"Serenade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dissemble, secretive as she was. She lifted her head haughtily and turned away. For a moment she looked very Spanish, not the unfortunate result of coupled races that she was. Helena, who was in her naughtiest humour, threw back her head and laughed scornfully. "A caballero!" she cried: "who will serenade you at two o'clock in the morning when you are dying with sleep, and lie in a hammock smoking cigaritos all day; who will roll out rhetoric by the yard, and look like an idiot when you talk common-sense to him; who ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... accompanied the musicians, and seemed in no very elevated rank of life) stood bare-headed beneath; and in his upward look there was a devotion, a fondness, a respect, that brought back to Lucilla all the unsparing bitterness of contrast and recollection. And now the serenade began. The air was inexpressibly soft and touching, and the words were steeped in that vague melancholy which is inseparable from the tenderness, if not from the passion, of love. Lucilla listened involuntarily, and the charm slowly wrought its effect. The hardness and confusion of her mind melted ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... forwards, the features like discords melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in such slight sentences,—but from the time when he contemptuously tossed out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and passion. "I dream now," said Rodomant; "like the Spirit of God moving upon the face of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... day, and in the evening it snowed and whirled and blew around the Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," or the "Skylark," or one of Colcott's glees, or one of Mendelssohn's two-part songs, or Schubert's "Serenade," or Beethoven's "Adelaide"; or maybe an interlude of piano, one of Mozart's Sonatas, or "Der Freyschutz," and then a Kyrie, Dona Nobis, Gloria, or Agnus Dei, one or all, until it was time to retire. And still ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... I'll never care for him again; the dream is over. What a fool I've been! And yet—why did he send his horses down to Muddlebury? Why did he serenade me that night from the Park? Why is he not now with his dear Lady Scapegrace at Scamperly, where I see by the Morning Post Sir Guy is 'entertaining a party of fashionables during the frost'? No! I will not give ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... left him without even the power to criticise. It was he himself who stood in Queen Catherine's box, and watched the spouting of Salcide's blood, as he was drawn by the horses in the arena beneath. He sat secreted beside Chicot in the great arm-chair in the King's bed-room. He took part in the serenade beneath the balcony of the mysterious lady in the Rue des Augustines. He joined the hunting of the wolf in Navarre; and finally he had plunged into the fight between the French and Flemings, with such intensity of reality that it scarcely ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... have!" she said, sitting down by the piano, and apparently quite unaware of the storm. "I love music dearly, and I thought perhaps you'd let me come and listen to your playing for a little while. The fingering of that 'Serenade' is awfully hard, isn't it? I thought I should never get it, myself—never did, really well, in fact! Do ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... friends to a hearty dinner, in which Susel, his tenant's daughter, who comes to present her landlord with a nosegay of violets, joins. Fritz makes her sit beside him, and for the first time remarks the growing loveliness of the young maiden. While they are feasting a gipsy, Seppel, plays a serenade in honor of the birthday, which makes a deep impression on fair Susel. When the latter has departed, the joviality of the company increases. Hanczo and Friedrich, two friends laughingly prophesy to the indignant Fritz, that he will soon be married, ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... their moons, and should draw them from their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, 'very superior pyrotechny this evening!' Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,—'The heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?' As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world of men has ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... the word music, the sounds of a guitar attracted me to the window, which looks into a narrow back street, and is exactly opposite a small white house belonging to a vetturino, who has a very pretty daughter. For her this serenade was evidently intended; for the moment the music began, she placed a light in the window as a signal that she listened propitiously, and then retired. The group below consisted of two men, the lover and a musician he had ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... sick, miss. 'Tis little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children, sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was "Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... own, she was struck by the resemblance between the mode of life and thought their talk betrayed, and that of the same class of girls at La Chatre; and how in the midst of Venice, to the sound of the rippling waters stirred by the gondolier's oar, of guitar and serenade, and within sight of the marble palaces, her thoughts flew back to the dark and dirty streets, the dilapidated houses, the wretched moss-grown roofs, the shrill concerts of the cocks, cats, and children of the little French ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... nerves as with a nutmeg-grater, no doubt. You will serenade her next with tin pans and fish-horns, and think that a delicate attention. Brother, Clarice does not share your peculiar view of humor, nor do I. Mabel tries to comprehend it and to catch your tone, as is her melancholy duty; but it is hard work for her. Well, what ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... early hunting-matches there; to have my sleep disturbed by break of day, with heigh, Jowler, Jowler! there Venus, ah Beauty! and then a serenade of deep-mouthed curs, to answer the salutation of the huntsman, as if hell were broke loose about me: and all this to meet a pack of gentlemen savages, to ride all day, like mad-men, for the immortal fame of being first in at the hare's death: to come upon the spur, after a trial at four in the ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... very still The night lay on the lonely hill, Down which our homeward steps we bent, And, silent, through great silence went, Save that the tireless crickets played Their long, monotonous serenade. A young moon, at its narrowest, Curved sharp against the darkening west; And, momently, the beacon's star, Slow wheeling o'er its rock afar, From out the level darkness shot One instant and again was not. And then my friend spake quietly The thought of both: "Yon crescent see! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... the clergy had a quaintness all its own. The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly inaudible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coincidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the guidance of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Van Kirk mansion rose tall and stately in the moonlight, flinging a dense mass of shadow across the street. Up in the third story he saw two windows lighted; the curtains were drawn, but the blinds were not closed. All the rest of the house was dark. He raised his voice and sang a Swedish serenade which seemed in perfect concord with his own mood. His clear tenor rose through the silence of the night, and a feeble echo flung it back from ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... with the north winds that smote them fiercely and filled the night with uproar, while the child cowering in her bed thought of wrecks on pitiless shores—of drowning mothers and hapless children. Through the summer nights they sighed. But it was not a lullaby—it was not a serenade. It was the croning of a Norland enchantress, and young Hope sat at her open window, looking out ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... from every leafy glade, The yielding season's bridal serenade; Then flash the wings returning Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... located in the rear of the stage. The orchestra would attract attention anywhere. The music was a cross between the noise made by a boiler shop during working hours and a horse fiddle at a country serenade. ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... did pelt me with roses! Do you remember how happy we were in the garden bower? How we sang together the old-fashioned canzonet, 'Love in thine eyes forever plays'? And how the mocking-bird imitated your guitar, while you were singing the Don Giovanni serenade? ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... accustomed to the nightly serenade of hyena and jackal—also to breakneck steeps, and crashing jolts, and ugly tumbles. But they were all hopeful, and most of them were young, and all, or nearly all, were disposed to make ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... account forget the serenade with which the gentlemen boarders proposed to honour the Miss Pecksniffs. The performance was both vocal and instrumental, and the description of ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... on with the air, and singing to it): 'Tis I, who come to serenade your lilies, and pay my devoir to your ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... hissing, which, I believe, is made by the lizards. They will serenade you every night. I only hope you will not be disturbed by ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... quite debauch'd the stage with lewd grimace: Instead of wit and humours, your delight Was there to see two hobby-horses fight; Stout Scaramoucha with rush-lance rode in, And ran a tilt at centaur Arlequin. For love you heard how amorous asses bray'd, And cats in gutters gave their serenade. Nature was out of countenance, and each day Some new-born monster shown you for a play. 20 But when all fail'd, to strike the stage quite dumb, Those wicked engines call'd machines are come. Thunder and lightning now for wit are play'd, And shortly scenes ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... husband's greeting, scant, no doubt, Yet to the woman looking out, Watching and waiting, no serenade, Love-song, or midnight roundelay Said what that whistle seemed to say: "To my trust true, So, love, to you! Working or waiting, good-night!" ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... Queen was received by the Governor, Prince William of Prussia, and the Austrian commander, while the Prussian and Austrian troops, with their bands, gave a torchlight serenade before the hotel windows. On the rest-day which Sunday secured, the Queen saw the good nurse who had brought the royal pair into the world. Her Majesty had also her first introduction to one of her future sons-in-law—an unforeseen ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... till the end of this month, unless they are taken sick meantime. Poor M. melted like a snow-flake in the fire, when she heard that; she begins to miss her little playmate, and keeps running to say things to him through the key-hole, and to serenade him with singing, accompanied with a rattling of knives. I see but one thing to be done; for you to stay and preach and me to stay and nurse, each in the place God has assigned us.... You must pray for ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Such was the ceaseless serenade that drove peace from the lovers' pillow during the whole of that memorable night. At dawn, the corpulent matron again appeared from among the wild and reeling crowd, and concluding her functions by some mysterious ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... high rank, spoke so familiarly to him, and, being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Lopez, to secure his retreat from Donna Clara's window, as I guess.—[Music without.] Hey! sure, I heard music! So, so! Who have we here? Oh, Don Antonio, my master's friend, come from the masquerade, to serenade my young mistress, Donna Louisa, I suppose: so! we shall have the old gentleman up presently.—Lest he should miss his son, I had best lose no time in getting to ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... 'ombre', 'palaver', 'parade', 'parasol', 'parroquet', 'peccadillo', 'picaroon', 'platina', 'poncho', 'punctilio', (for a long time spelt 'puntillo', in English books), 'quinine', 'reformado', 'savannah', 'serenade', 'sherry', 'stampede', 'stoccado', 'strappado', 'tornado', 'vanilla', 'verandah'. 'Buffalo' also is Spanish; 'buff' or 'buffle' being the proper English word; 'caprice' too we probably obtained rather from Spain than Italy, as we find it written 'capricho' by those who used it first. Other Spanish ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the flageolet. I did not care to press any further questions, for fear of implicating Julia in the opinions of those of whom they might be asked. Next morning, at breakfast, I dropped a casual hint about the serenade of the evening before, and I promise you Miss Mannering looked red and pale alternately. I immediately gave the circumstance such a turn as might lead her to suppose that my observation was merely casual. I have since caused a watch-light to be burnt in ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... at Venetian history. He supplies us with books, which are a great comfort.... The other evening we were surprised by a perfect fleet of gondolas stopping under our windows, from one of which we had the most beautiful serenade; the moonlight was like day, and the effect was admirable. There was a festa the other night in a church on the water's edge; the shore was illuminated and hundreds of gondolas were darting along like swallows, the gondoliers rowing as if they had been mad, till the water was as much agitated ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... to serenade us," cried Phil. "That's Mr. Sparling all over. What do you think of that, Mrs. Cahill? You never were serenaded by a circus band ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... posts himself at night before the window of the maiden and sings his song as a test, for it is important to gain her vote upon which rests the final decision when the prize is bestowed. Sachs, whose workshop lies opposite the house for which the serenade is intended, when the Marker opens, begins to sing loudly also because as he declares to the irate serenader, this is necessary for him, if he would remain awake while at work so late, and that the work is urgent none knows better than he who had so harshly rebuked ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... Est-ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pale, C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard; On s'y couche a minuit, et l'on s'y leve tard; Ses raouts tant vantes ne sont qu'une boxade, Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster; Et n'etait sa foret de mats percant la brume, Sa tour dont a minuit le vieil oeil s'allume, Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines bien ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'Enjoy the moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the passionate serenade." ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... intimate with Field will forget the enjoyment he took in trolling forth, in a quaint, quavering, cracked, but tuneful recitative, one stanza of "Ossian's Serenade": ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... bar he omits a quarter note, and continues in this manner with extreme self-satisfaction till he reaches the close; and then, after a few desperate chords of the diminished seventh, he connects with it Liszt's Transcription of Schubert's Serenade in D minor. The second string of the two-lined b snaps with a rattle, and there ensues a general whispering "whether the piece is by Mendelssohn, or Doehler, or Beethoven, or Proch, or Schumann," until finally Mr. Silver mentions Schubert's Serenade. ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... adventure on this issue. A happy thought crossed his brain; he capered about his little chamber; and could hardly govern himself as the brilliant conception blazed forth on his imagination. This bright phantasy was to be embodied in the shape of a serenade. It would be more in the romantic way of making love—would stimulate her passions—powerfully enlist her feelings in his favour, and doubtless bring on something like an appointment, or a permission, at any rate, to use ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... with a lamp burning in it, and behind the white curtain appeared Zara in a lovely blue and silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut lovelocks, a guitar, and the boots, of course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... I hope we'll have some more to-morrow night," retorted the banker. "You still have the poorhouse, the cattle pound, and the lockup to serenade." ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... hosts. En route to the interior. Native flora and fauna. We arrive at the capital. A lecture on Filbertine architecture. A strange taboo. The serenade. ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... Thurio to get a 'consort' (probably of viols) to play a 'dump' under Silvia's window. He goes to arrange for some of his friends to attend for this purpose. The serenade takes place in the next Act, where, in the 2nd scene, line 17, it is called 'evening music,' but does not include the 'dump,' for Thurio has 'a sonnet that will serve the turn,' so they ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... not believe thish ish the place. No, thish ish not the place I told you to come to, driver. I'm glad it isn't anyway, as I'm afraid we're too drunk to sing a serenade. Here's another man as's drunk, too. So drunk he fell down on hisself. Couldn't leave him here. Never go back on a man as is drunk. Get in brother. Take you ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... night, a group would gather on the steerage deck and sing. A black-haired Italian, with shirt open at the throat, would strike a pose and fling out a wild serenade; or a fat, placid German would remove his pipe long enough to troll forth a mighty drinking-song. Whenever the air was a familiar one, the entire circle joined in the chorus. At such times Sandy was always on hand, ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice
... followed, but none bear comparison with Lorenzo's poem[38]. It is in thought and expression rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an anonymous Pescatoria amorosa printed about 1550. It is a Venetian serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses a ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... without heeding her). That's a sweet voice for a serenade. Round, full, high-shouldered, and calkilated to fetch a man every time. Only thar ain't, to my sartain knowledge, one o' them chaps within a mile of the ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... returned at mealtime gave sufficient proof that procuring an appetite was a work of supererogation on his part. If he came before the meal was prepared, his station was at the door, which they usually shut to keep him out of the way until it should be ready. In the meantime, so far as a forenoon serenade and an indifferent voice could go, his powers of melody were freely exercised on the outside. But he did not stop here: every stretch of ingenuity was tried by which a possibility of gaining admittance could be established. The hat and rags were repeatedly driven in from the windows, ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... immediately restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might serenade beneath ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... "Gradually," said my friend to me, "I discovered a process by which I might execute a deed of separation. First, I rattled my stick against the area railings, and I saw him wince; then I whistled an Ethiopian serenade, and 'o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced'; but when I set my hat well on the back of my head, and gorped with open mouth at six legs of pork in a butcher's shop, he fled, and I saw him ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... a dramatic pause,[200] which enhances the feeling of expectancy (so prominent in the first movement) followed by a sustained modulatory chord, the Romanze begins with a plaintive theme in A minor. The mood is that of an idealized serenade, and in the original score the accompaniment for the oboe melody was given to the guitar[201] to secure the appropriate atmosphere. After the first statement of the theme there is an interpolated quotation of the ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... in a broken English that seemed as much infantine as foreign. "What for you not remain to yourself in your own CASA? So it come. You creep so—in the dark—and shake my wall, and I fall. And she," pointing to the guitar, "is a'most broke! And for all thees I have only make to you a serenade. Ingrate!" ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... not more than a hundred years in length at a stretch: when his slumber is interrupted, he is fabled to be very fond of music; and it is said that there was a party of musicians, who once gave him a regular serenade in his subterranean retreat, doubtless expecting some wonderful token of his generosity in return; but they received nothing for their pains but a number of green boughs, which so disgusted them, that they all threw them away on their return to earth, save one, who, however, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... the echoes along the deserted pathway. I stopped every now and then to gaze upon the tranquil river, whose eddies were circling in the pale silver of the moonlight. I listened with attentive ear as the night breeze wafted to me the far-off sounds of a guitar, and the deep tones of some lover's serenade; while again the tender warbling of the nightingale came borne across the stream on a wind rich with the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Gallery of a Father Should be Exhibited to a Daughter with Particular Care "But Spare Your Country's Flag" Nero not the Last Violinist of his Kind The Ever Unpractical Feminine The Comedian A Tale of a Political Difference The Rule of the Regent Echoes of a Serenade A Voice in a Garden The Room in the Cupola The Tocsin The Firm of Gray and Vanrevel When June Came "Those Endearing Young Charms" The Price of Silence The Uniform The ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... our story she had seen realized her most beautiful dream,—the dream of her whole life,—for which she might scorn the fond illusions of her youth and even the promises of love that Capitan Tiago had in other days whispered in her ear or sung in some serenade. Late, it is true, had the dream been realized, but Dona Victorina, who, although she spoke the language badly, was more Spanish than Augustina of Saragossa, [115] understood the proverb, "Better late than never," and found consolation in repeating it to herself. "Absolute happiness ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... her singing an epithalamium in a poor fellow's ears, when he doesn't know a single human woman nearer than Paris.' To make matters worse, the day ended in a fiery sunset, and then there was a full moon; and in the rosery a nightingale performed its sobbing serenade. 'Please go out and give that bird a penny, and tell him to go away,' Paul said to a servant. It was all very well to jest, but at every second breath he sighed profoundly. I'm afraid he had become sentimental. It seemed a serious ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... abroad that peace had been concluded with Austria, the greater part of the inhabitants of Paris gathered under the windows of the Pavilion of Flora. Blessings and cries of gratitude and joy were heard on all sides; then musicians assembled to give a serenade to the chief of state, and proceeded to form themselves into orchestras; and there was dancing the whole night through. I have never seen a sight more striking or more joyous than the bird's-eye view of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... regard which are so encouraging to youthful gentlemen "who fain would climb, yet fear to fall." She never blushed when he pressed her hand, never fainted or grew pale when he appeared with a smashed trotting-wagon and black eye, and actually slept through a serenade that would have won any other woman's soul out of her body with its despairing quavers. Matters were getting desperate; for horses lost their charms, "flowing bowls" palled upon his lips, ruffled shirt-bosoms no longer delighted him, and hops possessed no soothing power ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... to the reader for this digression; but if he be musical he will forgive me, for that tune was the "Serenade" of Schubert, and I had never even heard ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise and fling her One poor sou for her serenade? One poor laugh from the antic finger ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that Chonita Iturbi y Moncada have before, and many caballeros want to marry with her, but she no pay much attention; only now I think like Enrique. Ay, he sing so beautiful, Senor, no wonder si she loving him. Serenade her every night, and she love ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... satisfied with the explanations of the maestro. The day after the foregoing conversation he wrote a note to her, wherein he said that if the Contessina de Lira would deign to be awake at midnight that evening she would have a serenade from a voice she was said to admire. He had Mariuccia carry the letter to ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... is played by a great many instruments; and in the middle of the stage the PUPIL of the MUSIC MASTER is seated at a table composing a serenade which MR. ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... enjoyed my serenade. Come along! There's no time to waste. Jakko turned red some ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... exuberance of a rich, well-cultivated soil. The venerable oaks and broken ground, covered with wild shrubs, which surround me, give a natural beauty to the spot, which is truly enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in their liberty and security; for I have, as much as possible, prohibited the grounds from invasion, and sometimes almost wished for game-laws, when my orders have not been sufficiently regarded. The partridge, the ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... Meanness Cyclamen, Diffidence Cypress, Death Daffodil, Yellow, Regard Dahlia, Instability Daisy, Innocence Daisy, Michaelmas, Farewell Daisy, Variegated, Beauty Daisy, Wild, Will think of it Dandelion, Love's oracle Daphne, Glory Dew Plant, A serenade Dianthus, Make haste Dipteracanthus, Fortitude Diplademia, You are too bold Dittany, Pink, Birth Dittany, White, Passion Dock, Patience Dodder of Thyme, Baseness Dogsbane, Falsehood Dogwood, Durability Dragon Plant, Snare Dragonwort, Horror Dried Flax, Usefulness Ebony, ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... about singing in the moonlight, puts me in mind of a story," burst out Shadow. "Once on a time a young fellow went to serenade ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... at the Occidental Hotel and the very first evening Madam Urso was honored by a serenade, though no announcement of her arrival had been made. Certainly, the musical people of the Pacific Slope were eager to welcome her. It seemed so, for on announcing a concert at Platt Hall, there was a greater demand ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... and music of every description. Barty's taste had improved. He could sing Beethoven's "Adelaida" in English, German, and Italian, and Schubert's "Serenade" in French—quite charmingly, to his own ingenious ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... broken verandas in front, and rickety steps leading here and there to suspicious looking passages, into which, and out of which a never-ending platoon of the rising generation crawl and toddle, keep up a cheap serenade, and like rats, scamper away at the sight of a stranger; and on the other, by the back of the brick house with the negro-headed front. At the sides are two broken-down board fences, and forming a sort of net-work across ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... tale. The silvery clouds that o'er the valley sail Dim not the sinking sun, whose lustre fires The old cathedral and its gorgeous spires, The ruin'd abbey, garlanded and pale The vesper choristers in each lone wood Chant to the peeping moon their serenade; Now creeps the far-off forest into shade, And twilight comes o'er heath, and field, and flood. Oh! had I genius now the task to try, My ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... singing, and the violins and rebecs, flutes, and reed-pipes were never silent. One serenade followed another, and even at the table a new song rang out at each ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... courting-days of mankind: the first utterance of speech something between the nightly love-lyrics of puss upon the tiles and the melodious love-songs of the nightingale." "War, the father of all things," goes back to the same origin as language. The serenade is matched by the battle-cry. The fight between two cock-pheasants for the love of a hen-pheasant is war in its last analysis, in its primal manifestation. Selfish hatred is at the bottom of it. ...
— The Creed of the Old South 1865-1915 • Basil L. Gildersleeve
... master utters a loud resonant "Toom! toom! toom! toom" a smooth trombonic sound, "hollow to the reverberate hills," which his consort answers with a series of "Tum! tum tum! tum!" on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo. This, I fancy, is the lover's serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet. "Sole or responsive to each other's note," the birds make the forest resound again during the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Plot. The story of a woman who follows her lover in the disguise of a page-boy, hears him serenade another woman, and acts as a go-between in his suit to this other woman, is to be found in the second book of La Diana Enamorada, a pastoral romance, in prose, freely sprinkled with lyrics, by Jorge de Montemayor, a Portuguese who wrote in Spanish about the ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... were suddenly aroused by a most terrific clamor. It sounded as though all the small boys in Chester had secured dishpans and such instruments of ear torture, and assembled with the idea of giving a village serenade to some newly wedded folks who would be expected to treat the bunch to ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... to sing softly, "Young Lochinvar has come out of the West," which he appeared to think a suitable serenade, but he ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... "Oh, sister, what shall we do?" she whispered to Agnes. "Must we give up the picnic, and that glorious ride home by moonlight, when it's probably the only outing of the kind we'll have this summer? The boys were going to take their banjos and mandolins, and they counted on us to help serenade—" ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston
... be?' said Gideon. 'Am I not Jimson? It would be strange if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, and tell ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Fresco. Gazette. Gondola. Granite. Grotto. Guitar. Incognito. Influenza. Lagoon. Lava. Lazaretto. Macaroni. Madonna. Madrigal. Malaria. Manifesto. Motto. Moustache. Niche. Opera. Oratorio. Palette. Pantaloon. Parapet. Pedant. Pianoforte. Piazza. Pistol. Portico. Proviso. Quarto. Regatta. Ruffian. Serenade. Sonnet. Soprano. Stanza. Stiletto. Stucco. Studio. Tenor. Terra-cotta. Tirade. Torso. Trombone. Umbrella. Vermilion. ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... Mary's father, "this is the eve of May, I need not ask if you intend to offer to Mary the homage of a serenade. It is the custom of your countrymen to pay this attention to young girls, and you would not omit this opportunity were it not for the advice of a man of experience. Geronimo, listen to the words of calm reason: do not rashly expose yourself ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... chickens. Village after village they entered. Tribe after tribe they met. But everywhere they encountered the same invariable hospitality. On one occasion a group of singers came to their cabin, and treated them with a serenade of plaintive music. At the same time one of their number crowned M. Chevalier with a beautiful head-dress ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... through all these changes, and finally sunk off to sleep by the warm stove. Being in the way, and also in danger of tumbling upon the floor, some of us removed him to an old settee, where he slept soundly, entertaining us with rather an unmusical serenade. There were two or three mischievous fellows about the place, and one of them suggested it would be capital fun to black W—'s face, and "make a darkey of him." No sooner said than done. Some lamp-black and oil were mixed together in an old tin cup, and a coat of this ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... with delicate feet, the velvet verdure of these lawns. How must they have been looked up to with mingled love, and pride, and reverence, by the old family servants; and followed by almost painful admiration by the aching eyes of rival admirers! How must melody, and song, and tender serenade, have breathed about these courts, and their echoes whispered to the loitering tread of lovers! How must these very turrets have made the hearts of the young galliards thrill as they first discerned them from afar, rising from among the ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... on a level road, he heard, coming behind him, an automobile. The lad turned to one side, but, in spite of this the party in the car began a serenade of the electric siren, and kept it up, making ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton
... from gondoliers to offending gondoliers, as they passed—apostrophes to liquid names of guardian saints, too melodious for denunciations, hurled back with triple expletives and forgotten the next moment in friendly parsiflage; here and there a strain of ordered music, in serenade, from a group of friendly gondolas swaying only with the tranquil movement of the water; or the mysterious tone of a violin, uttering a soul prayer meant for some single listener, which yet steals tremblingly forth upon ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her house playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign that she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... she by the pavement linger Under the rooms where once she played, Who from the feast would rise to fling her One poor sou for her serenade? One short laugh for the antic ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... girl played a serenade on the guitar, and a member of the orchestra played a waltz for violin, ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... trail to the village where he was to spend his first night. Confidently he trotted through the jungle, picking his way easily among the gathering shadows. Soon voices became distinguishable, and he heard tom-toms beating the evening serenade. Dogs howled in response, women chattered, boys quarreled. To Piang this represented ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... Creatures are render'd Obsequious, and under her Conduct methoughts I sail'd prosperously on without the least Rub to my suppos'd Happiness; 'tis true I was at a constant Charge of Presents, Treats, and now and then a Serenade according to the Spanish Customs. But I remember at one of these Midnight Scenes of Gallantry, I saw something that gave me a great deal of Uneasiness; drawing up my Musick under the Lady's Window, besides her Face, ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... seemed only to have a feeling of deep gratitude to his fellow citizens who had testified their confidence in his administration. On the evening of election day, when it became evident that he was re-elected to the Presidency, in response to a serenade he said: ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... an early dinner, so as to be in time to serenade our victims when they were finishing their own meal and feeling friendly to the world. Then we went upstairs and dressed. Dahlia and Myra had kimonos, Simpson put on his dressing-gown, in which he fancies himself a good deal, and Archie and I wore brilliantly-coloured ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... is the scene and the mood, and in the sixth line Porphyria may enter. Take a middle-period poem, A Serenade at the Villa, for an instance of more deliberate description, flashed by ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... pulled on his boots and adjusted the military belt. The night was hot and sticky; somewhere, miles to the rear of the base, the batteries of long-distance guns were beginning their nightly serenade. Lance followed the orderly's broad, chunky ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Tschaikowsky's "Serenade Melancolique." Kitty, after a few measures, laid aside her stone hatchet, and her body relaxed. Music! She began to absorb it as parched earth absorbs the tardy rain. Then came the waltz which had haunted her. Her face grew tenderly beautiful; and Hawksley, a true artist, saw that he ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... my appearance, I was not saluted even with the sound of a popgun." Yet Jasmin was afterwards to become a king of hearts! A Charivari was, however, going on in front of a neighbour's door, as a nuptial serenade on the occasion of some unsuitable marriage; when the clamour of horns and kettles, marrow-bones and cleavers, saluted the mother's ears, accompanied by thirty burlesque verses, the composition of the father of the child who had ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... to test the touch of the piano; then, with a sweetness and purity that made every listener turn in amazed delight, a well-trained tenor began the "Thro' the leaves the night winds moving," of Schubert's Serenade. ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... Indians, and was therefore very earnest with me, to promise him to revenge his Death, if it should so happen. He brought some of his chief Men into his Cabin, and 2 of them having a Drum, and a Rattle, sung by us, as we lay in Bed, and struck up their Musick to serenade and welcome us to their Town. And tho' at last, we fell asleep, yet they continu'd their Consort till Morning. These Indians are fortify'd in, as the former, and are much addicted to a Sport they call Chenco, which is carry'd on with a ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... my tree, was downright bewildered, and gazed fixedly at the castle; a circle of tall torches upon the steps of the entrance cast a strange glare upon the glittering windows and deep into the garden; the assembled servants were to serenade their master. In the midst of them stood the gorgeous Porter, like a minister of state, before a music-stand, working away ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... at all hazards. The President of Congress, Don Mariano Yanez, replied in a short address of congratulation. Te Deum was chanted in the Cathedral in the presence of the new President, and in the evening the German residents honored him with a serenade and torch light procession. Arista's Cabinet is composed as follows: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Don Mariano Yanez; Minister of Justice, Don Jose Maria Aguirre; Minister of Finance, Don Manuel Payno; Minister of War and ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... and public buildings were illuminated, and the James O. Lyons Cadets, who considered themselves partly responsible for his rapid promotion, led a congratulatory crowd to the River Drive. The Senator-elect, in response to the music of a serenade, stepped out on the balcony. Selma waited behind the window curtain until the enthusiasm had subsided; then she glided forth and showed herself at his elbow. A fresh round of cheers for the Senator's wife ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... Benicia to sing at a concert given by the Methodist Church. I sang in the same old Courthouse Hall where so often we had our closing exercises. It was in this hall, June 12, 1856, that I sang Schubert's Serenade for the first time with Johanna Lapfgeer, soprano, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Bryant of San Francisco. I still have the programme which today is fifty-five years old. My return was in 1898. After the concert I hoped to see many of my old friends of Benicia, but there were but six present of all I knew long ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... those waking hours with a serenade such as few civilized ears ever listen to. This was nothing else than a vocal concert performed by all the dogs of the village, and as they amounted to nearly two thousand the orchestra ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... called "Maouchah," or embroidery, were well imitated by dainty and sparkling lyrics of the Troubadours. The Oriental mourning song became the Planh, or dirge. The evening tribute of the Arabian minstrels to their chosen loves became the serenade, while the Troubadours went still further in this vein by originating the aubade, or morning song. Among the other forms used, the verse was merely a set of couplets, the chanson was divided into several stanzas, while the sonnet was much freer in form than at present. When more than two singers ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... been served in the drawing-room, Hood, again dominating the company (much to Deering's disgust), suggested music. Pierrette contributed a flashing, golden Chopin waltz and Pantaloon Schubert's "Serenade," which he played atrociously, whereupon Hood announced that he would sing a Scotch ballad, which he proceeded to do surprisingly well. The evening could not last forever, and Deering chafed at his inability to detach Pierrette from the ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... in September, 1884, when the people of Washington carried him the news of Cleveland's election to the Presidency. He came to his porch and responded briefly, almost inaudibly, to the serenade, but he was full of the gratification which Southern people felt over that event. He declared that he did not know that there was enough manhood in the country as to break loose from party ties and elect a President. The fact had revived his hope for the whole country. He had, before this, taken ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... Alternately flushing and paling, with a hysteric smile hovering round her small reserved mouth, the unfortunate gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune that ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... grosser in nature; gross by their inability to love, or by loving freshly to make a new world in which the old sorrow dies or is transformed. There is no humour in the thing, though there is bitter irony. But there is humour in an earlier poem—A Serenade at the Villa, where, in the last verse, the bitterness of wrath and love together (a very different bitterness from that of St. Martin's Summer), breaks out, and is attributed to the garden gate. The night-watch and the singing is over; she must have heard him, but she gave no sign. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Presbyterians. The Flemish beauty, hearing this discordant noise in the passage, began to be afraid of some new alarm, and very prudently bolted her door; so that when her lover wanted to repeat his visit he was not only surprised and incensed at this disagreeable serenade, the author of which he did not know; but when compelled by his passion, which was by this time wound to the highest pitch, he ventured to approach the entrance, he had the extreme mortification to find himself shut out. He durst not knock or signify his presence ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... mystery immediately!" shrieked the people. And above all the voices, that of Johannes de Molendino was audible, piercing the uproar like the fife's derisive serenade: "Commence ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... exclaimed Miss Duncan, in surprise; "I wish somebody would serenade me. I think it was the most romantic thing Bob ever did. He's wild about you, and so is Somers they have both ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Granada, of Cordova and of Seville were peopled with poets, or, as they were termed, with makers of Ghazels. It was they who gave us the dulcimer, the hautbois and the guitar; it was they who invented the serenade. We are indebted to them for algebra and for the canons of chivalry as well.... It was from them that came the first threads of light which preceded the Renaissance. Throughout mediaeval Europe they were the only people that thought." The book is ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... fire!—and withal so proud and unapproachable. That hulking brute imagines—but he'll find his mistake if he attempts to cross the line. Beauty, passion, purity—what a blend! She's a woman alone—the blue rose of women—and she is mine." He murmured, to some cadence of a Schubert serenade: "My Deb! My love! My love! My queen!" and suddenly stopped ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... distance away, but gradually coming nearer. The sound was cheery and reassuring, for certainly the man who could sing so sweetly and joyously must have a good, kind heart. As the man approached Esperance recognized his song—it was that beautiful and expressive serenade, "Cara Nina," a melody dear to all youthful Italian lovers whether humble ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little Serenade— ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... now both her hands, "rougher, perhaps, than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, and write sonnets to you, and send you posies. Rougher, but more loving, Rose! Do not turn away! I shall die if you take your eyes off me! Tell me,—tell me, now here—this moment—before we ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... trees, and hushing the melancholy of a night-bird's song, came the wild low note of the Romany epic of vengeance. It had a thrill of exultation. Something in the voice, insistent, vibrating, personal, made every note a thrust of victory. In spite of her indignation at the insolent serenade, she thrilled; for the strain of the Past was in her, and it had been fighting with her all night, breaking in upon the Present, tugging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... gave us his customary serenade from heaven's gate. He did rather more damage than usual, wrecking two nice houses just below my cottage. One was a boarding house full of young railway assistants, who had narrow escapes. The brother gun on Telegraph Hill was also very active, not being so well suppressed by our howitzers as before. ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... neighbours collect near the dwelling of the delinquent, having provided themselves with old trays, pots and pans, and anything by means of which a horrible din can be raised, and proceed to serenade the offender. To be the subject of such a demonstration is regarded as a signal disgrace and a most emphatic mark of popular odium. Mr. Warde Fowler tells me, on the authority of a German book on marriage, etc., that "the same ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... New Year's Day by poor children who carried about a jug of water drawn that morning from the well. With a sprig of box or other evergreen they would sprinkle those they met, wishing them the compliments of the season. To pay their respects to those not abroad at so early an hour, they would serenade them with the following lines, which, while connected with the "new water" tradition, contain much that is of doubtful interpretation, and are ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... the yacht had been overlaid with rugs and other materials, that the rich costumes need not be soiled. The Blanche's barge came soon with the Italian band on board; for the general desired to serenade the governor during the evening. It was an hour too early; for the commander had been so solicitous that the company should not be late, that he had overdone the matter. The landlord was to have the ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... on the balcony after evening tea, reading. At the same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking soprano, one of the young ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of Braga's. Kovrin listened to the words—they were Russian—and could not understand their meaning. At last, leaving his book and listening attentively, he understood: a maiden, full of sick fancies, heard one night ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... meaning or message, for ordinary readers who like to understand as well as to enjoy poetry. To such readers the only interesting works of Shelley are a few shorter poems: "The Cloud," "To a Skylark," "Ode to the West Wind," "Indian Serenade," "A Lament," "When the Lamp is Lighted" and some parts of Adonais (a beautiful elegy in memory of Keats), such as the passage beginning, "Go thou to Rome." For splendor of imagination and for melody of expression ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long |
