"Chirp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fire illuminated the whole chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth began to chirp! 166 ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... it that illuminated its fierce-looking paint and naturally stern lineaments with a bright gleam of human feeling, "Chingachgook heard the laugh of Wah-ta-Wah, and knew it from the laugh of the women of the Iroquois. It sounded in his ears, like the chirp of the wren." ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... of the Kansas and Nebraska prairies, although it runs somewhat higher on the staff. The siskins seen at Georgetown moved about in good-sized flocks, feeding awhile on weed-seeds on the sunny slopes, and then wheeling with a merry chirp up to the pine-clad sides of the mountains. As they were still in the gregarious frame at Georgetown, I concluded that they had not yet begun to mate and build their nests in that locality. Afterwards I paid not a little attention to them farther up in the mountains, and ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... have never known such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The neighbor's house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible. I remember the sensation it gave me, ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... them to satisfy their desire for each other's company. A similar conversation passes between the individuals of a flock of Chickens, when scattered over a farmyard; one, on finding itself alone, will chirp until it hears a response, when it seems immediately satisfied. The call-notes of the Chicadee are very lively, with a mixture of querulousness in their tone, that renders them the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... swiftly through the heat of the early afternoon. It was very silent up there. Now and then, a brilliant blue-jay would lilt from a stunted oak with the flute-like love-notes of spring; or a lonely little brown fellow would hop with a low chirp from one bush to another as though he had been lost up there for years and had grown quite hopeless about seeing his kind again. When there was a gap in the mountains, he could hear the querulous, senseless love-quarrel of flickers going on below him; passing a deep ravine, the note of ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... progress, with the chirp and whisper of their feet cheered the night as long as we watched and listened from the sun balcony ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... of marked interest to science in observing environmental effect upon the differentiation of species. One of these the natives call pupu kani oi or "shrill voiced snail," averring that a certain cricketlike chirp that rings through the stillness of the almost insectless valleys is the voice of this particular species. Emerson says that the name kahuli is applied to the land snail to describe the peculiar tilting motion as the snail crawls first to one side and then ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... red and orange and gold. The ponds and streams bear upon their bosoms leaves of all tints, from the deep maroon of the oak to the pale yellow of the chestnut. In the glens and nooks it is so still that the chirp of a solitary cricket is noticeable. The red berries of the dogwood and spice-bush and other shrubs shine in the sun like rubies and coral. The crows fly high above the earth, as they do only on such days, forms of ebony floating across the azure, and the buzzards look like ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... are ant-lions or caddis-flies. The curve of the fragment of wing also suggested its probable size when unbroken. It was perhaps two inches long. As there are little horny rings round the wing base like those which crickets have, on which they rub their legs and so "chirp," it is also quite likely that this insect of hoary antiquity did the same, and enlivened the silence of Devonian fern groves with a prehistoric hum. It is quite in keeping with modern ideas that in that age of fishes one of the most remarkable insects should have been a kind of ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... papers, and father said he was more comfortable than downstairs, as I did not mind his pipe, and Tom has hung my linnet there,' pointing to the window, 'and if you open the cage, miss, you will see him hop all over the bedclothes, and chirp in the ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Each least chirp that rings from every nest, Each least touch of flower-soft fingers pressing Aught that yearns and trembles to ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Nor, I deem, for me unmeet; [4] Here, for neither Babe nor [5] me, Other play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, 45 That with stir of feet and wings (In the sun or under shade, Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this orchard's narrow space, And this vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in bands 55 Travelled into distant lands; Others slunk to moor and wood, Far from human neighbourhood; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... people in the world. Wherefore, the people, that shall be born, that shall live to serve God in these happy days, shall see antichrist only in its ruins; they shall, like the sparrows, the little robins, and the wren, sit and sing, and chirp one to another, while their eyes behold this dead hawk. Here, shall they say, did once the lion dwell; and there once a dragon inhabited: here did they live that were the murderers of the saints; and there another that did use to set his throat against the heavens: but now in the places where ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... that I had undertaken what was no easy task, for he required feeding so early in a morning that I was obliged to take him and his bread crumbs into my bedroom, and jump up to feed him as soon as he began to chirp, which he did in very ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... that it became her better than all art could have made it. Then they started for a long stroll across the breezy common, yellow in places with upright spikes of small summer furze, and pink with wild pea-blossom. Bees buzzed, broom crackled, the chirp of the field cricket rang shrill from the sand-banks. Herminia's light foot tripped over the spongy turf. By the top of the furthest ridge, looking down on North Holmwood church, they sat side by side for a while on the close short grass, ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... Roger saw, emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... crept downstairs and out through the study window. It was just light; there was a smell of grass. 'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was mysteriously white out of doors, with nothing awake except the birds just beginning to chirp. 'I'll go down into the coppice,' he thought. He ran down through the fields, reached the pond just as the sun rose, and passed into the coppice. Bluebells carpeted the ground there; among the larch-trees ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... blossoms blackbirds meet, And robins pipe amid the cedars nigher. Thro' the still elms I hear the ferry's beat. The swallows chirp about the towering spire; The whole air pulses with its weight of sweet, Yet not quite satisfied ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... between his long legs, his antennae quivering, as if he were waiting for something to come and finish him. Tony made a warm nest for him in her hands; talked to him gayly and indulgently in Bohemian. Presently he began to sing for us—a thin, rusty little chirp. She held him close to her ear and laughed, but a moment afterward I saw there were tears in her eyes. She told me that in her village at home there was an old beggar woman who went about selling herbs and roots she had dug up in the forest. If you took her in ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... more fearsome like an' won't hop quite so near, The cricket's chirp is sadder, an' the sky ain't ha'f so clear; When ev'nin' comes, I set an' smoke tell my eyes begin to swim, An' things aroun' commence to look all blurred an' faint an' dim. Well, I guess I 'll have to own up 'at I 'm feelin' purty blue Sence mother's ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... finished their meal, and were still sitting, no one speaking, as they all felt somewhat tired, when Walter, hearing a whistle or chirp close behind him, turned his head and saw standing not far off a large bird of dark plumage,—or rather with feathers, for he saw no wings,—with a helmet-like protuberance at the top of its head resembling mother-of-pearl ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... suddenly, for she was choked by her sobs. The whole valley was deserted and silent in the dazzling light and the overwhelming heat, and only the grasshoppers uttered their shrill, continuous chirp among the sparse yellow grass on ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... "Bird of Society." When he is merry, he gaily sings, "Conk-quer-ree." When he is angry or frightened he screams, "Chock! Chock!" When he is flying or bathing he gives a sweet note which sounds like ee-u-u. He can chirp—chick, check, chuck, to his little ones as softly as any other bird. But only his best friends ever hear his sweetest tones, for the Blackbirds do not know how to be polite. They all talk at once. That is why most people think they only scream and chatter. Did ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... domestics hardly spoke above a whisper; and then we sat in the soft moonlight and looked on the sleeping scene before us. The summer sounds of rural life had long died away, and nothing but the untiring chirp of the tree-toad was to be heard. The melancholy monotony of the scene hushed Mary's spirit to a quiet she had not for a long time known, and at last she became conscious of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... berries in vodka. I poured myself out a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" . ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Spring comes laughing down the sky To see her buds all busy hatching; With tender green the woods are gay, And birds, as is their April way, Chirp merrily on the bough, and I Chirp, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... nest;— Heaven forgive me! Its merry architects so small Had scarcely finished their wee hall, That empty still and neat and fair Hung idly in the summer air. The mossy walls, the dainty door, Where Love should enter and explore, And Love sit caroling outside, And Love within chirp multiplied;— I took the wren's nest;— Heaven ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up its head, and out came the full blessedness of its song, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and wae, on yon snaw-cover'd thorn, Mournfu' and lane is the chirp o' the Robin, He looks through the storm, but nae shelter can see; Come, Robin, and join the sad concert wi' me. Oh, lang may I look o'er yon foam-crested billow, And Hope dies away like a storm-broken willow; Sweet Robin, the blossom again ye may see, But I'll ne'er ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... we lay laughing and whispering, as we waited for the signal from Sally. At last we heard a cricket chirp shrilly under the window, and flying up, saw a little figure below ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... in the morning Howard woke to hear the faint twittering of the birds begin in bush and ivy. It was at first just a fitful, drowsy chirp, a call "are you there? are you there?" until, when all the sparrows were in full cry, a thrush struck boldly in, like a solo marching out above a humming accompaniment of strings. That was a delicious hour, when the mind, still unsated of sleep, played softly with happy, homelike thoughts. ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... say, I'm sure, I shouldn't like to say, Why all the birds should chirp of you, Who live so far away. Robin and oriole sing to me From the leafy depths of our apple-tree, With trunk so gnarled and gray— But why your name should their burden be I ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... red fields of sarasson, hedged by long banks of earth, which were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover-scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of bees and chirp of birds. ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... sultry summer night, silent and still, not a leaf stirring, hardly so much as the chirp of an insect to be heard. The moon looked down from a cloudless sky upon green lawns and meadows, fields and forests clothed in richest verdure; gardens, where bloomed lovely flowers in the greatest variety and profusion, filling the air in their immediate ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... your little katydid; Just listen to my chirp of woe; And now I've made my little bid— You get it? Follow me? Right-O! If I could shoot like Eddie Poe, I guess that you'd be h-e-p, But here's the bet, now cop it, bo, You make an ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... dreamlike trail and pass; The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane That to our coming feet had been so plain, And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath, ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... the chickens, one and all, Crowd around her at her call! One chick, missing, peeps to say: "Chirp, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... feathers, and the fish has scales, overlapping each other as the slates on the roof of a house do, thus making a perfectly waterproof coat for its whole body; the bird has legs and wings, and the fish has neither; the bird can chirp and sing, while fishes generally make ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... examine the brain of a person who has grown up in an environment rich in stimuli to the eye, where nature, earth, and sky have presented a changing panorama of color and form to attract the eye; where all the sounds of nature, from the chirp of the insect to the roar of the waves and the murmur of the breeze, and from the softest tones of the voice to the mightiest sweep of the great orchestra, have challenged the ear; where many and varied odors and ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... the expression of a man that's fell down a hundred-foot prospect hole and been struck by lightning before he touched bottom. He grabbed aholt of the minister and swallered and swallered, unable to chirp. ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... walls. The night was interminably long, yet she prayed to hold back the dawn. What would another day bring forth? The blackness of her room seemed blacker for the sad, entering gray of morning light. She heard the chirp of awakening birds, and fancied she caught a faint clatter of hoofs. Then low, dull distant, throbbed a heavy gunshot. She had expected it, was waiting for it; nevertheless, an electric shock checked ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... is the most beautiful of all months. Then it is, that all nature seems to awaken from its winter slumbers. The grass springs up, the little birds sing and chirp, and display their beautiful plumage. The trees shoot forth their buds, the fruitful covering of future foliage. We no longer greet each other in the warmed room, but, "Good morning," is sweetly spoken from the open window, or among the bushes of the garden. We hunt flowers and ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... rule is the savanna sparrow, who sings habitually from the ground. But even he shares the common feeling, and stretches himself to his full height with an earnestness which is almost laughable, in view of the result; for his notes are hardly louder than a cricket's chirp. Probably he has fallen into this lowly habit from living in meadows and salt marshes, where bushes and trees are not readily to be come at; and it is worth noticing that, in the case of the skylark ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... dense underbrush into the forest proper. Here he walked through shaded groves of giant oaks. All around him was the chirp and bustle of unseen bird and animal life. Far in front of him was a large white sign nailed to a tree. Barrent reached it, and read: FORESTDALE NATIONAL PARK. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... Wise, pluck out their Eyes, To set forth a Book worth a Groat; We Mad-men are quicker, grow Learn'd with good Liquor, And Chirp a Merry note. Then be thou ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... chirp. Everybody knew that Grandfather Mole was the champion digger of Pleasant Valley. And if he couldn't answer Mrs. Robin's question, then ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened when this girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue on us. The night breeze whispered, but not the Bassett. A bird twittered, but not so much as a chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips—and mine, for that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together would be rather like twenty years ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... it, you mortals are little else; do you not chirp all over, Mohi? By my demi-god soul, were I not what I am, this wine would almost ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... floral calendar seemed at home in those meadow-lands of the world: the sunset was not more glorious than the gentle slopes that swept to our feet like a long wave of the sea, and then broke in a foam of flowers. Not only was the delicious day promise-crammed, but the night, loud with the chirp of the cricket and the cry of the sentinel owl, seemed the realization of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... the air and creep on every leaf and blade upon the ground. About noon all this is hushed. The hot rays of the sun beat perpendicularly down upon what seems a vast untenanted solitude, and not a single chirp breaks the death-like stillness of the great forest, with the solitary exception of the metallic note of the uruponga, or bell-bird, which seems to mount guard when all the rest of the world has gone to sleep. As the afternoon approaches they all wake up, refreshed by ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... black clouds lying right across the valley above his head, resting on the crags right and left. He felt not quite frightened, but very still; for everything was still. There was not a whisper of wind, nor a chirp of a bird to be heard; and next a few great drops of rain fell plop into the water, and one hit Tom on the nose, and made him pop ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... one by one, And sing and chirp, when he has done;— Then when I show him Robin dead, How ...
— The Tiny Story Book. • Anonymous
... see how I shall get through the winter without adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer necessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a foot thick. As the weather grew warmer it was not sensibly worn away by the ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... the Mistress's soft chirp. It had not reached his dulling ears;—the ears which, of old, had caught her faintest whisper. Yet, he would have followed her, as ever, without such summons, had not his nostrils suddenly become aware of ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... and terror, of pouring rain, flashing lightning, and pealing thunder. At last the tempest dies away, and in the trio and chorus, "Now cease the Conflicts," night comes on, with its song of the quail,—which Beethoven subsequently utilized in his Pastoral Symphony,—the chirp of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, the distant chime of the evening bells, and the invocation to sleep. Of the frog episode, ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread out before him. He was taking ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... like one that looks content, With quiet eyes unfaithful to the truth, And point thee forward to a distant light, Or seem to lift a burthen from thy heart And leave thee freer, till thou wake refresh'd, Then when the first low matin-chirp hath grown Full quire, and morning driv'n her plow of pearl [6] Far furrowing into light the mounded rack, Beyond the fair green field ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... the evening I sit near my poker and tongs, And I dream in the firelight's glow, And sometimes I quaver forgotten old songs That I listened to long ago. Then out of the cinders there cometh a chirp Like an echoing, answering cry,— Little we care for the outside world, My ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... nest was about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread out ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... of silence, resembling that which usually precedes the falling of the gallows drop. So profound, that the chirp of a tree cricket, even the rustling of a leaf, would seem a loud noise. So ominous, that the vultures perched upon the summit of the cliff crane out their ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... have a sheen. Captivating melodies (to prove to you the unavoidableness of self-satisfaction when you know that you have hit perfection), listen to them closely, have an inner pipe of that conceit almost ludicrous when you detect the chirp. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rushes, and over all the arch of blue summer sky. One or two carriages rolled along the distant road as they sat there; but otherwise; the stillness was unbroken save by the twitter of birds in the woods behind them, the chirp of sand-peeps or the scream of gulls on the beach, and the soft intermittent boom ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... bush and hedge and tree Joy, unrestrained and free, Breaks forth in melody, Twitter and chirp and song: Alive the festal air With gauze-winged creatures fair, That flicker everywhere, ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... and again; but no one minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea—ye like a cup o' tea—and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... burst out into a merry peal of laughter. "Truly," said she, "my mother had a rendezvous with her husband, and I have disturbed an enchanting marriage chirping. You have also listened to my married chirp, and know all my secrets. Well, what do you say, dear stepfather, to my mother having brought me so soon under the coif, and made her wild, foolish little Camilla the wife ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... nearer to that of the fair girl, and then continuing to polish his gun-barrel without looking her in the face—"if you knew how it grieves me to see you thus! You sit and droop like a bird upon the wintry branch, when I would fain see you lift your head and chirp, as in days gone by, now that summer begins to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... to-day. Hours passed. The night crept on towards morning, colder, stiller. Faint bars of gray fell on the stretch of hill-tops, broad and pallid. The shaggy peaks blanched whiter in it. You could hear from the road-bushes the chirp of a snow-bird, wakened by the tramp of his horse, or the flutter of its wings. Overhead, the stars disappeared, like flakes of fire going out; the sky came nearer, tinged with healthier blue. He could see the mountain where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... while the grass yet glittered with pearls of water, and as the birds began to chirp, Belton was led forth to die. Little did those birds know that they were chirping the funeral march of the world's noblest hero. Little did they dream that they were chanting ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... wrapped their heads in their cloaks and, fasting and unfed, lay down all that night and the day, awaiting a piteous death. But apart the maidens huddled together lamented beside the daughter of Aeetes. And as when, forsaken by their mother, unfledged birds that have fallen from a cleft in the rock chirp shrilly; or when by the banks of fair-flowing Pactolus, swans raise their song, and all around the dewy meadow echoes and the river's fair stream; so these maidens, laying in the dust their golden hair, all through the ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... and Skeleton Island, but saw—clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands—a great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea; the very largeness of the view increased ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... still continued calm, and I could hear any occasional sounds very distinctly. I heard what resembled the pattering of little feet, as of the rat running over the lid of an empty box; and once or twice I clearly distinguished the short, shrill cricket-like "chirp" that rats are wont to utter. I can think of no more disagreeable sound than the voice of a rat, and at that time it sounded doubly disagreeable. You may smile at my simple fears, but I could not help them. I could ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note. Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat: Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man; Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can, Chee, ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... staggering under tons of water, and the whir of the screw in mid-air. The captain glanced at the barometer, drew his body to its full height, reached for his storm-coat, slipped it on, and was about to swing back the door opening on the deck, when the chirp of a canary rang through the room. At the sound he turned quickly and walked back to where the ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... which really picturesque spectacle the boy almost cried with laughter—and old Bob and his wife, who came running from the kitchen, DID cry.) He had a third appellation for himself—"Just little Hamilton"; but this was only when the creaky voice could hardly chirp at all and the weazened face was drawn to one side with suffering. When he told us he was "Just little ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... in the sunlight. In contemplating this vast, overawing scene, I almost forgot my natural history, and wanted to feast my eyes for hours on its ever-changing beauty; but presently I was brought back to a consciousness of my special vocation by a sharp chirp. Was it a bird, or only one of those playful little chipmunks that abound in the Rockies? Directly there sounded out on the serene air another ringing chirp, this time overhead, and, to my delight and surprise, a little bird swung over the summit, then out over the edge of the cliff, and plunged ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... the Sparrow would chirp truculently, "you 'tend to your business, and let me 'tend to mine. Anybody would think that we were all to save ourselves in this house but you. As for my typing, it's funny if I can't save you something on ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... innocent and hapless Sparrow Why should my mould-board gie thee sorrow! This day thou'll chirp and mourn the morrow Wi' anxious breast; The plough has turned the mould'ring furrow Deep o'er ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... candle. All was silent: the grey light of the morning was now spreading over every object; the sun rose slowly, and Susan stood at the lattice window, looking through the small leaded, cross-barred panes at the splendid spectacle. A few birds began to chirp; but, as Susan was listening to them, her mother started in her sleep, and spoke unintelligibly. Susan hung up a white apron before the window to keep out the light, and just then she heard the sound of music at a distance in the village. ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... to do on Sunday afternoons, into the woods, where we can live for a while near the heart of nature, where no one can disturb or vex us, surrounded by pure air, the trees, the shrubbery, the flowers, and the sweet fragrance that springs from a hundred plants, enjoying the chirp of the crickets and the songs of the birds. This ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... We pursued our investigations with zeal and finally reached the alley. It had been raining heavily for almost a week, and the alley was a mass of black, sticky mud. Gazing anxiously over the fence, we heard a feeble chirp from a large gob of mud in the alley. It ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... spent the day at Lancaster and returned to Greenwald at seven-thirty. He started with springing step out the country road in the soft June twilight. It was a twilight pervaded by blended perfumes and the sleepy chirp of birds. David drew in deep breaths ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... with happy hearts our circuit keep, The gladness of the Earth is shown. She smileth, though the trickling raindrops weep Silently o'er her, one by one. She loves to feel the tears upon her cheek, Like a rich veil, with pearls inwove. Joyous she listens when the swallows chirp, And warbles to her mate, the dove. Blithe as a maiden midst the young green leaves, A wreath she'll wind, a fragrant treasure; All living things in graceful motion leap, As dancing to some merry measure. The ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... had he uttered the words when the cricket in the chimney corner chirped loudly, and his shrill notes seemed to say: "The king—the king." Rodolph could hardly believe his ears. How had the cricket learned to chirp these words? It was beyond all understanding. But still the cricket chirped, and still his musical monotone seemed to say, "The king—the king," until, with an angry frown, Rodolph strode from his house, leaving the child to hear the cricket's ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... she did not have to get up and go to the office was Una's chief impression at awakening, but she was not entirely obtuse to the morning, to the chirp of a robin, the cluck of the hens, the creak of a hay-wagon, and the sweet smell of cattle. When she arose she looked down a slope of fields so far away that they seemed smooth as a lawn. Solitary, majestic ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... noonday of July, There could not run the smallest breath of wind But all the quarter sounded like a wood; And in the chequered silence and above The hum of city cabs that sought the Bois, Suburban ashes shivered into song. A patter and a chatter and a chirp And a long dying hiss - it was as though Starched old brocaded dames through all the house Had trailed a strident skirt, or the whole sky Even in a wink ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the first time slept out-of-doors. Have you ever slept out-of-doors? The night is full of interesting little sounds that will not, at first, let you sleep—the rustle of little wild things in the hedges, the barking of dogs in distant farms, the chirp of crickets and the croaking of frogs. And in the morning the birds wake you, and you curl down warm among the hay and look up at the sky that is growing lighter and lighter, and breathe the chill, sweet air, and go to sleep again wondering how you have ever been able to lie of nights in one of ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... little plump dwelling in which it was at first enshrined by rushing out at the mouth. The shrieks of pigs were trifles to the yelling of that Eskimo child's impatience. The caterwauling of cats was as nothing to the growls of his disgust. The angry voice of the Polar bear was a mere chirp compared with the furious howling of his disappointment, and the barking of a mad walrus was music to the ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... woman's singing say Her voice was silvery:—to compare 't with gold Is sure a new conceit. But, sir, you praise My singing, who have not yet heard me sing." And he: "I take it that a woman's speech Is to her singing what a bird's low chirp Is to its singing: and if Philomel Chirp in the hearing of the woodman, he Knows 'tis the nightingale that chirps, and so Expects nought meaner than its sovereign song. Madam, 'tis thus your speaking-voice hath given Earnest of what your singing-voice will be; And therefore I entreat you ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... Grasshoppers chirp and crickets chir, The rich-tagged alders nod and pur, The kine bells drowse the distant pasture,— All nature waits for the ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... as they had been prematurely expanded by the heat of party politics. The strain of that song was of a higher mood. In those days, when American literature spoke with faint and feeble voice, like the chirp of half-awakened birds in the morning twilight, we need not say what cordial welcome was extended to a poem which embodied in blank verse worthy of anybody since Milton thoughts of the highest reach and noblest power, or what wonder was mingled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... damp to the really arid white walls, when the brothers led us down a wide staircase to the vaulted space beneath the basement, we came upon some hundreds of small bird-cages, containing each a miserable linnet, titmouse, or finch, condemned to chirp out its wretched existence in this airless underground region. In reply to our pitying exclamation, we were told that the bachelors' friend who occupied the corner apartment on the ground-floor was a great sportsman, and devotedly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna, hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo; and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird of the pastor's family, had paid a visit to the little bath-house down at the brook, and was now hurrying homeward, her heavy black hair confined in a delicate muslin hood, ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... at the open lattice and, as if borne upon this shaft of glory, came the mingled fragrance of herb and flower and ripening fruit with the blithe carolling of birds, a very paean of thanksgiving; the chirp of sparrows, the soft, rich notes of blackbirds, the warbling trill of thrushes, the far, faint song of larks high in the blue—it was all there, blent into one harmonious chorus of joy, a song that spoke of hope and a fair future to such as were blessed ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... garden became deserted. The light that had loitered in the corners crept upward to the roofs, cast its last rays upon the highest windowpanes, followed by the birds, the swallows, which saluted the close of day with a farewell chirp from the gutter where they were ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... wrote. He heard the scratching of his pen on the paper, and the patter of rain-drops outside, for the night was stormy. There was another sound in the shop, softer than fall of the rain, and finer than chirp of a cricket, or humming sound of a mosquito: the toys in the ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... strange solemnity about the Roman villa as soon as Marcus was left alone. All seemed to have grown painfully still. It was fancy, no doubt, but, to the boy, the birds had ceased to sing and chirp among the trees, the sounds from the farm were distant, and though more than once Marcus listened intently he did not hear Serge go to or from his room, nor his step anywhere about ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... are here; Warm on my cheek the sunshine burns, And fledged birds chirp, and far and near Floats the strange sweetness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... by the brook-side, I wandered by the mill,— I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still; There was no burr of grasshopper, No chirp of any bird, But the beating of my own heart Was all ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... [cats]; baa^, bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat^, croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [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^; ratatat [woodpecker]. Adj. crying &c v.; blatant, latrant^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... might chirp and chaffer, come and go For pleasure or profit, her men alive— My business was hardly with them, I trow, 35 But with empty cells of the human hive— With the chapter-room, the cloister-porch, The church's apsis, aisle, or nave, Its crypt, one ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... you forget to hear it. By night each noise is individual, and leaves its impress on the mind. Whoever remembers the quality of noises he hears by day in the city, however great the uproar? Who can forget the soothing chirp of crickets in the grass ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... to do the backache portage to-day, because, as we can't be in two places at once, I shan't be found at the store if anyone comes to see me special," he said, winking up at a bluebird which sat on a bough above his head. The bird gave a little chirp, whisked its tail, and then stayed motionless, as if much interested ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... red leaves on the tree tops swaying to and fro; groves picture-like, half stripped of foliage; the western breeze coming with sudden gusts, and the wail of the oriole still audible; the warm sun shining with genial rays, and the cicada also adding its chirp: structures, visible to the gaze at a distance in the South-east, soaring high on various sites and resting against the hills; three halls, visible near by on the North-west, stretching in one connected line, on the bank of the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... silence for a few minutes. The sun was sinking low in the western sky, the chirp of the birds was growing faint in the trees. She raised her colorless face ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... of all creation blest, Sweet insect, that delight'st to rest Upon the wild wood's leafy tops, To drink the dew that morning drops, And chirp thy song with such a glee, That happiest kings may envy thee. Whatever decks the velvet field, Whate'er the circling seasons yield, Whatever buds, whatever blows, For thee it buds, for thee it grows. Nor yet art thou the peasant's ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... year, then, yesterday, sweet child, Prattling thus happily! So fledglings wild, New-hatched in warmer nest 'neath sheltering bough, Chirp merrily to feel their feathers grow. Your mouth's a rose, Jeanne! In these volumes grand Whose pictures please you—while I trembling stand To see their big leaves tattered by your hand— Are noble lines; but ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... for the colour of their soft feathers is scarcely distinguishable from the ground which they have selected as a table for their morning meal. Nicasio is in advance of me, tracking a company of guinea-fowls, whose melodious chirp has caught his accustomed ear. They are not yet visible, but my sporting friend has halted behind a bush, and thrown away his white tell-tale panama. This means mischief. The dark-grey clothes and sun-burnt face of my companion blend naturally with the ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... and the air of a half-articulate murmur and awakening. How still the morning is! It is at such times that we discover what music there is in the souls of the little slate- colored snowbirds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. Through this medley of finer songs ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... is calm, and fresh, and still; Alone the chirp of flitting birds And talk of children on the hill, And bell of wandering kine, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... her utter inability to satisfy them. She knew, too, that if, by any dispensation, one were removed, five daughters of the horse-leech would still remain, with ravenous appetites unappeased. Yet the poor old bird was cheerful, and sometimes, after supper, would chirp quite merrily. Honneur au courage malheureux. Let us stand aside in the cloak-room, and salute her as she passes out with ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Shrill chirp the insects in the grass; All about the hoppers spring. While I my husband do not see, Sorrow must my bosom wring. O to meet him! O to greet him! Then my heart would ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... Remembrance! must thine iron hand Harrow my soul? why calls thy cruel power The fields of England to my exil'd eyes, The joys which once were mine? even now I see The lowly lovely dwelling! even now Behold the woodbine clasping its white walls And hear the fearless red-breasts chirp around To ask their morning meal:—for I was wont With friendly band to give their morning meal, Was wont to love their song, when lingering morn Streak'd o'er the chilly landskip the dim light, And thro' the open'd lattice hung my head To view the snow-drop's ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... still wait a little longer before setting out upon the adventure that had brought him to this isolated spot. He rested his head against the rock, and thought. He had been thinking for hours. Back in the thicket he heard the prowling of some small animal. There came the sleepy chirp of a bird and the rustling of tired wings settling for the night. A strange stillness hovered about him, and with it there came over him a loneliness that was chilling, a loneliness that made him homesick. It was a new and unpleasant sensation to Captain Plum. ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Between the low boundary of the garden and the hills swept one or two green meadows; Ruth looked into the grey darkness till she traced each separate wave of outline. Then she heard a little restless bird chirp out its wakefulness from a nest in the ivy round the walls of the house. But the mother-bird spread her soft feathers, and hushed it into silence. Presently, however, many little birds began to scent the coming dawn, and rustled among the leaves, and chirruped loud and clear. Just above the horizon, ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... as Mrs. Harrington does not travel to the city, even this charge will not hold against her. And yet I cannot help feeling that neither of the two really hears the catbird say "miaow" or the robin "cheer up," as they pretend to. At the first twitter or chirp from some invisible source Mrs. Harrington stops and with radiant face asks me whether I do not distinctly catch the "pit-pit-pity-me" of the meadow-lark. I say yes; but I really don't, and I don't believe she does. My explanation is that Mrs. Harrington is a woman and consequently ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky |
