"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... What hast thou done? Upon the blighted earth I hear a melancholy wail resounding; Among the blades of grass where flowers have birth I hear a new-born tone mournfully sounding. It is thy brother's blood Crying aloud to God ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... of the citadel of Bagdad held in its gloomy limits the late lord of Asia. The captive did not sigh, or weep, or wail. He did not speak. He did not even think. For several days he remained in a state of stupor. On the morning of the fourth day, he almost unconsciously partook of the wretched provision which his gaolers brought him. Their torches, round which the bats whirled ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... until eleven o'clock—during the hours of Divine Service—that the hundred thousand ears adorning the anatomy of the human population were first shocked by the horrisonous banshee wail of the hooters. The music was awe-inspiring, and ineffably weird. It seemed to portend the cries of the dying; and it was small wonder that the people subsequently endeavoured—as they did successfully—to have a more ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... winds blew and shrieked and moaned like the pain that was biting at my heart; and all through it I heard the plaintive "Speak, wife!" of the nightbird echoing in the tumult outside! ... It was the helpless wail of ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... my boots as I drew nearer and discerned an unusual glow of light from the cabin window, and heard, carried across the water on the breeze, the sounds of singing and the wail of a fiddle. I dreaded to think of the dear body that lay there heedless of all the noise, whose eyes I should never see and whose voice I should never hear more. I could not help calling to mind again the strange words she had last spoken—of her longing to see his ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... should go wrong!" in a faint half wail; "if anything could happen!" She could not bear the mere thought. It would break her heart. She had been so happy. God ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... which held a thousand casks of water, for she wished to fill it anew, adding that if the task were not finished by the evening she would make mincemeat of him. When the old woman went away Nardo Aniello began again to weep and wail; and Filadoro, seeing that the labours increased, and that the old woman had something of the brute in her to burden the poor fellow with such tasks and troubles, said to him, "Be quiet, and as soon as the moment has passed that interrupts ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... of the barren, icy hills and the black hollows between, and of the angry red sky with its purple shadows lowering over the unhappy land—and would make fickle friendship with some human thing. Charming Billy, hearing the crooning wail of it, knew well the portent and sighed. Perhaps he, too, felt something of the desolateness without and perhaps he, too, longed ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... said Arthur, 'if he means to be a comfort I wish he would stop that dismal little wail—have one good squall and have done with it. He will worry his mother and ruin all now she takes more notice. So here's Mrs. Moss's letter. I could not open it this morning, and I have been inventing messages to Violet from her—poor woman! ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... speechless, dumb, Not sayin' any word. An' was it then the Shrawn of Eire,[2] you'll say, For him that died the death on Carrisbool? It was not that; nor was it, by the way, The Sons of Garnim[3] blitherin' their drool; Nor was it any Crowdie of the Shee,[4] Or Itt, or Himm, nor wail of Barryhoo[5] For Barrywhich that stilled the tongue of me. 'Twas but my own heart cryin' out for you Magraw![6] Bulleen, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... Loki treacherously compasses the murder of Balder. The frightful foreboding which at once flies through all hearts finds voice in the dark "Raven Song" of Odin. Having chanted this obscure wail in heaven, he mounts his horse and rides down the bridge to Helheim. With resistless incantations he raises from the grave, where she has been interred for ages, wrapt in snows, wet with the rains and the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... way that you warned me from," she said in whispered tones. "You are friends with me still?" It was like the piteous wail of a child seeking to make it up with one who wants to quarrel, the child knows not why. Graham was moved, but what could he say? Could he have the right to warn her from this profession also; forbid all desires, all roads of fame to this brilliant aspirant? Even ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his luckless boast might prove The eternal forfeit of his lady's love; And, all impatient his dark doom to try, And end the pangs of dire uncertainty, His humble prayer he tremblingly preferr'd, Wo worth the while! his prayer no more was heard. O! how he wail'd! how curs'd the unhappy day! Deaf still remained the unrelenting fay. Him, thus dismay'd, the approaching barons found; Outstretch'd he lay, and weeping, on the ground; To reckless ears their summons they ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... grew still and then over the river came the terrible hunger wail of a tiger. That instant its tawny face scarred with black emerged from behind green leaves. He saw I was across the river. The tiger's body is marked with the same stripes and curves as he makes in the grass when he walks, and people in the jungle can always tell by the wave ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... went nearly out: he could only see a glimmer of the shape of the window. Then, indeed, he felt that he was left alone. It was so dreadful to be out in the night after everybody was gone to bed! That was more than he could bear. He burst out crying in good earnest, beginning with a wail like that of the wind when it is ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald
... these forests is made by crickets and tree-toads. The voice of the latter sounds like the cracking of wood. Occasionally frogs, owls, and goat-suckers croak, hoot, and wail. Between midnight and 3 A.M. almost perfect silence reigns. At early dawn the animal creation awakes with a scream. Pre-eminent are the discordant cries of monkeys and macaws. As the sun rises higher, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... were clustered round the body two or three of the Indians ran up. They raised the Indian wail as they saw their comrade and with the rest took up ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... through the Long Islander's pumpkin patch—also the mad dash, dash, dash of the farmer, the low moan of the disabled and frozen-toed hen as the whooping horsemen run her down; the wild shriek of the children, the low melancholy wail of the frightened shoat as he flees away to the straw pile, the quick yet muffled plunk of the frozen tomato and the dull ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... the pin; "be good enough to remember what I said, and if you can't endure to hear of anybody sitting and looking at a wail, it's no use my ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... we have an eminent example of that Jewish language, which Dr. Wail truly observes, we several times find used in the sacred writings; I mean, where the words "all" or "whole multitude," etc. are used for much the greatest part only; but not so as to include every person, without exception; for when Josephus had said that "the ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... wail, As one in doleful dumps, For when his legs were smitten off, He fought upon ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... use the labor of all men without enslaving or brutalizing; such training as will give us poise to encourage the prejudices that bulwark society, and stamp out those that in sheer barbarity deafen us to the wail of prisoned souls within the Veil, and the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... faces grinned at her from the whins, cold eyes frowned at her from the stones. In another minute that ragged bramble would turn back into an old witch. And behind the mountains the Kidnappers were cutting the soles off Honeybird's feet. With a wail of anguish Fly began to run again. She was not afraid of the fiends and witches. They might grin and frown and laugh that low, shivering laugh behind her if they liked—her Honeybird, her own Honeybird, was behind the mountains, alone ...
— The Weans at Rowallan • Kathleen Fitzpatrick
... with the reeking dust. Then a cry rose up from all nature, as though every star in heaven, every wave of ocean, every leaf of the forest, every blade in the meadow, every rock on the shore and every grain of sand in the measureless desert had found a voice; and this universal wail of "Woe, woe!" was drowned by rolling thunder such as the ear of man had never heard, and no mortal creature could hear and live. The heavens opened, and out of the black gulf of death-bearing clouds ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... worn-out souls that only ask to die, Would it not long to leave the bliss of Heaven, Bearing a little water in its hand To moisten those poor lips that plead in vain With Him we call our Father? Or is all So changed in such as taste celestial joy They hear unmoved the endless wail of woe, The daughter in the same dear tones that hushed Her cradled slumbers; she who once had held A babe upon her bosom from its voice Hoarse with its cry of ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... tip-top edge of his paper, I defiantly swung into The Humming Coon, which apparently had no more effect than Herman Lohr. So with malice aforethought I slowly and deliberately pounded out the Beethoven Funeral March. I lost myself, in fact, in that glorious and melodic wail of sorrow, merged my own puny troubles in its god-like immensities, and was brought down to earth by a sudden movement ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... carnival, too. Isn't Mr. Cyril Henshaw going to play his own music? Oh, I know I'm hopeless, from your standpoint, but I can't help it. I like mine with some go in it, and a tune that you can find without hunting for it. And I don't like lost spirits gone mad that wail and shriek through ten perfectly good minutes, and then die with a gasping moan whose home is the tombs. However, you're ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... provided a like one of suitable proportions for the princess. This came in good play, as her fine gentleman's attire would be but poor stuff to turn the water. The wind, which had arisen with just enough force to set up a dismal wail, gave the rain a horizontal slant and drove it in at every opening. The flaps of the comfortable great cloak blew back from Mary's knees, and she felt many a chilling drop through her fine new silk trunks that made her wish for ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... the cruel fire of sorrow Cast thy heart, do not faint or wail, Let thy heart be firm and steady, Do not let thy spirit quail; But wait till the trial be over And take thy heart again; For as gold is tried by fire, A heart must ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Beneath another standard: ill is this Follow'd of him, who severs it and justice: And let not with his Guelphs the new-crown'd Charles Assail it, but those talons hold in dread, Which from a lion of more lofty port Have rent the easing. Many a time ere now The sons have for the sire's transgression wail'd; Nor let him trust the fond belief, that heav'n Will truck its armour for his lilied shield. "This little star is furnish'd with good spirits, Whose mortal lives were busied to that end, That honour and renown might wait on them: And, when ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... through the settlement six times in as many days, and they listened superstitiously for the stark Tread through the woods which hemmed them in. Each whispering wind that stirred the leaves overhead brought a deeper silence, each wail from delirious sufferers in nearby huts ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... movingly, With clinging arms and passionate sobs, the three Wept out aloud, until the sorrow grew Into a deadly hush—nor cry nor wail Starts the drear silence of the solitude. Then suddenly a bodiless voice is heard And fear came cold on all. They shook with awe, And horror, like a wind, stirred up their hair. Again, the voice—again—'Ho! Oedipus, Why linger ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stabbed the vitals of the most hardened of us; with my own eyes I saw the mate tremble. Aye, in some way Holy Joe had sent a fear into the brute soul of Fitzgibbon; in some way he had sent a fear into the brute souls of us all, and, at least in my case, a great wonder. The pain-filled wail of Nils, coming as it did, seemed magic-inspired to light for me a universal truth. I felt it crudely, saw it dimly, but there it was, dramatized before my eyes, the age-long, ceaseless battle between ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... a man, who came to tune the pianoforte, extolled the merits of an AEolian harp. D'Argenton immediately ordered one made on a gigantic scale, and placed it on his roof. From that moment poor little Jack's life was a burden to him. The melancholy wail of the instrument, like a soul in purgatory, pursued him in his dreams. To the child's great relief, the poet was equally disturbed, and the harp was ordered to the end of the garden; but its shrieks and moans were still heard. D'Argenton fiercely commanded ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... faint bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above her head; she started and looked up. Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another from the opposite rocks. They were but the passing snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her they were mysterious, supernatural goblins, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the new-comer, with his face to the porch door, and the answer came back to him in a wail like ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... that?" I exclaimed, as a plaintive cry, which ended in a wail of anguish, such as might be given by a lost soul in torment, rang through ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... cry of anguish, one long, passionate wail of grief, she threw herself on her mother's bed. Her sorrow could not disturb that mother now; she was gone to that land which is very far off, where even the sound of weeping is never heard. The Good Shepherd had carried her safely over the river, and, as Rosalie wept in the ...
— A Peep Behind the Scenes • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of the Mongols, puts, perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth of Toghon Temur, the last of the Chinghizide Dynasty in China, when driven from his throne, the ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... to a perfect wail, but came down a note or two as Mother hastily reached in the press and drew out a tall, old demijohn and poured a liberal dose of the desired medicine into a glass. She added a dash of red pepper ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... was a wail; she threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder, wetting his beard with the tears that began to fall from ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... suddenly and swiftly taken from the loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had returned only to go away again three days later, when the wail of the "Dead March" and the tramp of the squadrons told the wondering station, that saw no gap in the table, an officer of the regiment ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... distinct above the roar of the storm, which at the moment had somewhat lulled, there rose a prolonged wail, or rather shriek, as of many human voices rising slowly in one passionate appeal to the mercy of Heaven, and dying away in sobbing, shuddering despair as the wild blast broke out again with the mocking laughter of all the fiends in the pit—a cry without similitude on earth, yet surely and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... same. So like an outcast, dowerless and pale, Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale Spread her young banner, till its sway became A wonder to the nations. Days of shame Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail. When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand Points his long spear across the narrow sea,— "Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand Weak, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... calm the wind stores up his forces for a mighty storm. On this dark, fearful night he blew his fiercest blasts. The wild beast was affrighted from his lair and rushed down with a moan, or the mountain eagle screamed out a wail, indistinctly heard through the moaning sounds. During the whole night, which was black as wickedness, the wind howled in mournful cadence, or went sobbing along the sand. As the hours wore on we seemed to hear, in every shriek of the blast, the strange tongue of some long-departed ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... to wake up the children," said she, "Arthur's never does. It's odd, for his voice is much heavier, of course. But I can never take really high notes without hearing a wail from either Bud or Dot. ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... of traffic which innkeepers love, Mrs Kelly was accounted a warm, comfortable woman. Her husband had left her for a better world some ten years since, with six children; and the widow, instead of making continual use, as her chief support, of that common wail of being a poor, lone woman, had put her shoulders to the wheel, and had earned comfortably, by sheer industry, that which so many of her class, when similarly situated, are willing ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... down in the snow and seemed to shrink to half his normal size; and then, as all the horror and the hopelessness of it came over him, he lifted up his voice in such a cry of abject fear, such a wail of utter agony and despair, as even the Great Tahquamenon Swamp had very seldom heard. I suppose that he had killed and eaten hundreds of smaller animals in his time, but I doubt if any of his victims ever suffered as he did. Most of them ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... be born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Old Goriot has gone off the hooks, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... shabbily dressed woman sat on one of the unpainted benches of the shady stoop, holding a baby in her arms. As Martin had said, slow tears of helpless misery were rolling down her cheeks, while from the bundle that she held came the worn-out, tired wail of a sick child. ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... in a social way By a body of ghosts in dread array; But no conventional spectres they— Appalling, grim, and tricky: I quail at mine as I'd never quail At a fine traditional spectre pale, With a turnip head and a ghostly wail, And a splash of blood on ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... Now a wail of men to Zeus rang: from Olympus the Thunderer Saw the rage of the havoc wide-mouthed, the bright car superimpending Over Asia, Africa, low down; ruin flaming over the vales; Light disastrous rising savage out of smoke inveterately; Beast-black, conflagration like a menacing ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... conclusion, last Tuesday, that the matter of the missing handbag and the letters was important. More important, probably, than the mere record shows. Do you recall the note of distress in Miss Jeremy's voice? It was almost a wail." ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... why does Buck Davis, who lives on the river flats, cross our hills, unless Murder Hollow be blockaded with snow, or unless he has turkeys for sale? But Buck Davis with turkeys would surely have stopped here, unless he were selling a large stock in town. A wail from the sacking at the back of the sleigh tells the tale. It is a winter calf, and Buck Davis is going to sell it for one dollar to the Boston Market where it will be turned into potted chicken. This leaves the mystery of his change of route unexplained. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... expression of recklessness, "Oh, very well, if you must have it, I will sing it. But I hate these sentimental songs, that say so much and mean nothing." Striking the chords nervously she sang, with a voice at first tremulous but at last full of strong and deep feeling, that wail ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... and breaks into a theatrical wail. When a little later, his wife, stepping cautiously on tiptoe, brings him in a glass of tea, he is sitting in an easy chair as before with his eyes closed, absorbed in his article. He does not stir, drums lightly on his forehead with two fingers, and pretends he is ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... was hot, oppressive, laden with the scents of dry earth. Sounds carried far in the stillness. The stamp of a horse in a stall, the low, throaty notes of a cow nuzzling her calf, the far-off evening wail of a coyote—all seemed strangely near at hand, borne by some telephonic quality ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... howl at something invisible, unknown, and doubtless horrible, for he was bristling all over. The gamekeeper with livid face cried: 'He scents him! He scents him! He was there when I killed him.' The two women, terrified, began to wail in ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... that his will through them might be wrought. Then he gave unto Fafnir my brother the soul that feareth nought, And the brow of the hardened iron, and the hand that may never fail, And the greedy heart of a king, and the ear that hears no wail. ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... a wail of despair. To be left to follow—to follow alone, in the dark, through unknown roads, with scarce a clue and on a strange horse—the prospect might have appalled a hardier soul. He was saved from it by Sir George's servant, a stolid silent man, who might be warranted to ride twenty miles ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... suppose. Well, hardly. You won't leave here to-night. And when you do, you won't carry those papers—my own safety depends on that and I am selfish, so don't get me started. Listen!" They caught the wail of the night crying as though hungry for sacrifice. ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Captain Stevenson join in the chorus softly. It is sung slowly, like a low wail, Major Shore's clear ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... the groan of a gravelled grouse, Or the snarl of a snaffled snail (Husband or mother, like me, or spouse), Have you lain a-creep in the darkened house Where the wounded wombats wail?" ...
— Reginald • Saki
... that old tower, though perhaps farther off, they could not tell, came a sound almost human, a kind of moaning intermingled with a plaintive wail, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... spots it is a common thing for the wake wail to be sung over the boddy each night it be in the house as also for a rushlight to be kept alight from sunset to sunrise and for the death watchers for to tend the dead throw the night owther in the same room or in one so held that those watching could see the corpse, and they due at this day ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... his principal for sale, or introduce him to the street with an indicating finger. The gloom grew, calling out the lights into strength, but the concourse did not thin: it only gathered in numbers, and the long, moaning hoot of an out-going tramp filled the air as though with a wail of sorrow at departure. Lascars in coal-begrimed tunics joined in with the rest, adding their voices to the babel, and round-hatted sailors from the Royal Indian ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... away!" the golden-haired girl broke out, in a voice that was positively a wail, and clasping a pair of pretty, slender ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... and owls, and creaks and cracks—no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and foals, of pigs and geese—the general wail of the zoological kingdom—cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking wearily on to ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... A horrible wail of mingled pain and fright, which wrung my heart-strings, welled from the lips of the little lamb, as mother, father, and grandmother rushed to raise him, knocking their own heads together in the process. Harold, white as a sheet and with a son-in-law's ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... orange and snow-white ribbon magically inspired, thrice at enormous speed they set a belt about the house. With tremendous bounds the Rose kept before her pursuers—heavily labouring, horrid with thirsty glee. Impotent in the doorway moaned Mr. Marrapit, his dirge rushing up to a wail of grief each time the parti-coloured ribbon ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... this loneliness could mean, and wherefore we were unable to make an entrance even into the little auberge that professed to loger a pied et a cheval, a kind of low wail or chaunt began to make itself heard from the other side of the river; wild and strange, yet full of a music of its own, it took my friend and myself so much by surprise that we almost thought for the moment that we had trespassed on to the forbidden ground of some fairy people who ...
— Samuel Butler's Cambridge Pieces • Samuel Butler
... uttered these last words, Preston bowed his head, his wife sobbed aloud, and the black people gave out a low cry, as sad as the wail which their own mourners breathe over the dead. Fixing his eyes on a tall, stalwart negro in the audience, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... her chin (Not a toot!), While the leading violin And the flute Wail and plead in low duet Till, it may be, eyes are wet. She her trombone doth ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it: Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done. And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill, And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill? He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears, And how could it all go on, love, if he knew ...
— Spirits in Bondage • (AKA Clive Hamilton) C. S. Lewis
... sure, His wisdom will not fail, He has not tasted wine impure, Nor bent to passion frail. Age cannot cloud his memory, Nor grief untune his voice, Ranging down the ruled scale From tone of joy to inward wail, Tempering the pitch of all In his windy cave. He all the fables knows, And in their causes tells,— Knows Nature's rarest moods, Ever on her secret broods. The Muse of men is coy, Oft courted will not come; In ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... you down to wail and groan." He never raised his voice; his calmness made him terrible. But now the questions broke loose ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... her holy purpose, unchecked by fear, unswayed by her sisters' entreaties. Hardening her heart magnificently till her fate is sealed; and then after proving her godlike courage, proving the tenderness of her womanhood by that melodious wail over her own untimely death and the loss of marriage joys, which some of you must know from the music of Mendelssohn, and which the late Dean Milman has put into ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... Instead of gold, we'll offer up our arms; Since arms avail not, now that Henry's dead. Posterity, await for wretched years, When at their mothers' moist eyes babes shall suck, Our isle be made a marish of salt tears, And none but women left to wail the dead. Henry the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate: Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils, Combat with adverse planets in the heavens! A far more glorious star thy soul will make ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... alone, although they thought they were. The hag that guarded the jewels was in the room. She sat hunched up against the wail, and as she looked like a bundle of rags they did not notice her. She began to ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... passed: at Eaglestein There sat the Ladye Etheline; Her eyes were wet, and her cheek was pale, Her sweet voice dwindled into a wail; For though through the world's busy crowd The deeds of the war were sung aloud, And the name of Sir Peregrine was enrolled With Godfrey's among the brave and bold, No letter had come from her knight so dear, To belie the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... folded his wings, and entering the crystal gates, sat down upon a blasted rock and struck his divine lyre, and a peace fell over the wretched; the demon ceased to torture and the victim to wail. As sleep to the mourners of earth was the song of the angel to the souls of the purifying star: one only voice amidst the general stillness seemed not lulled by the angel; it was the voice of a woman, and it continued to cry out with ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the commanding officer by this time, and several of the guard had come forth, anxious and eager to hear the news. No man in the group could catch the reply of the horseman to the questioners at "Sudstown," but in an instant an Irish wail burst upon the ear, and, just as one coyote will start a whole pack, just as one midnight bray will set in discordant chorus a whole "corral" of mules, so did that one wail of mourning call forth an echoing "keen" from every Hibernian hovel in all the little settlement, and in ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... out, it was about eleven o'clock, and the surrounding jungle was full of the horrible noises of an African night; the wail of the small lemur, that sounds like the death-moan of a child; the more distant roar of the lion in the black depths of the forest, too thick for the moonlight to ever penetrate; the giant trees ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Hastinapura and proclaim unto all that Pandu with his wives hath gone into the woods, foregoing wealth, desire, happiness, and even sexual appetite.' Then those followers and attendants, hearing these and other soft words of the king, set up a loud wail, uttering, 'Oh, we are undone!' Then with hot tears trickling down their cheeks they left the monarch and returned to Hastinapura with speed carrying that wealth with them (that was to be distributed in charity). Then Dhritarashtra, that first of men, hearing from them ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... people lined the whole of the way from Manchester to Liverpool, and, as far as the eye could reach, faces were seen anxiously looking towards Liverpool. Suddenly a strange roar was heard from the crowd, not a cheer of triumph, but a prolonged wail, beginning at the furthest point of travelling along the swarming banks like the incoming swirl of a breaker as it runs ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... woe. Of old didst thou lose Homer:... now again another son thou weepest, and in a new sorrow art thou wasting away.... Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus, nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet,... and not for Sappho but still for thee doth Mitylene wail her musical lament.... Ah me! when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and spring In another year: but we men, we the great and mighty or wise, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... fierce accusation; and every pale and starved prisoner shall raise his skinny hand in judgment. Blood shall call out for vengeance, and tears shall plead for justice, and grief shall silently beckon, and love, heart-smitten, shall wail for justice. Good men and angels will cry out: "How long, O Lord, how long, wilt thou not avenge?" And, then, these guiltiest and most remorseless traitors, these high and cultured men,—with might and wisdom, used for the destruction of their country,—the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... seeing that escape by flight was no longer possible, he turned round and boldly faced his pursuer. At the same instant a wild swan, rising from the water, flew off with a loud cry. It might have been taken for the death-wail of one of the combatants. Like a couple of wild beasts, the two Indians rushed at each other, and the next instant they were clasped in a deadly embrace. A desperate struggle ensued. It was youth and activity opposed to well-knit muscles and ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... What is that I hear, So mournfully ringing in my ear, Like a death song of warriors, For those who fell by their brave sires? Is this the wail now sounding For my ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... his sword. Next he put round his head his crested war-helm of battle and fight and combat, [5]wherein were four carbuncle-gems on each point and each end to adorn it,[5] whereout was uttered the cry of an hundred young warriors with the long-drawn wail from each of its angles and corners. [W.2583.] For this was the way that the fiends, the goblins and the sprites of the glens and the demons of the air screamed before and above and around him, what time ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... Nursed the little Hiawatha, Rocked him in his linden cradle, Bedded soft in moss and rushes, Safely bound with reindeer sinews; Stilled his fretful wail by saying, "Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!" Lulled him into slumber, singing, "Ewa-yea! my little owlet! Who is this, that lights the wigwam? With his great eyes lights the wigwam? Ewa-yea! my ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... Darn's words Jerry stretched out at full length in the road and his voice rose in a quavering wail of anguish. Celia Jane emitted a thinner, shriller wail. Nora came back to comfort them and was caught by the contagion so that she too plumped down in the ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... cleared off the last of the fever, which had by now worn itself away, and by degrees the things of North Aston went back to their normal condition. The families came into residence again, and save for the widow's wail and the orphan's cry in the desolated village below, life passed as it had always passed, and the strong did not spend their strength in bearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... was deemed a good sign of the state of the sufferer's soul, if from the gloomy recesses of the wall was heard the agonized groan of his dismal response. This was regarded in the light of a penitent wail from the dead, because the customs of the order ordained that when any inmate should be first incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it in the presence of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial service as the live body was sepulchred. Sometimes ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... resounds through the stillness, a long-drawn, mysterious utterance, passing drearily, difficult to locate, more difficult to name—one of those sounds by which Nature at times reaches to the dark places of our spirit and terrifies us with vague dread of the unknown. Is it the wail of an owl or other bird of the night? It pervades the air wildly and lingeringly. Those who come late to the ford and hear this sudden strange call draw rein and turn backward; it is better to drive the weary distance ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the brook and pushed his way straight ahead through the dense foliage which shut us off from the beach. I fell and made a great racket, setting up a wail about my leg and swearing that I had broken it, and ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... days, Tom, moved with undefined remorse, tried to take a part in nursing her. She took things from him, as she did from the landlady, without heed or recognition. Just once, opening suddenly her eyes wide upon him, she uttered a feeble wail of "Baby!" and, turning her head, did not look at him again. Then, first, Tom's conscience gave him ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... the corridor the anguished wail floated, followed an instant later by sounds counterfeiting the howling of an unhappy dog. ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sufficient to render all indistinctly visible. In a chair opposite is a young woman with such a mournful, careworn face, that a glance inspires you with sorrow; and from a bundle of clothes on her knee issues the fretful wail of a restless child. The monotonous tick of an old clock is the only sound, saving the longdrawn sigh of that young mother, or the quick, hollow breathing of the sleeping man. Now and then the wind whistles more shrilly through the crevices ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... will gather no more ripe grapes for the Trembling Fawn. He will not bathe again in the clear waters with La-u-na. He will give her no more rings of roses to put on her breast. The Trembling Fawn is wounded. She must find a cool shade and lie down. The dove will perch over her and wail. She will sing a low song. She will close her ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... curious curse, or influence. I am posed, puzzled and perplexed by the legerdemain of a creature—a deity rather; by Aphrodite, as a poet would put it, as I should put it myself in marble. ... But I forget—this is not to be a deprecatory wail, but a defence—a sort of Apologia ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... behind the hedge which marks the beginning of the combe, but Marah had disappeared—I could see no trace of him. Then suddenly, from somewhere behind me, out of sight, an owl called—and this in broad daylight. Three times the "Too-hoo, too-hoo" rose in a long wail from the shrubs, and three times another owl answered from up the combe, and from up the valley, too, till the place seemed full of owls. "Too-hoo, too-hoo" came the cries, and very faintly came answers—some of them ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... Negro has such a contagious brand of humor that many people never realize that this plays only on the surface. The real background of the race is one of tragedy. It is not in current jest but in the wail of the old melodies that the soul of this people is found. There is something elemental about the heart of the race, something that finds its origin in the forest and in the falling of the stars. There is something grim about it too, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... sir, I—" Hobbs began to wail. Then he groaned in dismal horror. King had lightly vaulted the wall and was grinning back at him from the sacred precincts—from the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... prophet wail deride! The solemn sorrow dies in scorn; And lonely in the waste, I hide The tortured heart that would forewarn. Amid the happy, unregarded, Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod; Oh, dark to me the lot awarded, ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... bright, laughing, hazel eyes; massive aquiline face, most massive, yet most delicate; of sallow brown complexion, almost Indian-looking, clothes cynically loose, free and easy, smokes infinite tobacco. His voice is musical, metallic, fit for loud laughter and piercing wail, and all that may lie between; speech and speculation free and plenteous; I do not meet in these late decades such company over a pipe! We shall see what ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... Said "Hi!" in a Commanding Tone, "Hi, Lundy! Leave the Cat alone!" Lord Lundy, letting go its tail, Would raise so terrible a wail As moved ...
— Cautionary Tales for Children • Hilaire Belloc
... wakened at the stranger's touch and began to wail. He had no mind to go with the Shepherd; he wanted to stay where he was. So as they went he screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping some of his friends would come. And the mother Deer, who was on her way thither, ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... figured that a life of ease | | Attends the jackie on the seas | | Who draws a U. S. check. | | His lot, it seems, is not quite so; | | Just hear this plaintive plea of woe | | That comes from off the BUFFALO. | | The sailors rise to raise a wail | | Because they say they get no mail. | | | |Will some Milwaukee misses in their spare moments do| |Uncle Sam a favor by writing letters to cheer up | |some of his downhearted nephews in the navy? | | | |The boys are just pining ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... on board. As the last boats put off there was a rush into the surf. Some women caught hold of the ropes, were dragged out of their depth, clung till their fingers were cut through, and perished in the waves. The ships began to move. A wild and terrible wail rose from the shore, and excited unwonted compassion in hearts steeled by hatred of the Irish race and of the Romish faith. Even the stern Cromwellian, now at length, after a desperate struggle of three ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... going down, then smothered and drowned, if not smashed dead at the first. The captain stood on the bridge to the last, went down with the ship, came up again among the wreckage, and was saved after hours in the water. He will never forget the long, piercing wail of despair from hundreds of victims as the gallant ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... found it inexpressibly lonesome and spooky. To the newcomer it is apt to be a ghostly sort of place at any time of year, unless mayhap he be from some similar strand, for its rolling sand hills are swept by winds that wail, and beaten by a sea that grumbles when it does not cry aloud. At the time of year when Standish and his men patrolled its beaches, it is no wonder they saw savages behind every liliputian pitch pine ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... words, not spoken, but rather moaned forth in a slow, monotonous wail of utter helplessness and broken-heartedness. I have heard human grief expressed in many forms, but I never heard or imagined anything so desolate, so surcharged with the despair of an eternal woe. It was, indeed, too hopeless for sympathy. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... recurring gusts of heart-broken sorrow and of agonies of prayer for her apostate son. Mistress Margaret was at the Hall all day, soothing, encouraging, even distracting her sister by all the means in her power. The mother wrote one passionate wail to her son, appealing to all that she thought he held dear, even yet to return to the Faith for which his father had suffered and in which he had died; but a short answer only returned, saying it was impossible to make his defence in a letter, and expressing pious hopes that she, ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... hear distinctly," Sibley had remarked as Ida took his arm and walked away from her post of observation. "Were you disgusted with his pious wail on general principles, or did something in ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... but to know it, he must demonstrate his statement. To assume that 448:1 there are no claims of evil and yet to indulge them, is a moral offence. Blindness and self-righteousness cling 448:3 fast to iniquity. When the Publican's wail went out to the great heart of Love, it won his humble desire. Evil which obtains in the bodily senses, 448:6 but which the heart condemns, has no foundation; but if evil is uncondemned, it is undenied and nurtured. Under such circumstances, to say that there is no evil, is an evil 448:9 in ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... these same prairies. I see as in a vision the dying spark of our council fires, the ashes cold and white. I see no longer the curling smoke rising from our lodge poles. I hear no longer the songs of the women as they prepare the meal. The antelope have gone; the buffalo wallows are empty. Only the wail of the coyote is heard. The white man's medicine is stronger than ours; his iron horse rushes over the buffalo trail. He talks to us through his 'whispering spirit.' " (The Indian's name for the telegraph and telephone.) "We are like birds with a broken wing. My heart is cold within me. ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... outward life fails to harmonise with the inner, the dweller within is hurt, and his pain manifests itself in the outer consciousness in a manner to which it is difficult to give a name, or even to describe, and of which the cry is more akin to an inarticulate wail than words ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... story that the old sailor from Tadousac told me when the waves were leaping, snapping, and frothing at us from the St. Lawrence, and over the moan of the wind and the anger of the waters rose the wail of the Braillard ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... Kent had noticed that the thunder and lightning were drifting steadily eastward, and now the occasional flashes of electrical fire scarcely illumined the trail ahead of them. The rain was not beating so fiercely. They could hear the wail of the spruce and cedar tops and the slush of their boots in mud and water. An interval came, where the spruce-tops met overhead, when it was almost calm. It was then that Kent threw out of him a great, deep breath and ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... A wail swept up from French, American, English, Swedish, Spanish, Norwegian, Russian and West ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... the couch-chair shone like mahogany, the couch itself was plump and smooth, like a living thing in good condition. The walls were a bright, lively blue, but there was not very much to be seen of them, so covered were they with all sorts of family-belongings and treasures. Against one wail stood a rather ambitious-looking article, half chest of drawers, half sideboard, the knobs of the drawers being of glass, which flashed in the bright fire-light as if smiling their approbation of the happy condition of ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... pronounced to be naughty, wilful, mischievous, and, finally, to be combined together to break their mamma's heart. It was clear that they were receiving the discharge of the wrath which was caused by somebody else. Now a wail, now a scream of passion, went to Maria's heart. She hastened on with her letter, in the hope that Mrs Rowland would presently go into the house, when the little sufferers might be invited into the schoolroom, to hear a story, or have their ruffled ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... I got back from Paris," the pretty woman was heard to wail, "I found all the women here were wearing the very models ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... stretched herself on the ocean bed, she fell with a despairing wail; her gown spread like a pall over the earth, the Highland bonnet came off, and her hair floated over a haphazard pillow ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... voice decayed; their shots Slowly boom. They ceased—and all is wail, As they strike the shattered sail, Or in conflagration ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of us turned down the gallery toward the kitchen. As we approached the door we heard a murmur of voices, one rising every now and then in a shrill wail which furnished a sort of chorus. Radnor whispered in my ear that he reckoned Nancy had "got um" again. Though I did not comprehend at the moment, I subsequently learned that "um" referred to a sort of emotional ecstasy into ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... out until the tumbrils started, then with a wail of despair he fell on his knees, shaking in every limb, chattering to himself, whether oaths ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... statue, she listened in deadly suspense. Again that cry, that dreadful cry, pierces through the stillness of the night, freezing her young heart with horror! "His death-wail!" cried the wretched girl; and careless of danger, scarce knowing what she did, heeding nothing but the sound of her lover's voice, she sprang from the balcony, and as though moonbeams had drawn her thither, she swung herself to the ground. For one moment her ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... am lost—lost out of sight! Nothing can save me! The Saviour himself wouldn't open the door to a woman that left her suckling child out in the dark night!— That's what I did!" she cried, and ended with a wail as from a heart whose wound eternal years ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... the low wail begin again, and then the echo of a far-off silvery voice came softly to me through the gloom: "It's an ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell |
