"Warble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was fond of nature. He loved the mountains, the lakes, the rivers and the billowy sea. He loved to walk amid forest trees and watch the birds fly from bough to bough and warble their songs of love, but in all the wide, wide world, his home life was the most sacred object of his devotion, and when prosperity gave him the means to do so he found great delight in making it beautiful and pleasant. He was fond of ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... This strain, which is a continued trilling sound, is repeated with diminishing intervals, until it becomes almost incessant. But ere the hairbird has uttered many notes, a single robin begins to warble from a neighboring orchard, soon followed by others, increasing in numbers until, by the time the eastern sky is flushed with crimson, every male, robin in the country ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... We were interrupted by no one, except a short call now and then from Elizabeth Hoar, who can hardly be called an earthly inhabitant; and Mr. Emerson, whose face pictured the promised land (which we were then enjoying), and intruded no more than a sunset or a rich warble ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... that come and go; Nor can they oft recall familiar features, By absence touched, or clouded o'er with woe. Then rest content with sorrow: for there be Many that must that lesson learn with thee; And still thy wild notes warble cheerfully, Till, when thy tiny voice begins to fail, For thy lost bliss sing but one parting wail, Poor little sprite! ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... grandeur to that of the wave, stirring the soul with its mighty organ tones as it breaks upon the beach, or any so exquisitely fine as that of the murmuring brook which sings its song forever to every listener upon its banks, while above birds warble and the zephyr plays its divine accompaniment among the trees! We spend fortunes for picture-galleries, but what are the tiny painted copies compared to the great originals, the mountains, the glens, the streams and waterfalls, the ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream On summer eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out With ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... (that being the breadth required for coupling-joints of two and a half inches diameter of clear water-way), and levelled to the proper uniform thickness. The leather used is taken from hides of the very best description, perfectly free from flesh-cuts, warble-holes, or any other blemish, and stuffed as high as possible.[M] Not more than four breadths are taken from each hide, and none of the soft parts about the neck, shoulders, or belly are used. No piece of leather is less ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... trial apparently becomes one of voice and song. The contest is a most friendly and happy one; all is harmony and gayety. The females chirrup and twitter, and utter their confiding "PAISLEY" "PAISLEY," while the more gayly dressed males squeak and warble in the most delightful strain. The matches are apparently all made and published during these gatherings; everybody is in a happy frame of mind; there is no jealousy, and no rivalry but to see ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... began in her own clear, sweet voice. Hatty quickly followed, and Marcus united with her in trembling tones, with sober earnestness. Meg, with her childlike warble, and even little Harry, felt that he wanted to be like Jesus, and tried to lisp in "sweet accord" his Saviour's name, blending his baby notes with those that fell from ...
— Hatty and Marcus - or, First Steps in the Better Path • Aunt Friendly
... throats, let their wings droop, peck at one another, and in fact behave as exactly as they will next spring when fully grown. Young linnets also begin to sing before losing their youthful plumage, learn to sing well during the moulting season, and often continue to warble right on into the winter; in a mild winter young linnets will sing just as well as old ones. The young woodlark begins to sing as soon as its first moulting is nearly over, and not only does this when perching, but flies aloft like the adult bird in the ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... poet, fair Canada's sons. To live his strange life, and to warble his songs, To follow each current of thought as it runs, And to sing of your victories, glories ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... He stopped still and made no sound. A lovely musical voice, a young woman's voice, grave and sweet, was heard. Christophe pricked his ears. As she went on with her words he turned again, keenly interested to see what bird could warble so. He saw Ophelia. In truth she was nothing like the Ophelia of Shakespeare. She was a beautiful girl, tall, big and fine like a young fresh statue—Electra or Cassandra. She was brimming with life. In spite of her efforts to keep within her part, the force of youth and joy that ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are frequent violets found; The robin loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... curious chanters of the wood That warble forth dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what's your praise When Philomel ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... but at which my mind had to conceal a smile and turn its consciousness quickly elsewhere, to prevent an obtrusive reality from dimming this last addition to the picture. The gentle, unmistakable, velvet warble of a bluebird came over the hillside, again and again; and so completely absorbed and lulled was I by the gradual obsession of being in the midst of a northern scene, that the sound caused not the slightest excitement, even internally ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... other special quality. No writer on birds has grown enthusiastic on the subject, and Bradford Torrey alone among them does it scant justice, when he says this Vireo "is admirably named; there is no one of our birds that can more properly be said to warble. He keeps further from the ground than the others, and shows a strong preference for the elms of village streets, out of which his delicious music drops upon the ears of all passers underneath. How many of them hear it and thank the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Colour Photography, Vol II. No. 4, October, 1897 • Various
... hear the song of the shrike. He is not classed with singing birds, and is not, I think, usually credited with being musical. But Thoreau speaks of his song, and others mention it. John Burroughs tells of a shrike singing in his vicinity in winter, "a crude broken warble,"—"saluting the sun as a robin might have done." Winter, indeed, seems to be his chosen time for singing, and an ornithologist in St. Albans says that in that season he sings by the hour in the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... little birds! how fond they play! Do not disturb their sport; But let them warble forth their songs, Till winter ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... face alight. There was nothing visible; but a low, continuous warble, interspersed with a sort of liquid rattle, struck the ear. Taking a bunch of millet stalks from her basket, she directed Thor while he tied them to the bough of a birch that trailed its lower branches to the snow. When they ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... herself in the soiree kettle Out of her Ma's way, wise, wee maid! Wan was her lip as the lily's petal, Sad was the smile that over it played. Why doth she warble not? Is she afraid Of the hound that howls, or the moaning mole? Can it be on an errand she hath delayed? Hush thee, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... a delightful spring: the birds warble, but you do not understand their song? Well, hear ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... gay-plumaged birds of all sorts began to warble in the trees, and with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion of liquid pearls; in which dulcet moisture bathed, the plants, too, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... that is for, and the attendant steer says they are all fond of music, and asks if he would not like to near some of the cattle play. He says he would, and the steer calls out a white cow who is sketching, and asks her to warble a few notes. The cow seats herself on her haunches on the piano stool, after saying she has such a cold she can't sing, and, besides, has left her notes at home in the pasture. Turning over a few leaves with her forward hoof, she finds something familiar, and proceeds to walk ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... place is in the shadowy aisle and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the shower: in the other no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals in through high and dusky windows; and the damps of the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... near him might have made one fear he was about to cleave the already cracked head of the diplomatist Not so! It was only to offer wine to his pretty neighbour, who did not hear him, being absorbed by a semi-whispered conversation in a soft and lively foreign warble with two young men seated next to her. She bent to them, and grew animated. Little frizzles of hair were seen shining in the light against a dainty, transparent, rosy ear... Polish, Russian, Norwegian?.. from the North certainly; ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... out, full and strong. The winter birds report all present but there are a number of new voices, especially the warble of the robin, the tremulous, confiding "sol-si, sol-si" of the bluebird and the clear call of the phoebe. The robins are thick down in the birch swamps, on the islands among the last year's knot-weed. You may tell them at ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... or four times, and then another and another, clear and sweet, and yet defiant—for the great 'stormcock' loves to sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as boldly as he faces hawk and crow—down to the delicate warble of the wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank, where he has huddled through the frost with wife and children, all folded in each other's arms like human beings, for the sake of warmth,—which, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Warble on, ye feathered songsters, Lift your praises loud and high, Merry lark, and thrush, and blackbird, In the grove and in the sky Make your music, shame our dumbness, Till we ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... from the doorway picking him out from the surrounding gloom, he seemed to bear with him a mystic radiance. The young man knelt instinctively and pressed his forehead to the ground; while the voice of the priest, now grown tender and melodious, seemed to warble far above him like a voice from heaven. An angel stood in the place of ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... rose and swelled and vibrated in the still November air; while in between the pauses came the warble of birds, the scream of the jay, the hoarse call of hawk and eagle, going on with their forest ways all unmindful of the new era which had been ushered ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... walked on down the muddy road, avoiding the puddles which the sun turned into pools of liquid flame. He heard the catbirds mewing in the alders; he heard the evening carol of the robin—that sweet, sleepy, thrushlike warble which always promises a melody that never follows; he picked a spray of rain-drenched hemlock as he passed, crushing it in his firm, pale fingers to inhale the fragrance. Now in the glowing evening the bull-bats ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... must sing to you. Well, it will be better than the love-making." Then in a very sweet voice she began to warble amorous Moorish ditties that she accompanied upon the lute, whilst Peter, who was weary in body and disturbed in mind, played a lover's part to the best of his ability, and ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... blood leaping joyously in his veins, felt like singing, and so he began to warble a "fighting song," over and over inviting his enemies to ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... her list of knights. But I intend to warble about the beauty of another lady! and the mad fool who would bring her misfortune. I confess to thee, Madonna, that I'm afraid! What shall I do? Give me your advice. Shall ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, trill, tweet, pipe, whistle [small birds]; hum [insects, hummingbird]; buzz [flying insects, bugs]; hiss [snakes, geese]; blatter[obs3]; ratatat [woodpecker]. Adj. crying &c. v.; blatant, latrant[obs3], remugient[obs3], mugient[obs3]; deep-mouthed, full-mouthed; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... its crevices with flowers, Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze, And teach the little birds to build their nests And warble in its chambers.[438] ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... the varied warble of other frogs. The little polliwogs had all been put to bed; and now, came stealing on, the season for silent thoughts. Always anxious to improve her mind, Miss Frog gazed about her to find a subject on which to fasten ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... are about us that hear and see, Who may tell to the ghost of my noble sires Of a damned blot on our pedigree." And the baron frowned with darkened brow, And by the bones of his fathers swore That from that night this minstrel theou, To his daughter would warble his love ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... them, although stony, worked-out, and almost worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes, these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through which man may dream in Nature's lap, all regardless of the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... here, With the flowers thou dost appear; Yes, sweet little Whippowil, Thou art singing by the rill; Where the silver moonbeam plays Thou dost chant thy hymn of praise; Thy shrill voice I love to hear, And I'd have thee warble near. Come, sweet bird, the moonlight shines Through the verdant row of pines, Standing by our cottage door, Come, where thou hast sang before, When I heard thy thrilling note On the twilight breezes float, Ming'ling with the cheerful ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... share. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, 'du Himmel!' Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument. Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult passages; and I certainly have not practiced; and yet ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... summer residences, and have no time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, operas, symphonies, and waltzes. Anxious questions are asked; grave subjects are settled in quick and animated debate; and only by occasional accident, as from pure ecstasy, does a rich warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound through the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as busy as their voices; they are all a constant flutter and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top ...
— Buds and Bird Voices (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the rain has pattered and murmured, have I heard the notes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher has pursued his game within a few feet of my window, darting with a low, complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment between the showers, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... they are such as for immemorial times have spired from the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night after night forever the stars, and age ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and The Kniqht of Snowdon] happens to find the notes, or some lark teaches Stephens [Catherine (1794-1882): a vocalist and actress who created Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro, and various parts in adaptation of Scott.] to warble the air—we will risk our credit, and the taste of the Lady of the Lute, by preserving the verses, simple and even ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... garden lawn comes, soft and clear, The robin's warble from the leafless spray, The low sweet Angelus of the dying ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... birds, that warble to the morning sky, O birds that warble as the day goes by, Sing sweetly: twice my love ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Lays, And learn to chaunt a Goddess Praise; Ye Wood-Nymphs let your Voices be, Employ'd to serve her Deity: And warble forth, ye Virgins Nine, Some Musick to ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... earliest of ye Year By hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found; The Red-breast loves to build & warble there, And little Footsteps lightly print ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... past, and the sky O'erhead is both mild and serene, Save where a few drops from on high, Like gems, twinkle over the green: And glowing fair, in the black north, The rainbow o'erarches the cloud; The sun in his glory comes forth, And larks sweetly warble aloud. ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... undergrowth is so dense as to be impenetrable; but the heads are all carefully trimmed, the first time we have seen such industry in Midian. The shade attracts vipers, chiefly the Echis: and I was startled by hearing the gay warble of the Bulbul—a ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... opened the windows, and there came in a spicy breath from the woods, together with the wild warble of a wood-thrush. It was so wild and sweet, they both were still to listen. The notes almost broke Diana's heart, but ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... that's my warble I never heard it before! It's a marvelous atmosphere that makes a rag time tune sound like a nightingale's music. If 'Forty-niner' would join it——Hello! what's ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... China has not disdained to warble harmonious numbers in praise of her favorite beverage. There is a celebrated ballad on tea-picking, in thirty stanzas, sung by a young woman who goes from home early in the day to work, and lightens her labors with song. I give a few of the verses, distinctly informing the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... to the article journal—the devil! that's a horse of another color. Holy saints! how one has to warble before you can teach these bumpkins a new tune. I have only made sixty-two 'Movements': exactly a hundred less for the whole trip than the shawls in one town. Those republican rogues! they won't subscribe. They ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... finding jobs faster than invention can take them away—is not defeatism. To warble easy platitudes that if we would only go back to ways that have failed, everything would ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... beautiful song of the "Krasneya Sarafan," which Sarsha began at once to warble. The characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl voices is a peculiarly delicate metallic tone,—like that of the two silver bells of the Tower of Ivan Velikoi when heard from afar,—yet always marked with fineness and strength. This is sometimes startling in the wilder ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... though. He roped a puma up on th' Sacramentos, an' didn't punch no more fer three weeks. Well, here comes my pardner an' I reckons I'll amble right along. If yu needs any referee or a side pardner in any ruction yu has only got to warble ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... left her, he gave her a beautiful silver wand, and on the wand were perched seven living larks. They would warble to the Princess Jean when Hynde Horn was no longer near to sing to her, as had been his wont, in his ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned Sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, Warble ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... first bars of his song. Instantly, almost as if it had been a signal, a great tit-mouse sang out, "Tzur ping-ping! tzur ping-ping!" in metallic, ringing notes; a thrush struck in with his brassy, clarion challenge, thrush after thrush taking it up, till, with the clear warble of robin and higher, squeaking notes of hedge-sparrow and wren joining in, the wonderful first bars of the Dawn Hymn of the birds rolled away over the fields to the faraway ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... Wisdom in her own stronghold. Now the noon has pass'd the full, Yet sure you deem swift Time has made a halt, Tardy as you are to pull Old Bibulus' wine-jar from its sleepy vault. I will take my turn and sing Neptune and Nereus' train with locks of green; You shall warble to the string Latona and her Cynthia's arrowy sheen. Hers our latest song, who sways Cnidos and Cyclads, and to Paphos goes With her swans, on holydays; Night too shall claim ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... streams that smoothly flow; Ye vernal airs that softly blow; Ye plains, by blooming spring arrayed; Ye birds that warble through the shade. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... lodestar to enthusiastic undergraduates; he is the joy of sober common-rooms. I wish with all my heart that the convenances of life permitted Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms, dim with tobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the accompaniment of Perry's cracked piano, to take her place among the casual company. But as Egeria cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, they must respect each other from a distance, and do ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... wings, over the heads of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls, unconsciously, ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... lives in the woodland. The beasts of the earth rejoice, and in the branches of the trees the winged creatures warble, each to his mate. My well-beloved alone turns her steps away from me, and under the shadow of my roof ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... Though late when we started, the scent of the air Was like GATTIE'S rose-water, and bright here and there On the grass an odd dew-drop was glittering yet, Like my aunt's diamond pin on her green tabinet! And the birds seemed to warble, as blest on the boughs, As if EACH a plumed CALICOT had for her spouse, And the grapes were all blushing and kissing in rows, And—in short, need I tell you, wherever one goes With the creature one loves, 'tis all couleur de rose; ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... find, The force of magic is to music joined; Where sounding strings and artful voices fail, The charming rod and muttered spells prevail. Let sage Urganda wave the circling wand On barren mountains, or a waste of sand, 10 The desert smiles; the woods begin to grow, The birds to warble, and the springs to flow. The same dull sights in the same landscape mixed, Scenes of still life, and points for ever fixed, A tedious pleasure on the mind bestow, And pall the sense with one continued show; But as our two magicians try their ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... from the established rule which proclaimed it an Elijah season, and had chosen to give St. Paul, that night. Thayer liked the oratorio. It seemed to him more original, more inspired, infinitely more human than the other. Moreover, it would be restful to keep silent and let the tenor warble himself to a lingering death. Even fiery chariots become monotonous in time, and an indignant mob affords a welcome variety. He had not heard the tenor since they had sung together in Berlin, two years before, and he was looking forward ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... or sang for hours, as he fished the stream, its unvarying, but scarcely monotonous little strain; the cedar-bird, with its smooth brown coast of Quaker simplicity, and speech as brief and simple as Quaker yea or nay; the winter-wren sending out his strange, lovely, liquid warble from the high, rocky side of Cannon Mountain; the bluebird of the early spring, so welcome to the winter-weary dwellers in that land of ice ...
— Fishin' Jimmy • Annie Trumbull Slosson
... poet mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the mention ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... lamenting Philomel had ended The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow, And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow: But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, And therefore still in night would ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the "assembly." The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms; it had turned ghastly pale. Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men falling into line; the voices ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... long-delaying love-affair culminates as the stars come out and the perfumed wind casts down great shadows from the swinging branches overhead, while indulgent duennas gossip on, oblivious of dew; and at midnight the mocking-birds begin to bubble and warble a wild sweet melody everywhere throughout the dark and listening city. For one brief month, you see, it is politics and power set down in Paradise—let only the envious say as strangely out of place ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... song," said Holmes. "How often have I heard it in days gone by. It was a favorite ditty of the late lamented Professor Moriarty. Colonel Sebastian Moran has also been known to warble it. And yet I live and keep bees upon ...
— His Last Bow - An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the remarkable variations of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in for, something ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... sat among his heirlooms, laboriously disengaging himself from his kilt. Fitfully throughout this process he would warble snatches of an air ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... loose Luxury's enchanting smile Shall lure my steps to some romantic dale, Where Mirth's light freaks the unheeded hours beguile, And airs of rapture warble in the gale. ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... pleasanter place; a delicious perfume of aloes wood and pastilles came from the open windows and mingled with the scent of the rose water which steamed up from the hot pavement. Within the palace he heard some music, as of many instruments cunningly played, and the melodious warble of nightingales and other birds, and by this, and the appetising smell of many dainty dishes of which he presently became aware, he judged that feasting and merry making were going on. He wondered who lived in this magnificent ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... princess reached home, she placed the cage in the garden; and the bird no sooner began to warble than he was surrounded by nightingales, chaffinches, larks, linnets, goldfinches, and every species of birds of the country. And the branch of the singing tree was no sooner set in the midst of the parterre, a little distance from the house, than it took root, and in a short time became ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... real music lessons, and taught him how to whistle and how to warble and trill. "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" intoned the king. "Coo Cher! Coo Cher!" imitated the Cardinal. These songs were only studied repetitions, but there was a depth and volume in his voice that gave promise of future greatness, when age should have ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sprinter. The captain of the track team 'll be on the lookout for you when you get to Plato. Course you're going to go there. The U. of Minn. is too big.... You'll do something for old Plato. Wish I could. But all I can do is warble like a darn' dicky-bird. Have a cigarette?... They're just starting to dance. Come on, old ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... we can rent the scenery. Lots of fellers do that, and nobody the wiser. I don't mean open-face coats, neither. Just some good clothes that have got class will do fine. And we can git a shave there, and go to the Frolic and have some regular chow, bo, and listen to the tra-la-la girlies warble whilst we eat. Come on. Be a regular guy ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... began to weary of himself. Seeing a deer he drew an arrow and stealing silently to the game was just about to shoot, when despite himself the wild, unearthly sound broke forth like a demon's warble. The deer bounded away, and the young man cursed! And when he reached Old Town, half dead with hanger, he was worth little to make laughter, though the honest Indians at first did not fail to do so, and thereby somewhat cheered his ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... seasons ago I feared the tribe of bluebirds were on the verge of extinction from the enormous number of them that perished from cold and hunger in the South in the winter of '94. For two summers not a blue wing, not a blue warble. I seemed to miss something kindred and precious from my environment — the visible embodiment of the tender sky and the wistful soil. What a loss, I said, to the coming generations of dwellers in the country — no bluebird in the spring! What will the farm-boy date from? But the fear ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... these sad strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... gun was at one time a part of the armament of a British vessel. The vessel becoming disabled, the gun was then mounted on wheels and placed on a bluff at Ticonderoga, where it was captured by the Americans. Right glad we were that the place knows no harsher sound than the soft, melodious warble of the bluebird and cherry carol of the robin. We thought how glorious the time when all monuments may be not merely grim reminders of war, but give shelter to the "color- bearer of the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... audience. Among the early pupils was a child of twelve, whose disposition was so gentle that she received the name of Agnes, and whose ear was naturally so attuned to all sweet sounds, that she was considered capable of being taught to accompany her own warble on the said wonderful instrument. When her parents removed her in due time from school, still she sang God's praises among the echoes of the woods— not only sang herself, but taught to others the hymns she ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... a soft, agreeable, and often repeated warble, uttered with opening and quivering wings. In his courtship he uses the tenderest expressions, and caresses his mate by sitting close by her, and singing his most endearing warblings. If a rival appears, he attacks him with fury, and having driven him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... lest they turn and sting you. All do not, like the fabled phoenix, warble sweet melodies in their agony; sometimes they spit venom—venom you must breathe whether you will or no, for you cannot seal their mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. You can lock the door ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood-dove greeted her with its first morning warble ... and where she vanished, the milk-white sky ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"—a slightly mixed reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and romantic material which communicates to the Middle Ages so much ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose them oft, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... veteran, and he broke into another verse of the interminable song—one of the series that cowboys love to warble. ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... Glad hearts that warble songs divine, Sweet singers of a mourning race, The ages long your brows shall grace With crowns where bays and laurels twine! For man the grandest garland brings, To bless the tender lives that tell, And with their mystic music swell, ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... Now his hoary head draws near; Winds are blowing, winds are blowing; All around looks cold and drear. Hope of spring must now support us; Winter's reign will pass away; Flowers will bloom, and birds will warble, Making glad the ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... can fly In the bright blue sky, They'll warble a song to me; And then if I'm sad It will make me glad To think they are happy ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... derived from Italy. The nightingales of English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in the South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native wood-notes in a tongue which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... merry nightingale, That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates, With fast thick warble, his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... death-hymn took the soul Of that waste place with joy Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear The warble was low, and full, and clear; And floating about the under-sky, Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear; But anon her awful jubilant voice, With a music strange and manifold, Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold; As when a mighty people ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... on the bed with the artless freedom of an animal, the yearning of a plant for the sun, the airy motion of a branch waltzing to the breeze. As she unbuttoned the wristbands of her sleeves, she began to sing, not in the pitch that won her the applause of an audience at the Fenice, but in a warble tender with emotion. Her song was a zephyr carrying the caresses of her love ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... rude winter's crust of rime Milder spring can soften; Ere to greet the blither time Robins warble often; O'er the undulating wild, Rising like a hardy child, There the Mayflower sweet, unseen, Spreads its leaves ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... a call upon the housetop, an answer from the plain, There's a warble in the sunshine, a twitter in the rain. And through my heart, at sound of these, There comes a nameless thrill, As sweet as odor to the rose, Or verdure to the hill; And all the joyous mornings My heart pours forth this strain: ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... left to the stillness of her darkened room, the blinds idly flapping to and fro in the soft evening breeze, and letting in the rustling sound of the branches which waved close to her window, and the thrush's gurgling warble, and the distant hum ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... with the bodies of natives, every one of whom was testifying the soundness of his repose by notes both loud and deep. Having selected the only spot where there was room even to sit down, I began, in a somewhat high key, to warble a lively strain calculated to cheer the drooping spirits of such of my neighbours as had that evening undergone the pang of parting from their friends. This proceeding soon had the effect of drawing all eyes upon me, and, indeed, not a few of the tongues also; for ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... cannot make a living in Paris, the modern home of art. He is altogether and irretrievably bad—despite the harmony in which his soul is steeped! Think of a hawk outwarbling a nightingale—of a demon flooding the world with melody most divine! We may now expect Mephistopheles to warble "Nearer My God to Thee" between the acts! Trilby can sing no more than a burro. Like the useful animal, she has plenty of voice, and, like him, she can knock the horns off the moon with it or send it on a hot chase after the receding ghost of Hamlet's ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... powerful quick if we don't grab it while it's passin'; it's a good long name, and what if it does make a chap sling the muscles of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it'll make him think well of his town, which I prophesy is going to be the emporium ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... of thy transport O'erpowers each dying tone! Thou canst not warble a measure That is not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... Red awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... singer in England, namely, the robin,—the original robin redbreast,—a slight, quick, active bird with an orange front and an olive back, and a bright, musical warble that I caught by every garden, lane, and hedge-row. It suggests our bluebird, and has similar habits and manners, though it is ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... pears, and the grape that vies with the purple, with which he may recompense thee, O Priapus, and thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... crows loud! And without, all ghastly and ill, Like a man uplift in his shroud, The white white morn is propped on the hill; And adown from the eaves, pointed and chill, The icicles 'gin to glitter; And the birds with a warble short and shrill, Pass by the chamber-window still— With a quick uneasy twitter. Let me pump warm blood, for the cold is bitter; And wearily, wearily, one by one, Men ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... music, how is it that there is still such a degree of uniformity, so that, as we have said, every species may be recognized by its notes? Why does every red-eyed vireo sing in one way, and every white-eyed vireo in another? Who teaches the young chipper to trill, and the young linnet to warble? In short, how do birds come by their music? Is it all a matter of instinct, inherited habit, or do they learn it? The answer appears to be that birds sing as children talk, by simple imitation. Nobody imagines that the infant is born with ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... Steve, "but they're down there in the Square now stackin' up drive impedimenta and such, red banners, and so forth, tuning up to warble the hymn to free Russia. Hurry if you want to ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... outflow of another fountain to enrich a part of the plain. It was made good for the cultivation of a large tract; although very wild and disorderly cultivation. As we went, every spot within sight was full of interest; rich with associations; the air was warm but pleasant; the warble of the orange-winged blackbird - I don't know if I ought to call it a warble; it was a very fine and strong note, or whistle, - sounding from the rocks as we went by, thrilled me with a wild reminder of all that had once been busy life there, where now the ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... hearty praise of the singer, and we all did the same; all save Junker Henning, who had not failed to mark that Herdegen had striven to out-do his modest warble, and likewise the ardent eyes he turned on the lady of his choice. Hence he moved not. Ann clapped her hands but lightly, sat looking into her lap, and for some time could say not a word; indeed, if she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... them, are almost ludicrously wanting in grace of movement. We cannot expect in a modern poet the thrush-like improvisation, the impulsively bewitching cadences, that charm us in our Elizabethan drama and whose last warble died with Herrick; but Shelley, Tennyson, and Browning have shown that the simple pathos of their music was not irrecoverable, even if the artless poignancy of their phrase be gone beyond recall. We feel this lack in Wordsworth all the more keenly ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... from the glass Trickles the sand, and as the shadow long Creeps on the dial, so there follow now The mountain cock, the blackbird and the thrush, And none disturbs the other as by day, Nor coaxes him to warble ere his time. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... stone posts of the gate-way, and clustered along the homely country stone wall. June blossomed in the yellow barberry by the road-side, and in the bright rhodora and the pale orchis in the dark woods. June sang in the whistle of the robin swinging on the elm and the cherry, and the gushing warble of the bobolink tumbling, and darting, and fluttering in the warm meadow. June twinkled in the keen brightness of the fresh green of leaves, and swelled in the fruit buds. June clucked and crowed in the cocks and hens that stepped about the yard, followed by the multitudinous ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... air: They sow not, neither do they reap; Yet kings have not more healthful fare, Nor rest in calmer, sweeter sleep. They have no barns nor hoarded grain, Yet all day long a soft, sweet strain They warble forth from forest tree; Ever happy and ever free, Teaching a lesson dear to me. So free from care, O sylvan band; Fed by a heavenly Father's hand. Your freedom, O ye fowls of heaven, New courage to my soul hath given; I ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... like a bump on a log, trying to screw my courage up to ask the blear eyed, red-nosed Apollo for a job. Some hack voiced old chromo was trying to warble "Do they miss me at home," and mentally I thought "if he had ever sung like that when he was at home they were probably glad he had left." The scene was sickening and disgusting to me, but empty stomachs stand not ...
— Danger Signals • John A. Hill and Jasper Ewing Brady |
