew, and cried. A home for savage men and murderers, Thick with ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... 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 ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... 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 for ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... continuing mighty pale all dinner and 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. Then to supper and so to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys



Words linked to "Trill" :   musical note, enounce, sound out, warble, pronounce, sing, articulate, articulation, quaver, enunciate, shake, tone



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