"Melody" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was something doing. It was a Welsh rhapsodie that he was playing. It was all there—the mountains and the rivers, and the towering cliffs with glimpses of the sea where waves foam on the rocks, and sea-fowl wheel and scream in the wind, and then a bit of homely melody as the country folk drive home in the moonlight, singing as only the Welsh can sing, the songs of the heart; songs of love and home, songs of death and sorrowing, that stab with sudden sweetness. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... others, which were produced on several different keys maybe, according to the mood of the singers. And as every girl wanted to sing her favorite song, there were sometimes various compositions being produced in different quarters of the big stage, till no one particular melody could be said to have the right of way. And Miss Salisbury sat in the midst of the babel, and smiled as much as her anxiety would allow, at the merriment. And as it was in this stage, so the other stages were counterparts. And the gay tunes and merry laughter floated back ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... Centaur, regarded by the ancients as one of the inventors of medicine, botany, and chirurgery, who, when eighty-eight years of age, formed the constellations for the use of the Argonauts; Linus, the preceptor of Hercules, who added a string to the lyre, and is said to be the inventor of rhythm and melody; Orpheus, who also extended the scale of the lyre, and was the inventor and propagator of many arts and doctrines among the Greeks; and Musus, the priest of Ceres, are all remembered as musicians, as well as poets, historians, and philosophers; characters which, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... he officiated in the canon of the mass, which continued above three hours: the Gregorian chant [70] has preserved the vocal and instrumental music of the theatre, and the rough voices of the Barbarians attempted to imitate the melody of the Roman school. [71] Experience had shown him the efficacy of these solemn and pompous rites, to soothe the distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar, and he readily forgave their tendency ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... harp were heard, sweet as the soft summer shower when the tinkling rain-drops merrily pelt the flowers—strains so sweetly harmonious as seemed too heavenly for mortal touch. And as fainter and fainter, yet still more sweet, the ravishing melody breathed around, one by one the company glided out silently and mournfully—the tapestried walls gradually assumed the appearance of my own little parlor—the rich and tasteful decorations vanished—and where was ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... their hands in pleasant labors, for some of them were again crowning the worn-out thyrsus, so as to make it leafy with ivy; and some, like horses quitting the painted yoke, shouted in reply to another a Bacchic melody. And the miserable Pentheus, not seeing the crowd of women, spake thus: O stranger, where we are standing, I can not come at the place where is the dance of the Maenads; but climbing a mound, or pine ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... sweet passion In advanced age a great painter. Happy teacher, happy scholar, In the honeysuckle arbour! 'Twas as if the only safety Of the German empire rested On this trumpet-call's performance. But within their souls was stirring Quite a different melody: That sweet song, old as creation, Of the bliss of youthful lovers; True, a song without the words yet, But they had divined its meaning, And beneath a playful manner Hid the blissful consciousness, Startled by this trumpet-blowing ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... a sweet, soft sound of music, at which our venerable father was so moved, God being thus abundantly manifest among us, that he sank down in tears, and for a long time could not continue the service—we all remaining stupified, hearing the melody, and feeling the marvellous effects of it upon our spirits, but knowing neither whence it came nor whither it went. Only our hearts rejoiced as we perceived that God ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... critics these babies are! What a perverse preference they have for the soft jingle of nonsensical melody; blank verse with its five accents and want of rhythm does not ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... do work that would please the gentlemen who controlled the music trades, but failed. One day, while looking over his manuscripts to discover if possible the cause of his failure, he was struck by the similarity of one of his compositions to another. They all seemed to contain the same melody, in one form or another, and he saw plainly at last that he was subconsciously haunted by the leading motif of the first movement of his last symphony, the symphony that was played on that dreadful night for the first and last time. The inference was plain enough. This ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... nothing but how marvelous it was, so that whether the two differed all through I am not sure. It was every time a new rapture to me as well as to him. One of his beginnings that I had time to note before I was lost in the flood of melody was of two notes, the second a fifth higher than the first, with a "grace-note," very low indeed, before each one. The other beginning was also two notes, the second at least a fifth lower than the first, with an indescribable jerk between, and uttered so softly that if I had been a ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... inattentive to the voice of absent man, a hard, hollow goddess, a flute for the piping of heaven—composing and chanting unmusical songs, her inner ear fastened upon another melody. And heaven, protecting a creature at that moment so estranged from earth, led her down the wild road, held back the threatening forest branches, brought her, all but standing up at the wheel like a lunatic, safely to the foot of ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... at my window-ledge for his matutinal crumbs, was stretching his tiny crimson throat to its fullest extent, with quivering heart-notes of choral song, from a solitary poplar-tree in the adjacent garden on which my room out- looked, making the still air re-echo with his melody; my old retriever, Catch, a good dog and true, was pawing and scratching at the door to be admitted, in his customary way, and sniffing a cordial welcome, as he wondered and grumbled, in the most intelligible doggy language, at my being so late in taking him out for his preprandial ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... somewhat less than a quarter of a mile from the shore, and in the morning we were awakened by the singing of the birds. The number was incredible, and they seemed to strain their throats in emulation of each other. This wild melody was infinitely superior to any that we had ever heard of the same kind; it seemed to be like small bells, exquisitely tuned; and perhaps the distance and the water between might be no small advantage to the ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... also musical notes, indicating the time of the melody,—metronome-marks, so to speak; and "Gittith" and "Shiggaion" are marks that indicate the kind of melody to which the psalm ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... and melody harmonised with our feelings and lent them a deeper tone as our united voices floated out upon the soft, ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... a cottage in the centre of a flower garden, and at one extremity of another garden a building, imitative of an Indian pagoda, stood, appropriated to a fine band breathing, throughout the evening, all the pathos and melody of Italian music. The cottage itself was set apart for refreshment, and one might descend to a cup of coffee, or mount to the limitless command of a dinner. I had dined very early, and, feeling the effects of good digestion, desired to dine again. The persons who attended the ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ; children ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... faithfulness to his love may very well take the place of the Congressional medal which, unfortunately, was lost on the night the soldier was killed. Between the two, there is little doubt that the accolade of fame bestowed in the buffoon's simple melody is more vital and enduring than that accorded by special act of the Congress of the United States ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... me! leave me! Every one tries to form a circle, of which he may be the centre. As long as there remains a bird in these woods to greet the rising sun with its melody, I ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... my child; Brangaene knows the melody thereof. And she shall teach it thee that thou ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... clean white blouse of Hop Yet's and his best cap with the red button, from which dangled a hastily improvised queue of black worsted, he proceeded to convulse everybody with his Mongolian antics. These consisted of most informal remarks in clever pigeon English, and snatches of Chinese melody, rendered from time to time as he carried dishes into the kitchen. Elsie laughed until she cried, and Laura sat in the shadiest corner, her head ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with the complexion, spring from the shoulders upwards, and against them leans the divine head. The eye seems fixed on the centre of being, and the lips are gently parted, as if uttering strains of celestial melody.' ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... music comes from? Where do you suppose any music comes from that is not mere imitation? The greatest composers of the world have been mere receptacles of sound; and the emptier they were of self-love and vanity, the greater quantity of heaven-born melody they held. The German Wagner—did he not himself say that he walked up and down in the avenues, 'trying to catch the harmonies as they floated in the air'? Come with me—come back to the place you left, and I will see if you, like Wagner, are able ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... it "Nuestra Senora Reina de Los Angeles," making melody that still lures with its ancient charm. A city for angels, verily. A city of angels? Verily; some fallen, indeed, for there is much nefarious trafficking in real estate, but all in all the majority of souls in Los Angeles are celestial ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... him, as he began to play "My Old Kentucky Home." They sang one negro melody after another, while the mulatto sat rocking himself, his head thrown back, his yellow face lifted, its shriveled ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... ferocious pedants like Professor Francis Newman, and conventional worshippers of such idols as Scott and Macaulay, when they found him poking his seraphic fun at the notion that Homer's song was like "an elegant and simple melody from an African of the Gold Coast," or at ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... never-to-be-forgotten melodies, containing the element of beauty per se so richly developed. Cannot the whole world produce one man, who, with all the expanded musical knowledge of the present day, can unite for us Italian gift of melody and German power of orchestral and choral effect, whose endowments shall be both lyric and dramatic, and whose taste shall be pure, refined, and ennobling? Should we recognize such a genius were he actually ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... never be said of the boom from a Buddhist temple, even though it pour waves of sound through sunny leagues. There is a vast difference between the peal and play of the chimes of Europe and the liquid melody which floods the landscape of Chinese Asia. The one music, high in air, seems ever to tell of faith, triumph and aspiration; the other in minor notes, from bells hung low on yokes, perpetually echoes the pessimism of despair, the folly of ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... me alone with my joy, my delirium, my wild fancies.... I was not then mistaken: the prince royal will come to see me. Yes; the prince palatine told me so; he has never seen anything comparable to me. This phrase haunts my memory like a delicious strain of melody. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... was heard one day, in his father's castle, the sweetest music that mortals ever listened to. Nobody knew whence the bewitching sounds came; for they seemed to be now here, now there: yet every one was charmed with the delightful melody, and declared that only angels could make music so heavenly. Then suddenly there came into the chamber where Ogier lay six fairies, whose beauty was so wonderful and awful, that none but a babe might gaze upon them ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... again in five minutes with a face which drove all thoughts of melody from Peter's head. In fact, at sight of it, he came instantly to a sitting position and his guitar slid ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... exchange: for a cruel task-master, a loving Father; for a dread monster, an holy City; for the base and ugly slime of the river, the fair paving of the golden streets, and the soft waving of the leaves of the tree of life, and the sweet melody of angel harps. Truly, I think this good barter. If a man were to exchange a dead rat for a new-struck royal, [see Note 1] men would say he had well traded, he had bettered himself, he was a successful merchant. Lo, here is worse than a dead rat, ...
— The King's Daughters • Emily Sarah Holt
... in the room, but as if deaf to any sounds but those he made, Nat played softly to himself, forgetting every thing in his delight. It was only a simple Negro melody, such as street-musicians play, but it caught the ears of the boys at once, and silenced them, till they stood listening with surprise and pleasure. Gradually they got nearer and nearer, and Mr. Bhaer came up to watch the boy; for, ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... glad, and glorious harmony, This joyful merle, so salust[3] she the day, While rung the woodis of her melody, Saying, 'Awake, ye lovers of this May; Lo, fresh Flora has flourish'd every spray, As nature, has her taught, the noble queen, The fields be clothed in a new array; A lusty life ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... tender that night and Billy felt a strange constriction in his throat. But you never would have guessed, as Lynn Severn turned at the end of her melody to search the dimness for the presence she felt had entered, that he had been under any stress of emotion, the way he grinned at her and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... up as they sat down to table with variations on the air Vive le roy, vive la France, a melody which has never found popular favor. It was then five o'clock in the evening; it was eight o'clock before dessert was served. Conspicuous among the sixty-five dishes appeared an Olympus in confectionery, surmounted by a figure of France modeled in chocolate, ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... the ladies was playing on the piano as we entered. It was a curious composition—very rhythmic, with a peculiar thread of monotonous melody ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... transparent there, and the sun shines with a strange brilliancy, and a delightful grove of green leafy trees presents itself to the eyes and charms the sight with its verdure, while the ear is soothed by the sweet untutored melody of the countless birds of gay plumage that flit to and fro among the interlacing branches. Here he sees a brook whose limpid waters, like liquid crystal, ripple over fine sands and white pebbles that look like sifted gold and purest pearls. There ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... lovely valse? Doesn't the music seem to sweep round and tie us all up in a garland of melody! How far, far above all these twirling human microbes it is!—as far as heaven from earth! If we could really obey the call of that music we should rise on wings and fly to such wonderful worlds!—as it is, we can only hop round and round like motes in a sunbeam and ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... hand was needed to brush off the tears that were gathering in her large dark eyes. At once her attitude was changed. The hare could not have started more suddenly from her form. She heard accents well known concluding the melody: ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... familiar and endeared; so that the annals and the aspects of no State in the Union are better known—even to the local peculiarities of life and language—to the general reader, than those of Virginia, from negro melody to picturesque landscape, from old manorial estates to field sports, and from improvident households to heroic beauties; and among the freshest touches to the historical and social picture are those bestowed by Irving in some of the most charming episodes ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... measure. meditar to meditate. Mediterraneo Mediterranean. mejilla cheek. mejor better, best. mejorar to ameliorate, better. melancolia melancholy. melancolico melancholy. melocoton m. peach. melejo sweet? melodia melody. memoria memory; memorias (a) compliments, regards (to). menester m. necessity. menguar to diminish. menor minor, smaller, younger. menos less, least; except. mentar to mention. mente ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... of song seemed breathed into her, and every nook and corner of the house appeared to vibrate with melody. Even the servants in distant rooms said that it seemed that an angel was singing. After she ceased, the audience sat spellbound for a moment, and then followed prolonged thunders of applause, the portly brewer, Mr. Brown himself, leading off again ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... tunneled, revetted, embrasured and battlemented citadel filled with rusty armor and broken lances. A hock shop, a junkyard, a hall of distorting mirrors. A cemetery by the sea, a peak of glory, a slough of despond. A radiant light, an encroaching dark, the sweetest of melody, the sourest of discord. A library of trivia, museum of curiosa, sideshow of freaks, and shrine of greatness. It was the lowering pendulum, the waiting pit, the closing walls. It was the vaulting spirit, the gallant heart, the just and ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... fine selection, and then, as he was tumultuously encored, he went back to the platform alone. Without accompaniment he played the little song, "Beware," that Patty had sung, and, improvising, he made a fantasia of the air. He was clever as well as skilled, and he turned the simple little melody into thrilling, rollicking music with trills and roulades until the original theme was almost lost sight of, only to crop up again ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells
... company of knightly minstrels he sought to forget his great sorrow, and that later he composed many pretty songs. One of them has survived the centuries, and was recently discovered, along with the melody, in an ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... the woodland sights and sounds: the tapping of a woodpecker on a distant tree, the occasional call of a catbird, the soft scurrying of a rabbit or a squirrel, the buzzing of a laden bee—all mingled into one melody of summer of which she did not consciously distinguish the individual notes. Just as pleasantly confused were her thoughts, pictures of which her drowsiness blurred the outlines, so that she passed ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... thought of the initials he had carved on the tree nearest the gate, and wondered if the bark had grown over them. And the old fence where the boys had gathered in the soft twilight of spring evenings and sung the songs that had been handed down through college generations. How the melody from hundreds of voices had swelled out ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... of a Hungarian waltz came floating down to them. She half closed her eyes. Her head moved slowly with the melody. Tavernake looked away. ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the immortal words of "Home, Sweet Home," adapting them to the beautiful Sicilian melody, now so familiar to us all, he gave to the world a precious legacy, which has brought sunshine into millions of hearts. "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." And there is no other place in all the world where the little courtesies of life should be so tenderly given; where ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... plaintive, neither sad nor joyous, but simply human, seeking what it might find on earth. The song changed subtly from mood to mood, expressing that which nothing but itself could express; and presently there was a low and gentle menace, thrice repeated under the melody of the song, and the reply of the song was a proud cry, a haughty contempt of these furtive warnings, and a sudden winged leap into the empyrean towards the Eternal Spirit. And then the melody ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett
... eloquence standing on the seashore, up to my middle in the breakers. I ran, roaring up steep hills—I stretched myself at length by the side of meandering brooks, or in slumberous forests of pine, and sought, by the merest whispers, to express myself with distinctness and melody. But there was something yet more requisite than these, and this was language. My labors to obtain all the arts of utterance did not seem less successful. I could dilate with singular fluency, with classical propriety, and great natural vigor of expression. I studied directness of expression ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and sun, and the river passes there through some little clumps of reeds. Well, as I sat there, doing nothing, but just looking and listening, I heard the sound quite distinctly of some flute-like instrument playing a strange unending melody. I thought at first it was some musical yokel on the highway and did not pay much attention. But before long the strangeness and indescribable beauty of the tune struck me. It never repeated itself, but it never came to an end, phrase after phrase ran its sweet course, it worked gradually and inevitably ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... in the six weeks' interval between my last record and that which I begin to-day, has become almost as familiar as the oldest friends of my youth. 'Non piu mesta'—I hear my niece strumming the notes I know so well in the parlour below my room, as I write these lines, and the sound of the melody brings before me the image of a sweet pale face ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... — N. melody, rhythm, measure; rhyme &c (poetry) 597. pitch, timbre, intonation, tone. scale, gamut; diapason; diatonic chromatic scale^, enharmonic scale^; key, clef, chords. modulation, temperament, syncope, syncopation, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... their reflection in the water beneath. Only the soft rustling of the leaves, and the hum of thousands of insects as they sang together a sweet, dreamy forest song was to be heard. The very sunbeams seemed to echo this melody as they followed closely the two wanderers, as if this man and woman had come beneath their ban and would have some penalty to pay for crossing their shining path so carelessly. Suddenly an unexpected barrier stood in their way. From a thickly wooded elevation, ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... of his principal tragedy—an article doing more justice to the dramatic than to the lyric quality of his genius. But it is by his songs that his name is kept in the minds of men to-day—exquisite snatches of melody, full of the peculiar charm of that Elizabethan age to which they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... more and more true and pungent in proportion as language becomes a more complex instrument, its progress resembling the evolution of an organ from a shepherd's pipe. As it thus progresses, its delicate possibilities of melody, metaphor, and subtle emphasis increase, and masters of the literary art enchant with ever new surprises multitudes who have no capacity for the literary art themselves. So far, then, as literature is in this sense literature for its ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... harvest's guerdon While the tree is yet in bloom? Wherefore drudge beneath the burden Of an unaccomplished doom? Wherefore let the scarecrow clatter Day and night upon the tree? Brothers mine, the sparrows' chatter Has a cheerier melody. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... minstrel, or jongleur, with an immense beard and mustachios, was tuning, with no inconsiderable skill, a lute which had accompanied him in all his wanderings—and suddenly changing its notes into a wild and warlike melody, he commenced in a loud and deep ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... that they cannot fail to become friends and intimates at once. In them, as in all the tunes, the compass of ordinary voices has been considered; and although nothing has been left undone which could give beauty to melody or scholarly variousness to harmony, the whole has been brought within the range of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... turned and bowed repeatedly with a grimacing smile. The music, usually Viennese, was muted and emotional; its strains blended perfectly with the floating scents of the women and the faintly perceptible pungent odors of dinner. Every little while a specially insinuating melody became, apparently, tangled in the women's breathing, and their breasts, cunningly traced and caressed in tulle, ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... explanation; but, at the time, it threw, as it were, around him the sackcloth of penitence. Sitting amid the shrouds and rattlings, in the tranquillity of the moonlight, churning an inarticulate melody, he seemed almost apparitional, suggesting dim reminiscences of him who shot ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... reading about Orpheus, and how he charmed all the wild beasts with his melody. It was true the boy had not a lyre, but he had no doubt that his concertina would do as well, and he was quite certain he had seen a fox while taking his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, Jan. 2, 1892 • Various
... a taste for music is one thing, and a real submission to the influence of religion is another; how the ear may be regaled by the melody of sound, and the heart may utterly refuse the proper impression of the sense that is conveyed by it; how the sons and daughters of the world may, with their every affection devoted to its perishable vanities, inhale all the delights of enthusiasm, as they sit in crowded assemblage, around the ...
— On Singing and Music • Society of Friends
... bedchamber at last. Why was I still not at my ease? Why was I rude enough, when I thought of the widow, to say to myself, "Damn her!" Why did I find Gluck's magnificent music grow wearisome from want of melody as it went on? Let the learned in such things realize my position, and honor me by ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... were interesting. Even more inspiring was another new-found friend, Henry Simmons Frieze; a thorough musician, and a most lovely character. He broached no theories, uttered no comments, but sat rapt by the melody and harmony—transfigured—"his face as it had been the face of an angel.'' In these Liebig concerts we then heard, for the first time, the music of a new composer,—one Wagner,—and agreed that while it was all very strange, there was ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... that, like a brook beside the way, Sang to my steps through all the wandering year, Has ceased from melody—O Love, ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt
... which his story is told though less complicate and beautiful than the Spencerian, is equally ancient; and favorable to a pensive melody, is also ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... Degge, "the swift and heart-grappling recollection of the woman you gave up in the cause of common-sense,—roused by some melody she liked, or some shade of color she was wont to wear, or by hearing from other lips some turn of speech to which she was addicted. My Lord Duke, that memory wakes on a sudden and clutches you by the throat, and it chokes you. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... like the intonations of a hunter's horn—but of so harsh and hoarse a character, that I could scarcely believe them to be produced by such an instrument. As a profound silence succeeded, I began to think my senses had been deceiving me; but once more the same rude melody broke upon my ears, in a tone that, taken in connexion with the place where I listened to it, impressed me with an idea of the supernatural. It had something of the character of those horns used by the shepherds of the Swiss valleys; and it seemed to ascend out of ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... of the last is simply miraculous, and miraculously assisted by what may be called the internal sub-rhyme of sedisti and redemisti. This latter effect can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is no jingle here, only an ineffable melody. After the Dies Irae, no poet could say that any effect of poetry was, as far as sound goes, unattainable, though few could have hoped to equal it, and perhaps no one except Dante and Shakespeare ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... of their return to the castle, the Chieftain warmly pressed Waverley to remain for a week or two, in order to see a grand hunting party, in which he and some other Highland gentlemen proposed to join. The charms of melody and beauty were too strongly impressed in Edward's breast to permit his declining an invitation so pleasing. It was agreed, therefore, that he should write a note to the Baron of Bradwardine, expressing his intention to stay a fortnight at Glennaquoich, and requesting him to forward ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... (for so it is called) is not artistic to the eye and loses all its poetry when one sees its owner blowing his nose into it but the notes emanating from it breathe a vague sense of melody and ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... village in the southern boundary of St. Leonard's Forest, the key to some very rich country. Before the days of bicycles Bolney was practically unknown, so retired is it. The church, which has a curious pinnacled tower nearly 300 years old, is famous for its bells, concerning whose melody Horsfield gives the following piece of counsel: "Those who are fond of the silvery tones of bells, may enjoy them to perfection, by placing themselves on the margin of a large pond, the property of Mr. W. Marshall; the reverberation of the sound, coming ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... to frenzy. In this act, played almost solely by Crescentini, this admirable singer communicated to the hearts of his audience all that is touching and, pathetic in a love expressed by means of delicious melody, and by all that grief and despair ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Even in his most insignificant works of the stereotyped sort, with much sound and very little thought and feeling, the hand of a master is visible, and talent is perceptible; while many passages are remarkable for their poetic figures, melody of versification, and beauty and force of expression. No poet previous to Pushkin can be compared to him for talent, and for direct, independent inspiration. His poetry is chiefly the poetry of figures and events, of ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... tasteful way that warmed lonely Aunt Betty's heart, as she watched her, more than the blazing fire could; and while she worked, she talked, or sang little snatches of college songs learned at school, which rippled out in her rich voice with a melody never heard in the old ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... they had reached was so perfectly still that every cloud in the sky, every mangrove, root and spray, and every bending bulrush, was perfectly reproduced in the reflected world below. Plaintive cries of wild-fowl formed appropriate melody, to which chattering groups of monkeys and croaking bull-frogs contributed a ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... the witness to abide? Then study the word of God, and live by it; sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord; praise the Lord with your first waking breath in the morning, and thank Him with your last waking breath at night; flee from sin; keep on believing; look to Jesus, cleave to Him, follow Him gladly, trust the efficacy of His blood, and the ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... and intermingled, weaving melody with joy, Till the magic circle clustered round a blooming baby-boy; And they threw aside their treasures in an ecstasy of glee, And bent, with dazzled faces and with ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... have no more power, When tears can tell no more, The heart of all regret Is uttered by a falling wave Of melody. ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... first pages of a more wondrous legend still. Lifted above the many-gabled roof, yet not cut off from the echo of human speech, the little grove seemed a green sanctuary, fringed about with violets, and full of summer melody and bloom. Gentle creatures haunted it, and there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the moss that kissed ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... crowding upon her, but the cold eyes of strangers were upon her, and pride came to her aid. She began the prelude to a song that required great artistic skill and expression. Her listeners sat in silence, while her very soul floated away on the waves of melody. When she had finished, there was astonishment depicted ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... the eventide was come, the birds began all with one voice to sing, and clap their wings, crying, "Thou, O God, art praised in Zion, and unto Thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem." And always they repeated that verse for an hour, and their melody and the clapping of their wings was like music which drew tears ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... six. Terry O'Sullivan was a victorious Prince Charming, and Maggie Toole winged her first butterfly flight. And though our tropes of fairyland be mixed with those of entomology they shall not spill one drop of ambrosia from the rose-crowned melody of Maggie's one ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... promenade in pairs. Each provides himself with the plaintive flute and plays the simple cadences of his people, while his person is completely covered with his fine robe, so that he cannot be recognized by the passerby. At every pause in the melody he gives his yodel-like love-call, to which the girls respond with their musical, ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... back—you live the scene again, as an actor does, and you shape it and you master it. And now in the midst of it, you find this highest of all moments is gone! It is gone, and you can not find it! Those words that came as a trumpet-clash, burning your very flesh—that melody that melted your whole being to tears—they are gone—you can not find them! You search and you search—but you can not find them. And so you stumble on, in despair and agony; and still you dare not rest. You dare not ever rest in this until ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... nursery, songs for childhood, for girlhood, boyhood, and sacred songs—the whole melody of childhood and youth bound in one cover. Full of lovely pictures; sweet mother and baby faces; charming bits of scenery, and the dear old Bible ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... axe and a hatchet in his hand, he went to the monastery of Lestingay, signifying that he came to work, and not to be idle; which he made good by his behavior in the monastic state. This monk declared, that he one day heard a joyful melody of some persons sweetly singing, which descended from heaven into the bishop's oratory, filled the same for about half an hour, then mounted again to heaven. After this, the bishop opening his window, and seeing him at his work, bade him call the other ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... torches were extinguished of themselves, and those of Charles and his suite cast their dim, flickering light upon the old-fashioned tapestry with which the chamber was usually hung, and which was now slightly moved by the wind. During some minutes longer a strange sort of melody was heard, a harmony compared by one of the eye-witnesses of this unparalleled scene to the murmur of the breeze agitating the foliage, and by another to the sound emitted by the breaking of a harp-string. All agreed ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... since you my chief Parnassus be; And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet, Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet, More soft than to a chamber melody,— Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me To Her, where I my heart safe left shall meet, My Muse and I must you of duty greet With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully. Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed, By ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... quality of sounds has a simple physical measure for its basis; and the rate of vibration is complicated by its sweep or loudness, and by concomitant sounds. What a rich note is to a pure and thin one, that a chord is to a note; nor is melody wholly different in principle, for it is a chord rendered piece-meal. Time intervenes, and the harmony is deployed; so that in melody rhythm is added, with its immense appeal, to the cumulative effect already secured by rendering many notes together. The heightened effect ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... melody that the Germans were singing profane songs indeed. It could also be distinguished that the singers were not more than about a dozen, and that they all repeated only one burden which resounded far and wide in the forest, ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... strings upon the harp of God, because without it no real lasting joy could be had by mankind. In due time its benefits shall result to the entire human race; and all who appreciate it will sing aloud and rejoice with exceeding joy. They will have melody in their hearts and upon their lips because of this wonderful provision made by Jehovah for man's benefit. For thousands of years divine wisdom has been working out his plan concerning man; and the ransom sacrifice is the very pivotal part of that plan. Its importance cannot be overstated. ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... haphazard way, will often suffice to change the whole intention and career of a life for good or for evil. It is as though a musician in the composition of a symphony should suddenly bethink himself of a new and strange melody, and, pleasing his fancy with the innovation, should wilfully introduce it at the last moment, thereby creating more or less of a surprise for the audience. Something of this kind happened to Innocent after her meeting with the painter who bore the name of her long idealised knight of ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... red and white. * * * When they had come to the Tower at the approach to the bridge, as it were at the entrance to the authorities to the city. * * * Banners of the Royal arms adorned the Tower, elevated on its turrets; and trumpets, clarions, and horns, sounded in various melody; and in front there was this elegant and suitable inscription upon the wall, 'Civitas Regis justicie'—('The city to the King's righteousness.') * * * And behind the Tower were innumerable boys, representing angels, arrayed in white, and with countenances shining with gold, and glittering ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... its little circle of waiting leaves, there would be a stir beside me in the underbrush, or overhead in the fir; then tinkling out of the darkness, like a brook under the snow, would come the low clear strain of melody that always set my heart a-dancing,—I'm here, sweet Killooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet, the good-night song of my gentle neighbor. Then along the path a little way, and another match, and another song to make one better and ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... melody they're tuning Has the sweet and sleepy crooning That the mother hums the baby at her breast, Till the world forgets its sorrow And the cares that haunt the morrow, And is sinking, hushed and happy, to its rest Sometimes ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... by an arch called the "Devil's Bridge." The lofty, elevated plains were covered with scanty patches of grain and potatoes, and the boys tended their goats on the grassy slopes, sometimes trilling or yodling an Alpine melody. An hour's walk brought us to Einsiedeln, a small town, whose only attraction is the Abbey—after Loretto, in Italy, the most celebrated resort for ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... Wit and Science is the earliest known instance of a Moral-Play regularly distributed into five Acts, and these again into scenes. The allegory is quite elaborate and wire-drawn; and the piece has something of humour in the matter, and of melody in the versification. Like Will to Like, Quoth the Devil to the Collier, printed in 1568, has some rude approaches to individual character; which is my reason for noticing it. Nichol Newfangle, though in fact the hero, enacts the Vice, and is armed ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... suggest some inner, darker meaning? There were times when she seemed old—old as vice and cruelty, hoarse with complaints, with curses, and then again her lips were childishly sweet, and her voice carried only the wistful accents of adolescence or the melody ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... a tune? any kind of a tune, but a catchy one the best. In a little while you'll hear another person pick it up and hum or whistle, just the same way; so on, till nobody knows how many have caught and heard the wandering melody and passed it onward through a crowd. Did you ...
— Divided Skates • Evelyn Raymond
... afternoon he would "ride circle" again, over the hills; and at night, from ten to twelve, he would again be on guard, riding round the cattle, humming some eerie lullaby. It was always the same song that he sang, but what the words were or the melody is a secret that ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... to the waterside, and the three resumed their walk. The chime of little joy-bells and the silvery flourish of melody continued to ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... Further, Jerome in his commentary on Eph. 5:19, "Singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord," says: "Listen, young men whose duty it is to recite the office in church: God is to be sung not with the voice but with the heart. Nor should you, like play-actors, ease your throat and jaws with medicaments, and make the church ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Philammon's. He had been listening to the whole lecture; and yet not so much listening as watching, in bewilderment, the beauty of the speaker, the grace of her action, the melody of her voice, and last, but not least, the maze of her rhetoric, as it glittered before his mind's eye like a cobweb diamonded with dew. A sea of new thoughts and questions, if not of doubts, came rushing in at every sentence on his acute Greek ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... did not know he was listening, he heard her low, sweet laugh; and it had a joyous ring and melody which repeated itself like a haunting refrain of music. He would say smilingly, "It is circumstantial ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... and of good report, of whatsoever is manful and ennobling, of whatsoever is worthy of praise and honour. Music, to that man, speaks of a divine order and a divine proportion; of a divine harmony, through all the discords and confusions of men; of a divine melody, through all the cries and groans of sin and sorrow. What says a wiser and a better man than I shall ever be, and that not of noble music, but of such as we may hear any day in any street? "Even that vulgar music," he says, "which makes ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... The glorious triumphant melody rose like a great rising tide of faith and of communion; Susan forgot where she was, forgot that there are pain and loss in the world, and, finishing, turned about on the piano bench with glowing ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... a stop to his classic lore, while the followers of Ceres arranged themselves in order, and began to sing. The contagious and wild melody of the Ranz des Vaches rose in the square, and soon drew the absorbed and delighted attention of all within hearing which, to say the truth, was little less than all who were within the limits of the town, for, the crowd ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper |
