"Chirp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... me dark and dismal. With night came new voices—the hideous voices of the nocturnal swamp; the qua-qua of the night-heron, the screech of the swamp-owl, the cry of the bittern, the cl-l-uk of the great water-toad, the tinkling of the bell-frog, and the chirp of the savanna-cricket—all fell upon my ear. Sounds still harsher and more, hideous were heard around me—the plashing of the alligator, and the roaring of his voice; these reminded me that I must not go to sleep. To sleep! I durst not have slept for a single ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... father and Ethel, whose voices he heard in low conversation on the front porch. They ceased for a moment, as though the speakers had heard the sound of his footsteps, and paused to listen. The night was still, so still that the chirp of a cricket under the piazza sounded loudly. It was a cheerful little note, and Donald hated it for its cheer, and started hastily away toward ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... trousers, and a sweater, and in silence crept downstairs and out through the study window. It was just light; there was a smell of grass. 'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was mysteriously white out of doors, with nothing awake except the birds just beginning to chirp. 'I'll go down into the coppice,' he thought. He ran down through the fields, reached the pond just as the sun rose, and passed into the coppice. Bluebells carpeted the ground there; among the larch-trees there ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Sparrow would chirp truculently, "you 'tend to your business, and let me 'tend to mine. Anybody would think that we were all to save ourselves in this house but you. As for my typing, it's funny if I can't save you something on those miserable ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... I must not let stray sorrows out; They are ill to fledge, and if they feel blithe air They wail and chirp untunefully. Would God I had been a man! when I was born, men say, My father turned his face and wept to think ...
— Chastelard, a Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... in the room. The mother did not utter a word, nor did the son. The birds were twittering outside, even the faintest chirp could be heard as well as the soft rustling of the spring wind in the ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... towards one another, now and then, as they exchanged a syllable or two, and there was a mild luminousness of pleasure in the recesses of their pale-blue eyes. The evening darkened fast into night. The plaintive half-chirp, half-whistle of a tree-toad fell in monotonous repetition ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... leaving a suffocation in the air that is difficult to explain; but I've felt something like it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become too awed to chirp and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless. It is in these suspenses of unpleasant expectation, when at any moment the heavens will open with a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to fury, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... gently that it did not frighten the rabbit, although he flirted his ears a little when he heard the "click, click!" Everything was so quiet that he probably thought he heard some insect, probably a young or ignorant cricket that did not know how to chirp properly. ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... lamentable story, had it only been gifted with human language. And when he attempted to drive it away, the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree, and again came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed a ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... inspect whether her little brood was safe, she disappeared again. In a few minutes more, she returned, skimming round to reconnoitre that all was safe, she perched upon the nest. Instantly the little nestlings were awake to the summons of her touch and chirp, and, opening their mouths wide, were ready for what she would give. She dropt a small fly into the mouth of one of them, and, having no more, flew away to provide for the other hungry mouths as fast as she could. As soon as she was gone, ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... Not much moonlight could come through, but the leaves would glimmer white in the wind at times. The tree was full of giant birds. Every now and then, one would sweep through, with a great noise. But, except an occasional chirp, sounding like a shrill pipe in a great organ, they made no noise. All at once an owl began to hoot. He thought he was singing. As soon as he began, other birds replied, making rare game of him. To their astonishment, the children found they could understand every word they sang. And ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... sandpiper will run along the stones before you, crying, "wet-feet, wet-feet!" and bowing and teetering in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the way to the best pools. In the thick branches of the hemlocks that stretch across the stream, the tiny warblers, dressed in a hundred colours, chirp and twitter confidingly above your head; and the Maryland yellow-throat, flitting through the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, calls "witchery, witchery, witchery!" That plaintive, forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, even in the noonday ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... sultry summer night, silent and still, not a leaf stirring, hardly so much as the chirp of an insect to be heard. The moon looked down from a cloudless sky upon green lawns and meadows, fields and forests clothed in richest verdure; gardens, where bloomed lovely flowers in the greatest variety and profusion, filling the air in their immediate vicinity ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... and naturally stern lineaments with a bright gleam of human feeling, "Chingachgook heard the laugh of Wah-ta-Wah, and knew it from the laugh of the women of the Iroquois. It sounded in his ears, like the chirp ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... and showers, Oh! girlish thorns and flowers, Oh! fruitless days and hours, Oh! groundless hopes and fears: The birds still chirp and twitter, And still the sunbeams glitter: Oh! barren years and bitter, Oh! ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Musick went with us both all the Wood thro', The Lark, Linnet, Throstle, and Nightingale too; Winds over us whisper'd, Flocks by us did bleat, And chirp went the Grasshopper under our Feet. But now she is absent, tho' still they sing on, The Woods are but lonely, the Melody's gone: Her Voice in the Consort, as now I have found, Gave ev'ry thing else ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... squirrels have been festive among the nuts all winter, in the hope of finding, among the myriads of short, stiff catkins, one which has lengthened and softened until it is ready to pour its golden pollen into our palms. We find neither this nor the crimson stars of the fertile flowers, but the chirp of a white-throated sparrow directs our eyes to a young aspen tree from whose ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... rule is the savanna sparrow, who sings habitually from the ground. But even he shares the common feeling, and stretches himself to his full height with an earnestness which is almost laughable, in view of the result; for his notes are hardly louder than a cricket's chirp. Probably he has fallen into this lowly habit from living in meadows and salt marshes, where bushes and trees are not readily to be come at; and it is worth noticing that, in the case of the skylark and the white-winged blackbird, the same conditions have led to a result ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... as superlatively absurd. "Where was the object?" I would ask myself. Moreover, it was too late; and I went on dreaming with open eyes, careering on horseback through the savannas, listening at break of day to the prattle of the parrots in the guava-trees, at nightfall to the chirp of the grillos in the cane-fields, or else smoking my cigar, taking my coffee, rocking myself in a hammock,—in short, enjoying all the delights that are the very heart-blood of a guajiro, and out of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful charities, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... been so careless, that it appeared that what had passed so lately between them had quite gone out of his mind. Nelly tried to forgive and forget, but her spirit was sad and low. Even Content seemed to droop his wing, and would scarcely give even a chirp. ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... the Wise, pluck out their Eyes, To set forth a Book worth a Groat; We Mad-men are quicker, grow Learn'd with good Liquor, And Chirp a Merry note. ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... confusion of the household. It was lucky if the children slept till seven o'clock. Usually, soon after six, a chirp was heard, a voice, an excited chirrup began, announcing the creation of a new day, there was a thudding of quick little feet, and the children were up and about, scampering in their shirts, with pink legs and glistening, flossy hair all clean from the Saturday's night bathing, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... at nightfall, when the sun has sunk under the hills, and the crickets chirp,—"gone." Say it to yourself when the night is far over, and you wake with some sudden start from pleasant dreams,—"gone." Say it to yourself in some country churchyard, where your father, or your mother, sleeps under the blooming violets of spring,—"gone." Say ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... these pleasures began to grow familiar to his friend Nancy. Her papa, one day, presented her with a book of prints, with which she was so much delighted, that Cherry began to lose at least one half of her attention. As usual, he would chirp the moment he saw her, let her be at what distance she would; but Nancy began to take no notice of him, and almost a week had passed, without his receiving either a bit of biscuit, or a fresh supply of chick-weed. He repeated the sweetest and most harmonious ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread out before him. He was taking his bearings, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... to feed my snow-birds with them; and I should be very happy to have you go with me. I know you will enjoy seeing how merrily they hop about and flutter their wings, and seem to chirp out their thanks as they pick up the ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... oldest acquaintance, and it is my dinners that have made him so fat. He moves about among the others like a rich banker. Only hear him! His very chirp has in it something aristocratic and supercilious. He looks upon this crumb-scattering as a duty society owes him, and determines generously to leave for the others all he can not eat up himself. But I think I see a tuft on his ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... is full of debris, now disintegrated into one solid mass, and covered with vegetation. You can lie on the blossoming clover, where the bees hum and the crickets chirp around you, and can look through the arch which frames its own fair picture. In the foreground lies the steep slope overgrown with bayberry and gay with thistle blooms; then the little winding cove with its bordering cliffs; ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... but green and bright In the summer warmth and the mid-day light, There's the hum of the bee and the chirp of the wren, And the dash of the brook from the older glen. There's the sound of the bell from the scattered flock, And the shade of the beach lies cool on the rock, And fresh from the west is the free-wind's breath. There is nothing here ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... on wistfully, "When I was nine, I found these little books in our library and after that I enjoyed vicariously the life I had never lived. That's why I like it here—Mrs. Flippin's kettle sings—and the crickets chirp—and Mr. and Mrs. Flippin are ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... hand into the cage, seized the little canary- bird with the red ribbon, and squeezed him so closely that the poor little creature gave one faint chirp and died. The man drew him out, and hurled him against the wall ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... littering the black soil with leaves among which runs a constant querulous hissing and rustling. Also, storks are uttering their snapping cry, sleek rooks cawing, steppe grasshoppers maintaining their tireless chirp, sturdy, well-grown husbandmen uttering shouts like words of command, the threshing-floors of the rolling steppe diffusing a rain of golden chaff, and eddying whirlwinds catching up stray poultry feathers, dried-onion strips, and leaves yellowed with the heat, to send them dancing ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... sings the latest, Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, Where the nestlings chirp and flee, That's the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... single tear a sound broke the stillness, making her prick up her ears. It was only the soft twitter of a bird, but it seemed to be a peculiarly gifted bird, for while she listened the soft twitter changed to a lively whistle, then a trill, a coo, a chirp, and ended in a musical mixture of all the notes, as if the bird burst out laughing. Rose laughed also, and, forgetting her ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... mind, as being descriptive of the very opposite of her character, for she was gentle as a lamb, tender in the mouth, playful in her moods, and sensitive to a degree both in body and spirit. No curb was ever needed to restrain Vixen, nor spur to urge her on. A chirp sent an electric thrill through her handsome frame; a "Quiet, Vic!" sufficed to calm her to absolute docility. Any child could have reined her in, and she went with springy elasticity as though her ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... papers, and father said he was more comfortable than downstairs, as I did not mind his pipe, and Tom has hung my linnet there,' pointing to the window, 'and if you open the cage, miss, you will see him hop all over the bedclothes, and chirp in the beautifullest way.' ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... baby-treat; Nor, I deem, for me unmeet; [4] Here, for neither Babe nor [5] me, Other play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, 45 That with stir of feet and wings (In the sun or under shade, Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this orchard's narrow space, And this vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in bands 55 Travelled into distant lands; Others slunk to moor ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... at them, she heard the mother bird chirp, as if she said, "Do not touch my children, little girl, for I ...
— McGuffey's First Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition • William Holmes McGuffey
... Welcome to my lone retreat! Here, secure from every danger, Hop about, and chirp, and eat: Robin! how I envy thee, Happy ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... from his horse, lifted her into the saddle, seated himself before her, so that she could cling to him, and then hastened homewards. The moon shone so brightly between the trees that the soldiers could not miss the track. Presently the birds roused up, and began to chirp and twitter in the dawning light. And if the maiden had had time to listen to their warnings, they would have profited her more than the honeyed words of her lover, which were all that reached her ear. ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... fellows, so he caught me up under his arm, and started off to the ball-ground, where most of them were to be found. Matches tried to follow us, but Sim drove her back, and the last I saw of her she was under the table, whimpering. It was a soft little complaining cry she had, almost like the chirp of a sleepy bird, and when she made it her mouth drew up ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... and had visited Tiffany's more often to admire than to purchase. On the contrary, this rather added a dazzle to the music of the Ogdens. And Molly, whose Eastern song had been silent in this strange land, began to chirp it again during the visit that she made at the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... concede," The poet cried, with glowing cheeks; "The flocks that from their beds of reed Uprising north or southward fly, And flying write upon the sky The biforked letter of the Greeks, As hath been said by Rucellai; All birds that sing or chirp or cry, Even those migratory bands, The minor poets of the air, The plover, peep, and sanderling, That hardly can be said to sing, But pipe along the barren sands,— All these have souls akin to ours; So hath the lovely race of flowers: Thus much I grant, but nothing more. The ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Flushed with the morning's ruddy flame; The air was fresh and soft and sweet, The slopes in spring's new verdure lay, And, wet with dewdrops, at my feet Bloomed the young violets of May. No sound of busy life was heard Amid those forests lone and still, Save the faint chirp of early bird, Or bleat of deer along the hill. I traced the rivulet's winding way, New scenes of beauty opened round. Where woody shades of brightest green And lovely blossoms tinged the ground. 'Ah, happy valley stream,' I said, 'Calm glides ...
— The Forest King - Wild Hunter of the Adaca • Hervey Keyes
... are thrilling, after their fashion; but the music of modern ordnance and projectile, the beautiful whistle of the minie-ball, the howl of shell that makes unearthly havoc with the air, the whiz-z-z of solid shot, the chirp of bullets, the scream of grape and canister, the yell of immense conical cylinders, that fall like redhot stoves ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... blackbirds meet, And robins pipe amid the cedars nigher. Thro' the still elms I hear the ferry's beat. The swallows chirp about the towering spire; The whole air pulses with its weight of sweet, Yet not quite satisfied is ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... of tea and visiting. The simultaneous sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth in the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with his presence. Then was his forte, his glorified hour! How would he chirp, and expand, over a muffin! How would he dilate into secret history! His countryman, Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent than he in relation to old and new London—the site of old theatres, churches, streets gone to decay—where ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat[obs3], croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, trill, tweet, pipe, whistle [small birds]; hum [insects, hummingbird]; buzz [flying insects, bugs]; hiss [snakes, geese]; blatter[obs3]; ratatat [woodpecker]. Adj. crying &c. v.; blatant, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Cincirillo follow thee about, Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That feared not you and me—alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... definitely made I could do nothing but go on. The weather was clear and warm, with an odorous south wind drawing forth the leaves, and as I fell to work, raking up the yard, the smell of unfolding blooms, the call of exultant "high-holders" and the chirp of cheerful robins brought back with a rush, all the sweet, associated memories of other springs and other gardens, making my gold-seeking expedition seem not only chimerical, but traitorous to ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... backing Munchausen in a corner and dragging his medals away from him, "that's the answer, You for the Burbs! You for the chateau up the track! Henceforth, you for the cage in the country where the daffydowndillys sing in the treetops and buttercups chirp ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea—ye like a cup o' tea—and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines on the lake ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... you're a martyr to our long tongues!" cried Patricia, jumping up and putting out the light. "Go to sleep now. We won't chirp a single note. ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... art. True that the hiatus would be slight— insignificant if you will—but the insignificant is sometimes dear to us; and though nightingales, thrushes, and skylarks were to sing in King's Bench Walk, I should miss the individual chirp of ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... Ave has all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and—oh! their braveness and cheeriness—they did quite seem to hold one up! And then poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "God will not let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here! These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of squirrels and the chirp and twitter of birds that haunted the lonely place ceased and it was night. Only the notes of fall insects in their monotonous and ceaseless iteration were heard above the sighing wind, which now sounded like a requiem ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... a "shuttle"? What does the word still mean here? Who are the "elfin clan"? By whom is the sheaf tenanted? What is a reveille? Does the grasshopper chirp at night? Why is its cry ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... I with my fellow bird or brute So strangely metamorphis'd, either ney Or bellow loud: or if 't may better sute Chirp out my joy pearch'd upon higher spray. My passions fond with impudence rehearse, Immortalize my madnesse ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... himself for a great effort, and making a start away from the rail managed to drag his slippers as far as the binnacle. There he stopped again, exhausted and bored. From under the lifted glass panes of the cabin skylight near by came the feeble chirp of a canary, which appeared to give him some satisfaction. He listened, smiled faintly muttered "Dicky, poor Dick—" and fell back into the immense silence of the world. His eyes closed, his head hung low over the hot brass of the binnacle top. Suddenly he stood ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... as it comes peeping through the windows of the morning, then see the birds leave their bowers, the larks to fly away to the fields, the mocking-bird to sing in the cedar at the garden gate, the robin to chirp to its mate, and you will see a picture which will pale that of ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... under the elm! The sweet-scented grass was warm with the afternoon sun, and musical with the chirp and hum of its insect homes. The bees fluttered in and out over mamma's rose garden, and all the air was filled with the delicate fragrance ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... this has been a very silent winter," the minister remarked. "In my walks and drives of late I have scarcely heard the chirp of a bird. Are there many that stay with us through ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... began to be strange sounds in the forest. The birds had ceased to sing, save for a chirp now and then as Gigi's passing wakened some tired songster. But there were other noises which Gigi did not understand, and which set his heart to knocking fearfully; the cracking of twigs far off and near at hand; little scurries in the underbrush ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... solemnity about the Roman villa as soon as Marcus was left alone. All seemed to have grown painfully still. It was fancy, no doubt, but, to the boy, the birds had ceased to sing and chirp among the trees, the sounds from the farm were distant, and though more than once Marcus listened intently he did not hear Serge go to or from his room, nor his step ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... conserver is the chipping squirrel, or chipmunk, so named because his cry sounds like the chirp of little chickens. His method of dress is most unusual; he is brownish grey in colour, with five stripes of black and two of pale yellow running along the back of his coat; the throat and lower part of his body is snowy white. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... each other. She is not at all surprised to hear that the animals used once to talk. The wonder would be if some one told her they don't talk now. She is quite sure she understands what her big dog Tom says and her little canary Chirp. She is quite right; animals have always talked, and they talk still; but they only talk to their friends. Rose Benoit loves them and they love her, and that is why she understands what they say. To understand each other there is ...
— Child Life In Town And Country - 1909 • Anatole France
... butterflies, and the air thick with all those woodland sounds which like instruments in an orchestra combine to play the great symphony of the yearly festival of June. Winds whisper in the birches and sigh among the firs; bees are busy with their irredolent labor among the heather, a myriad birds chirp in the green temples of the forest trees, and the voice of the river prattling over stony places, bubbling into pools, chuckling and gulping round corners, gives you the sense that many presences and companions are near ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all the way from the hills here and there; 'tis no military music like in the towns, nay, but voices—a proclamation: Spring has come. Then suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song, it is a hymn of praise. The emigrant feels home-sick already, maybe, something weak and helpless ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... gradually extends its edges along the sides of the shell, as the chick enlarges, but is at the same time applied closer to the internal surface of the shell; when the time of hatching approaches the chick is liable to break this air-bag with its beak, and thence begin to breathe and to chirp; at this time the edges of the enlarged air-bag extend so as to cover internally one hemisphere of the egg; and as one half of the external shell is thus moist, and the other half dry, as soon as the mother hearing the chick chirp, or the chick itself wanting ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... imperishable record of our shame. Then they loosed the men and bade them form in rank. The soldiers came out of the dark vans, in which they had been confined, with some eagerness, and began at once to chirp and joke, which seemed to me most ill-timed good humour. We waited altogether for about twenty minutes. Now for the first time since my capture I hated the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... in contrast to the milder colorings. Blackbirds and bluebirds chatter and chipmunks chirp. The gold so hard to find in the mines glares from the skies. The hills cuddle in banks of snowy clouds, and above all a pure clear blue sky sweeps. The lakes and streams abound with rainbow trout, the gamest of any ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... be had missed the sight of a bird, and the sound of their chirp and song! Nebsecht said: "There are some birds—we ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she warped the moss to form her nest, And modelled it within with wood and clay, And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue; And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... in vodka. I poured myself out a teacupful and greedily drank it off, for I was intensely thirsty. Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... into her mind as she sat there, apparently enjoying herself; she was wrapped in a secrecy so deep that no human being could touch even the fringe of what she was thinking about, for Winnie's remarks were only like the chirp of a bird on the window-sill ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... can carefully in the center of the coop, she put the little chickens close by it. Finding it soft and warm, they cuddled up against the flannel cover, and began to chirp as contentedly as if it were a mother hen. Then she pinned a square of flannel to the upper side of the can, letting it spread either way like a mother hen's wings, and leaving the ends open for the chickens to ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... full play of my faculties, and without any apprehension of early departure, not having had any portents, nor seen the moon over my left shoulder, nor had a salt-cellar upset, nor seen a bat fly into the window, nor heard a cricket chirp from the hearth, nor been one of thirteen persons at a table. But my common sense, and the family record, and the almanac tell me it ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... still. Very little time ago; but she was a woman now,—and, look here! A chance ray of sunlight slanted in, falling barely on the dust, the hot heaps of wool, waking a stronger smell of copperas; the chicken saw it, and began to chirp a weak, dismal joy, more sorrowful than tears. She went to the cage, and put her finger in for it to peck at. Standing there, if the vacant life coming rose up before her in that hard blare of sunlight, she looked at it with the same still, ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... appear, but no one came, and he went up the hill to take an observation. A grove of pines covered one part of it, and from the heart of this green spot came a clearer sound than the soft sigh of the pines or the drowsy chirp of the crickets. ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... the clatter of the carts, and the tramp of early passengers on the pave below, as they wended along to commence their daily toil. It was just sunrise, and the season was summer. A little canary bird, the only pet poor Lingave could afford to keep, chirp'd merrily in its cage on the wall. How slight a circumstance will sometimes change the whole current of our thoughts! The music of that bird abstracting the mind of the poet but a moment from his sorrows, gave a chance for his natural buoyancy ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... least of all His own doomsman." Her words seem'd to fall With a weight of tears in them. He look'd up, and saw That sad serene countenance, mournful as law And tender as pity, bow'd o'er him: and heard In some thicket the matinal chirp of a bird. ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... together, moistened with the spittle of the Great Elk, and fashioned into many little balls about the bigness of the eye-balls of a humming-bird[B]. When the mass had been all made into balls, he commanded all to be silent. When the camp had become so hushed, that the chirp of a grasshopper or the hum of a bee might have been heard from limit to limit, he ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... loveliness; they were content to feel it, and the perfection of the afternoon, whose low sun slanting over the landscape gave, under that pale, greenish-blue sky, a pensive sentiment of autumn to the world. The crickets cried amongst the grass; the hesitating chirp of birds came from the tree overhead; a shaggy colt left off grazing in the field and stalked up to stare at them; their little guides, having found that these people had no pleasure in the sight of small boys scuffling on the verge of a precipice, threw themselves ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... twain were lodged in Wai-pi'o, Beheld Hi'i-lawe, the grand. We brought and cut for our love-wreath The rich hala drupe from Naue's strand, 5 Tufted lehua that waves on the cliff; Then sat and gave ear to song of o-o, Or harked the chirp ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... with dexterous audacity pinned their handiwork on to the cap of her neighbour Denis O'Meara, who sat all unawares. Thus it came to pass that when Hugh was at last roused to a vague sense of tittering all round him, which reached him much as the clacking chirp of sparrows gets meaninglessly into our frayed morning dreams, and looking up out of his reverie, stared about him for an explanation, the first thing his eyes lit on was Denis's smart cap surmounted by a mass of gaudy yellow ribbon in immense bows and loops and streamers, flapping ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... at this early hour; the birds were only beginning to chirp, and the vultures were just lazily assembling to see if they could discover one more morsel at the slaughtering-place of the ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... you. Let Mr. Powell come and see us happie; it may tend to make him soe. Let him and his abide with us, at the leaste, till the Spring; his Lads will studdy and play with mine, your Mother will help you in your Housewiferie, the two olde Men will chirp together beside the Christmasse Hearth; and, if I find thy Weeklie Bills the heavier 'twill be but to write another Book, and make a better Bargain for it than I did for the last. We will use Hospitalitie without grudging; and, as for your owne Increase of Cares, I suppose ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... wide, wise sky, the clouds that on the grass Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass; The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane That to our coming feet had been so plain, And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath, Amidst the wilding ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... it burst into a stream of song, 'while the lid performed a sort of jig, and clattered like a deaf and dumb cymbal that had never known the use of its twin brother.' Then the cricket came in with its chirp, chirp, chirp, and at it they went in fierce rivalry until 'the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and was taken off ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... are whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill, But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill, Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will {417} Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... showed the book to Mr. Nichols, and we had a pleasant talk, in the course of which she showed me the five facsimile volumes of Dickens's Christmas books, which he had issued. In particular, he read aloud to me the magnificent description of the boiling kettle in the first "Chirp" of "The Cricket on the Hearth," and pointed out to me how Dickens fell into rhyme in describing the song of the kettle. This passage Mr. Nichols read to me, standing in front of his fire, in a very musical and sympathetic tone of voice which pleased me exceedingly. I was strongly tempted to buy ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... shet my eyes now, as you sing it, And hear her low answerin' words; And then the glad chirp of the crickets, As clear as the twitter of birds; And the dust in the road is like velvet, And the ragweed and fennel and grass Is as sweet as the scent of the lilies Of Eden ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... a nose, for the reg'lars came [1] Whenever a pannie was done:— [2] Oh! who would chirp to dishonour his name, And betrays his pals in a nibsome game [3] To the traps?—Not I for one! [4] Let nobs in the fur trade hold their jaw, [5] And let the jug be free:— [6] Let Davy's dust and a well-faked claw ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... and silent in among the trees, whose great trunks towered up so high, and though we could hear a chirp now and then far above us in the leaves, all was as still as possible, not so much as a beetle or fly breaking the silence ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... the river we still came across birds and insects, but the further we went the more monotonous and dead Nature became. I could never have pictured such a lifeless wood to myself. No sound of insects was to be heard, no chirp or song of bird; and not even the trail of a serpent was to ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... its clay-cold breast, The Arctic Robin rais'd its nest, And rear'd its little fluttering young, Where Death in awful quiet slept, And fearless chirp'd, and gaily sung Around the babe its parents wept. It was the guardian of the grave, And thus its chirping seem'd to say:— "Tho' naught from Death's chill grasp could save, Tho' naught could chase his power away— As round this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... laburnum, the lilac blaze of the rhododendron bushes. And how still the place was! Far off there was a dull roar of carriages in Piccadilly; but here there was nothing but the bleating of the sheep, the chirp of the young birds, the stir of the wind among the elms. Sometimes he could now catch ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... and fresh and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill, And bell of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... shout of welcome when Winklemann's canoe was observed emerging from surrounding darkness, and a cheer burst from those who first heard the glad news—"The old folk saved!" But that was a mere chirp to the roar of congratulation that rang out when the little party landed, and the rescuers strode into camp bearing the rescued ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... "That was the chirp of Ariel You heard, as overhead it flew, The farther going more to dwell And wing our green to wed our blue; But whether note of joy or knell Not his own Father-singer knew; Nor yet can any mortal tell, Save only how it shivers through; The breast of us a sounded ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Skeleton Island, but saw—clear across the spit and the eastern lowlands—a great field of open sea upon the east. Sheer above us rose the Spyglass, here dotted with single pines, there black with precipices. There was no sound but that of the distant breakers, mounting from all round, and the chirp of countless insects in the brush. Not a man, not a sail, upon the sea; the very largeness of the view increased the sense ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... had he uttered the words when the cricket in the chimney corner chirped loudly, and his shrill notes seemed to say: "The king—the king." Rodolph could hardly believe his ears. How had the cricket learned to chirp these words? It was beyond all understanding. But still the cricket chirped, and still his musical monotone seemed to say, "The king—the king," until, with an angry frown, Rodolph strode from his house, leaving the child to ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... walked over from the Thurman ranch after doing the chores. To him she observed that Frank was an hour late, and Swan, whistling softly to Jack—Lorraine was surprised to hear how closely the call resembled the chirp of a bird—strode away without so much as a pretense at excuse. Lorraine stared after him wide-eyed, wondering and yet ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... crieth in the egg-shell, Thou givest him breath therein to preserve him alive ... He cometh forth from the egg, to chirp with all his might. He runneth about upon ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... in his ear mysterious words. Here a shrill chirp; there a click, like the click made with the tongue; further on, plaintive murmurs; in the distance a tinkle like that of the bell on the neck of the wandering ox. Suddenly Rey heard a strange sound, a rapid note, that could be ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... silence, resembling that which usually precedes the falling of the gallows drop. So profound, that the chirp of a tree cricket, even the rustling of a leaf, would seem a loud noise. So ominous, that the vultures perched upon the summit of the cliff crane out their ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid |
