"Ditty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the ballad, which was about a recent double suicide: "The sorrowful ditty of Tamayone and Takejiro,— composed by Tabenaka Yone of Number Fourteen of the Fourth Ward of Nippon-bashi in the South District of the City of Osaka." It had evidently been printed from a wooden block; and there were two little pictures. One showed a girl and boy sorrowing ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, "Puh p'a teh, pub p'a teh"; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song, and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who shared his bed, and whose choral propensities ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... refrain, 'Spring Soon,' and kept it up with good heart more or less all through the winter's direst storms, till at length the waning of the Hunger Moon, our February, seemed really to lend some point to the ditty, and they redoubled their optimistic announcement to the world in an 'I-told-you-so' mood. Soon good support was found, for the sun gained strength and melted the snow from the southern slope of Castle Frank Hill, and exposed great banks of fragrant wintergreen, whose berries were a ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... I heard these funny words Come from lips so pretty; This, I thought, should surely be Subject for a ditty. ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... conspicuously in his works were, besides learning, a genial though somewhat caustic humour, and a thorough contempt for effeminacy of all kinds. The fop, the epicure, the warbling poet who gargled his throat before murmuring his recondite ditty, the purist, and above all the mock-philosopher with his nostrum for purifying the world, these are all caricatured by Varro in his pithy, good-humoured way; the spirit of the Menippean satires ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... ten-thirty Mrs. McChesney sat absolutely expressionless while a shrill blonde lady and a nasal dark gentleman went through what the program ironically called a "comedy sketch," followed by a chummy person who came out in evening dress to sing a sentimental ditty, shed the evening dress to reappear in an ankle- length fluffy pink affair; shucked the fluffy pink affair for a child's pinafore, sash, and bare knees; discarded the kiddie frock, disclosing a bathing-suit; left the bathing-suit behind ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... musical nor inspiring, but Billy had somehow adopted the ditty and made it his own, so far as eternally singing it could do so, and his comrades had found it not unpleasant; for the voice of Billy was youthful, and had a melodious smoothness that atoned for much in the way of imbecile words ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... carry out the business of teaching the tune by whistling it incessantly until the air was firmly fixed in those tiny memories, which, if they had not been exactly 'wax to receive,' proved 'marble to retain.' As the finches grew perfect in their one life-lesson, the Scottish ditty resounded sweetly all over the village of Northbourne. After that, the pupils being pronounced 'finished,' Jerry Blunt set forth, with his batch of performers, to London, where he got a fairly good price for his well-trained songsters. His birds sold off rapidly, each of them going ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... himself at his work. When Beckmesser, after impatiently preluding to bring to the window the figure he is expecting, clears his throat to begin the serenade, Sachs, vigourously hammering on his last, prevents him by bursting forth on his own account in a lusty ditty with much loud Ohe, Ohe, Trallalei!—a playful ditty, sweet at the core, about Eve, the original mother, and the first pair of shoes, ordered for her from an angel by the Lord himself, who was sorry to see the pitiful ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... profusion of red baize. The chief wife of Shinte, one of the Matebele or Zulus, sat in front with a curious red cap on her head. During the intervals between the speeches, these ladies burst forth into a sort of plaintive ditty; but it was impossible for any of us to catch whether it was in praise of the speaker, of Shinte, or of themselves. This was the first time I had ever seen females present in a public assembly. In the south the women ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... house at Holl, there was no one outside to greet her or announce her arrival, and so she entered, going straight into the bastofa. There she found her father sitting on his bed, knitting a seaman's mitten, crooning an old ditty the while: ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... vessel, gleaming brightly and throwing long, wavering, tremulous lines of colour along the polished surface of the water. On board one of these vessels, about a mile distant, someone was playing a concertina—very creditably, too—and singing a favourite forecastle ditty to its accompaniment; and it was surprising how softly yet clearly the sounds were conveyed across the intervening space of water. Singing and playing was also going on among the more distant ships; but the sounds were too far removed to create the discord which would have resulted had ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... sad little ditty was sung; then the sweet voice slipped softly into Holland's "Lullaby," which had been learned from hearing it sung by Miss Lucy to ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... on. Nobody aboard the craft knew what to do. Once Bob tried to cheer up and hum a ditty, but the effort was ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... profoundly touched at its conclusion. If he had had the courage; if George and Miss Sedley had remained, according to the former's proposal, in the farther room, Joseph Sedley's bachelorhood would have been at an end, and this work would never have been written. But at the close of the ditty, Rebecca quitted the piano, and giving her hand to Amelia, walked away into the front drawing-room twilight; and, at this moment, Mr. Sambo made his appearance with a tray, containing sandwiches, jellies, and some glittering glasses and decanters, on which Joseph Sedley's attention was immediately ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Dagobert's forehead and cheeks; his large imperial was incessantly agitated by nervous trembling—but he restrained himself. Taking, by two of the corners, the handkerchief which he had just dipped in the water, he shook it, wrung it, and began to hum to himself the burden of the old camp ditty: ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... on the knoll this spiritual ditty was unheard. They were, indeed, in some concern of mind, scanning every fold of the subjacent forest, and betraying both anger and ...
— Prince Otto • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for her friend and never gave way till Kurt had promised not to go on with his ditty. But her mother wanted to know now what had given Mea such red eyes. So she told them that she had followed Loneli in order to comfort her, for she was still crying. Loneli had told her then about being caught at chattering. Elvira, who was ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... the reason why her cheeks had remained pink, and flushed not thistle purple like the rest of her countenance. Even the serving-man smiled to himself, a mocking smile, and hummed in a low voice, as he continued to lay the blows thickly on Miles, a ditty having this refrain— ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... sang the gorgio to his fair, And thus his ditty ran:— 'Oh, may the Gypsy maiden come, And not the ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... aboard the destroyer Colodia they would not have been able to stow the junk they now secured away from the watchful eyes of the master-at-arms. In the destroyer their ditty boxes had to hide any private property the boys wanted ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... at the crop, both smoking their evening pipes. But as they came down toward the brink whence the path leads between the two adjoining rye-fields, they heard a sweet, sad voice crooning some old ditty down between the birch-trees at the precipice; they stopped to listen, and soon recognized Aasa's yellow hair over the tops the rye; the shadow as of a painful emotion flitted over the father's countenance, and ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... and Roaring Billy insisted on bawling out at the top of his stentorian lungs the doleful ditty of "Lord Bateman and his Daughters," which ran to thirty verses, and lasted half-an-hour. Hardly were the last words out of his mouth, when an impatient wight struck up the "Leathern Bottel," and heartily did they all join in the chorus, down to where the ballad describes the married man wanting ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... daughter! Ah! slaves sincere of flying phantom! Just as their goddess they would clasp, The jilt divine eludes their grasp, And flits away to Bantam! Poor fellows! I bewail their lot. And here's the comfort of my ditty; For fools the mark of wrath are not So much, I'm sure, as pity. 'That man,' say they, and feed their hope, 'Raised cabbages—and now he's pope. Don't we deserve as rich a prize?' Ay, richer? But, hath Fortune eyes? And then the popedom, is it worth The price that must be given?— Repose?—the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... thine, thou prince of Ganymedes? and when were cigars more justly appreciated, than as our puffs kept time with the trolling ditty, resounding through ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... bore, In such wild cadence, as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus first could Allen know, "Roderigh Vich Alpine, ho! ieroe!" And near, and nearer, as they rowed, Distinct the martial ditty flowed. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... cry to the Strand! . . . How freakish sounded that old London variety stage ditty ridiculing the nightly silence of the great snow-bound Nor' West. Redmond could not refrain an explosive, snorting chuckle as he remarked the erratic gait of the slowly approaching pedestrian. As Slavin had opined, he was ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... which reference had just been made—the piece in praise of Elizabeth which bore the name of Cynthia. In Spenser's pastoral, the speaker is persuaded by Thestylis (Lodovick Bryskett) to explain what ditty that was that the Shepherd of the Ocean sang, and he explains very distinctly, but in terms which are scarcely critical, that Raleigh's poem was written in love and praise, but also in pathetic ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... I do want you so much to come here, Margaret! I'm sure it would be the very best thing for Aunt Hale's health; everybody here is young and well, and our skies are always blue, and our sun always shines, and the band plays deliciously from morning till night; and, to come back to the burden of my ditty, my baby always smiles. I am constantly wanting you to draw him for me, Margaret. It does not signify what he is doing; that very thing is prettiest, gracefulest, best. I think I love him a great deal better than my husband, who is getting stout, and grumpy,—what he calls "busy." ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and smacked their legs, and twirled their merry Swiss girls about, until vengeance overtook them—a vengeance so complete, so surprising, that I can hardly now believe what my own eyes saw and my own ears heard. One of the merry Swiss girls sang a love-ditty with a jodeling refrain, which was supposed to be echoed back by her lover afar in the mountains. To produce this pleasing illusion, one of the merry Swiss boys ascended the staircase, and hid himself deep in the corridors of the hotel. All went well up to the last verse. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Oldham Weaver?" Not unless you are Lancashire born and bred, for it is a complete Lancashire ditty. I will copy it ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Camp-fire gatherings, so it seemed a fortunate chance that her name should be drawn first. She had brought her instrument, so as to be prepared in case the lot fell on her, and giving the E string a last hurried tuning she sat down and began a popular American ditty. It was a favourite among the girls, for it had a lively, rollicking chorus, which they sang with great gusto. Fifty voices roaring out: "Don't forget your Dinah!" seemed to break the ice and set the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... of working clothes. 1 Suit of oilskins. 1 Pair of sea-boots. 1 Pair of shoes. 3 Changes of flannels. 6 Pairs of stockings. 2 Mufflers. 4 Towels. 3 Coloured flannel shirts. 1 Bar of soap. 6 Collars, 2 neckties. 2 Pillow-slips. 1 Bed and full set of bedding. 2 Caps. 1 Canvas bag. 1 Ditty bag well stored with needles, thread, buttons, thimble, worsted to darn stockings, and cloth to ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... never known a lover's sin Let them not read my ditty, it will be To their dull ears so musicless and thin That they will have no joy of it, but ye To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile, Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... crowned the swiftest workwoman with field flowers, withering in the nearest swathe. All wove garlands, then made for the shade of the trees and shared a low basket of golden apples. One had a lute and another sang a love ditty with ethereal passion. They were in Arcadia,—silken shepherdesses, slim princes in disguise,—and they breathed the sweetness, the innocent yet lofty grace which ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... it,' said he gravely. 'It is based on a sound old melody called "The Jilt's Hornpipe." Just as they turn Madeira into port in the space of a single night, so this old air has been taken and doctored, and twisted about, and brought out as a new popular ditty.' ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... players in a booth at the fair. A very slow, doleful, but catching air was played, which so laid hold of the tailors' fancy that for some time after they were found slowly whistling or humming the doleful ditty, the movement of their needles keeping time to it; the result was that the clothing that should have been sent home on Saturday was not finished until the Wednesday following. The music had done it! The master tailor, being something of a philosopher, sent his men to the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... what art can wash her tears and stains and shame away? And the answer was what Rosalind herself had already given: the only way "to rouse his pity" was "to die!" She almost laughed at herself for repeating the well-worn, hackneyed, century-old ditty. People did not die now-a-days, either of broken hearts or of chloral, when their lovers deserted them. And Caspar Brooke had never been her lover. No, he had only given her pain; and she wished that she could make him suffer, too. "Revenge" was too high-flown a word; but if she ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... bigs his nest For the mate he lo'es to see, And on the topmost bough, O, a happy bird is he; Where he pours his melting ditty, And love is a' the theme, And he 'll woo his bonny lassie When the kye comes hame. When ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the straw-roof'd cot, the note of joy Flows full and frequent, as the village fair, Whose little wants the busy hour employ, Chaunting some rural ditty, ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... wedding bells— Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtledove that listens while ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Miss Kitty, This is a pity; But I guess the cause of your change of ditty. What has become of the beautiful thrush That built her nest in the heap of brush? A brace of young robins as good as the best; A round little, brown little, snug little nest; Four little eggs all green and ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... passed from hand to hand, and form the "root of title" of very many owners of house property in Kilkenny. The city is the centre of an extensive agricultural region, famous, according to an ancient ditty, for "fire without smoke, air without fog, water without mud, and land without bog"; but of late it has been undeniably declining. For this there are many reasons. The railways and the parcel-post diminish its importance as a local emporium. The ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... second son of Walter Scott, first Laird of Raeburn, who was third son of Sir William Scott, and the grandson of Walter Scott, commonly called in tradition Auld Watt, of Harden. I am therefore lineally descended from that ancient chieftain, whose name I have made to ring in many a ditty, and from his fair dame, the Flower of Yarrow—no bad genealogy for a Border minstrel. Beardie, my great-grandfather aforesaid, derived his cognomen from a venerable beard, which he wore unblemished by razor or scissors, in token of his regret for the banished dynasty of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to the Evening Public Ledger of Philadelphia for permission to reprint the ditty included ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... next on to the scene, and sang—in a rather peacock voice—a little ditty lamenting the weather, at which a velvet-coated cavalier came to the rescue, and chanting his offer of help sheltered her with a huge green umbrella, under which they proceeded to make love, and finally executed a dance ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... song, I wondered that at the first note of the king of singers all other birds were not mute. But evidently the birds have not enthroned this thrush. Possibly, even, they do not share human admiration for his song. The redstart goes on jerking out his monotonous ditty; chippy irreverently mounts a perch and trills out his inane apology for a song; the vireo in yonder tree spares us not one of his never-ending platitudes. But the hermit thrush goes on with sublime indifference to the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... of facts which he has noted down as they occurred; he makes his selection according to circumstances, according to the state of his own mind; not forgetting the state of mind that the children may be in, and especially the state of the weather. The following little ditty may then be repeated, the subject being ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... observes that he has committed only one plagiarism in his play. But with all the triumph of vanity, we here stoutly convict him of having wilfully, maliciously and despitefully stolen, the pleasing idea of the repetition of "down, down, down," from the equally pathetic and instructive ditty of "up, up, up," in Tom Thumb; the exordium or prolegomena to which floweth ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... is delectable!" returned her lover, opening the paper again; "it would make a charming ditty! Come, I will sing it. Shall it be to the tune of 'The Babes in the Wood,' or 'Chevy Chase,' or 'The Beggar ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... of us this time. More applause. Say this guy can fiddle, he can. Come on, baron, another tune. The tired faces yammer for another ditty. "Traeumerei." All right, let her go, Paganini. And ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... the prospect of getting into port, and singing a new topical ditty that had come up from the Santa Fe by way of La Junta. Nobody knows who makes these songs; they seem to follow events automatically. Mrs. Kronborg made Giddy sing the whole twelve verses of this one, and laughed until she wiped her eyes. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... aright. Therewith she gave this young gentleman her hand to support her to her seat, and asked him whether, in his country, they did not do service and devoir to the divine Dame Musica? And whereas he replied that verily they did, that in his own land he had heard many a sweet ditty sung by noble ladies to the harp and lute, that the children would ever sing at their sports, and that he, too, had oftentimes uplifted his voice in singing of madrigals, she besought him that he would make proof ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... nothing would have to be named which carried the least suggestion of sadness with it, and, in the world that human language refers to, such a condition would exclude every situation possible. "O joy, O joy," would be the whole ditty: hence some dialecticians, whose experience is largely verbal, think whatever is pure ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... cook, the tank being retied to keep out drift. The cooker will now be going at full pressure, and the cook is ready to receive the gear. Sleeping-bags, "computation bag," hypsometer, "meat block" (a three-inch-square paper pad on which meteorological notes were taken); clothes-bag opened, three ditty-bags passed in and bag retied; a final temperature taken and aneroid read; sledge anchored securely by tow-rope to the ice-axe, and a final look round to see all gear is safely strapped ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... close the present Number with a very graceful, though simple ditty, which Goethe may possibly have altered from the Morlachian, but which is at all events worthy of his genius. Previously, however, in case any of the ladies should like something sentimental, we beg leave to present them with as nice a little chansonette as ever was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... she sat over her sewing, dropped now and then a tear down on her work for the loss of her sister and counselor and long-tried friend. From the lower part of the ship floated up, at intervals, snatches of an old English ditty that Margery was singing while she moved to and fro about her work, one of those genuine English melodies, full of a rich, strange mournfulness blent with ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... tread upon the air, Twin roses by the zephyr blown apart Only to meet again more close, and share The inward fragrance of each other's heart. She, to her chamber gone, a ditty fair Sang, of delicious love and honey'd dart; He with light steps went up a western hill, And bade the sun farewell, and joy'd his ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... me that not one of the victims uttered a cry, or showed a symptom of terror at so sudden a "wrench from all we know, from all we love." The fate of Phrosine, the fairest of this sacrifice, is the subject of many a Romaic and Arnaout ditty. The story in the text is one told of a young Venetian many years ago, and now nearly forgotten. I heard it by accident recited by one of the coffee-house story-tellers who abound in the Levant, and sing or recite their narratives. The additions ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... there doth stand Inamorato with folded hand; Down hangs his head, terse and polite, Some ditty sure he doth indite. His lute and books about him lie, As symptoms of his vanity. If this do not enough disclose, To paint him, take thyself ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... exploits of "the Arethusa, Seventy-four," in a muffled minor, ending with a prolonged dying fall at the burden of each verse, "On b-o-o-o-ard of the Arethusa." It was a fine sight to see Jack holding The Luck, rocking from side to side as if with the motion of a ship, and crooning forth this naval ditty. Either through the peculiar rocking of Jack or the length of his song,—it contained ninety stanzas, and was continued with conscientious deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... mandolin, and commenced a ditty. 'Twas a sweet and wild one. It told how a lady of high lineage cast her eyes on a peasant page; it told how nought could her love assuage, her suitor's wealth and her father's rage: it told how the youth did his foes engage; and at length they went off in the Gretna ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... himself, but the occasion of wit in others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him, and called "Old Sir Simon the King." This was the favourite old-fashioned ditty in which Fielding's rough and jovial Squire Western ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... joined most warmly in the request, Mr. Bodkin filled up his glass to the brim, bespoke a chorus to his chant, and clearing his voice with a deep hem, began the following ditty, to the air which Moore has since rendered immortal by the beautiful song, "Wreath the Bowl," etc. And, although the words are well known in the west, for the information of less-favored regions, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... book of airs under the more ancient title. It is also called "The Country Garden" in Playford's "Dancing Master," and in Chappell's "National English Airs," Nos. 25 and 26. Chappell gives it in 3-4 time, and remarks that it then becomes "a plaintive love ditty instead of a ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... song of the Black-throated Bunting consists of five, or rather two, notes; the first repeated twice and very slowly, the third thrice and rapidly, resembling chip, chip, che-che-che; of which ditty he is by no means parsimonious, but will continue it for hours successively. His manners are much like those of the European yellow-hammer, sitting, while he sings, on palings ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... struck two fingers on the capstan after the manner of a tuning-fork, and, holding them gravely to his ear as if to get the right pitch, began in a really fine manly voice to chant the following ditty:— ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... surprise they found Ross there. He was sitting at the piano strumming a music-hall ditty. As the door opened be shuffled to his feet, shook hands distantly with Auntie Nan, and nodded his ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... ditty seemed to mock me, my breath came and went to it, my heart beat to it; yet even so, I was praying passionately and this my prayer, viz: That whoso was waiting above us for my death-cry should not again lift the scuttle lest I be discovered to this man-thing that crept and crept ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... sea Duteous to the lunar will, But some discord stealthily Vexes the world-ditty still, And the bird that caws and caws Clasps creation with ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... wife; and he was given the government of Canada to deliver him from her, and afford him some means of living." A more scandalous report of the motive which sent Frontenac to Quebec is to be found in a whimsical ditty which gained quiet ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... evidently not of the sweetest, for to Vijil he had expressed himself in forcible Mexican—which is supposed to be Spanish and often isn't—condemning the luck by which the cinch had gone bad at the wrong time, and as he tinkered he sang softly an old southern ditty: ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... milked into a wooden pail And sang a country ditty, An innocent fond lovers' tale, That was not wise nor witty, Pathetically rustical, ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, valise; grip, grip sack [U.S.]; skippet, vasculum; boot, imperial; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rate he had it in his possession right then, and being able to play a little, he put it to his lips and trilled a few bars of a ditty that sounded like a queer sort of a waltz. And to the utter amazement of his companions the bear immediately started to tread a lively measure with his two hind feet, extending his shorter forepaws as though ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... maintaining it we must not be forgetful that a great change has taken place. We are no longer a weak Nation, thinking mainly of defense, dreading foreign imposition. We are great and powerful. New powers bring new responsibilities. Our ditty then was to protect ourselves. Added to that, our duty now is to help give stability to the world. We want idealism. We want that vision which lifts men and nations above themselves. These are virtues by reason of their own merit. But they must not be cloistered; ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... her sequestered haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell, Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts, And Health, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... cavalier) sang this ditty to you, In my necktie of red and my jacket of blue; I'm sure you'll prefer the song that was mine And smile your approval on ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... jerky movements, his bright oriole colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, and poured out his soul in the quaint though not very musical ditty of his race. Sometimes he stood still on a branch, like a bird who has something to say; but more often he rushed around after insects on this tree, and threw in the notes between the firm snaps of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... to wear! Now, as this is a true ditty, I do not assert—this, you know, is between us That she's in a state of absolute nudity, Like Powers's Greek Slave or the Medici Venus; But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare, When at the same moment she had on a dress Which ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... country and city, Come listen with patience, and hear out my ditty: At this time I'll choose to be wiser than witty. Which ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... round the city He carols wild and free Some sweet unmeaning ditty In many a changing key; And each succeeding verse is Commingled with the curses Of those whose sleep disperses Like ...
— The Scarlet Gown - being verses by a St. Andrews Man • R. F. Murray
... observed the monk, "has been added to the ditty by Nicholas Demdike. I heard him sing it the other day ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... to the southward, off the coast. Thorhall prepared for his voyage out below the island, having only nine men in his party, for all of the remainder of the company went with Karlsefni. And one day when Thorhall was carrying water aboard his ship, and was drinking, he recited this ditty:[35-1] ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... interposed with the energetic prelude of his concluding ditty. It was one of Tom ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... rare charm and notable cure for the worms, together with divers salves, electuaries, medicaments and nostrums from the farthest Orient. I have also store of songs and ballades, grave and gay. Are ye melancholic? Then I have a ditty merry and mirthful. Would ye weep? Here's a lamentable lay of love and languishment infinite sad to ease you of your tears. Are ye a sinner vile and damned? Within my wallet lie pardons galore with powerful indulgences whereby a man may enjoy all the cardinal sins yet shall his soul be accounted ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... with the flap of his old sou'wester. Some names and phrases, with here and there a line, or part of one; these, in his aberration, wrested into incoherency from their original connection and import, he voluntarily derives, as he does the measure, from a famous old sea-ditty, whose cadences, long rife, and now humming in the collapsing brain, attune the last flutterings ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... himself had wandered here A-strolling through this sordid city, And piping to the civic ear The prelude of some pastoral ditty! The demigod had crossed the seas,— From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr, And Syracusan times,—to these Far ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... himself, as that high-minded man owned, could stand up before the Snatcher, and he commonly used to retire to Mrs. Cutts's private apartments, or into the bar, before that fatal song extinguished him. Poor Cos's ditty, 'The Little Doodeen,' which Bows accompanied charmingly on the piano, was sung but to a few admirers, who might choose to remain after the tremendous resurrectionist chant. The room was commonly emptied after ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the whole thing is that eternal ditty of tuneful youth: All for Verse and the World well lost. The enemy is around them on all sides, jailers of the Marshalsea and envious critics, the evil shepherds that preside over grates of steel and noisome beds of straw, but Youth has its ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Come to these legs! (He embraces ALF, and smothers him with kisses.) Oh, you've been and rubbed off some of your cheek on my complexion—you dirty boy! (He playfully "bashes" ALF's hat in.) Now show the comp'ny how pretty you can sing. (ALF attempts a Music-hall ditty, in which he, not unnaturally, breaks down.) It ain't my son's fault, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's all this little gal in front here, lookin' at him and makin' him shy! (To a small Child, severely.) You oughter know worse, you ought! (Clumps of sea-weed and paper-balls ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 6, 1892 • Various
... Dexter had the goodness to call it), was sent in a little too late to be printed with the official account of the celebration. It was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found in the record ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... which she could draw it like a cart. Victor filled it with apple parings, and they started forth in a procession, Nana drawing the shoe in front, followed by the whole flock, little and big, an imp about the height of a cigar box at the end. They all sang a melancholy ditty full of "ahs" and "ohs." Nana declared this to be always ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... singing us a fashionable ditty," remarked Ferdishenko, and looked at the mistress of the house, to see ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... which recited the cause of his calamity. Dot-and-go-One disencumbered himself of his timber leg and took his place, upon sound and healthy limbs, beside his fellow-rascal; then they roared out a rollicking ditty, and were reinforced by the whole crew, at the end of each stanza, in a rousing chorus. By the time the last stanza was reached, the half-drunken enthusiasm had risen to such a pitch, that everybody joined in and sang it clear through ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sinna H's jes brimful o' gas, Singin' dat tomfool ditty As he goes hobblin' pas'! He betta be prayin' and mebbe H'll git in de fold at las'! Yes, he's gwine to de grabe up yonder By de trees dar on de hill, Where all alone by hisself one day He buried po' massa Will! You see dey war boys togedder; To-day dey'd cuss an' fight; But dey'd make it ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... Goethe's little operas, which are far less studied than they deserve, although replete with grace, melody, and humour, we stumbled upon a ballad which we at once recognised as an old acquaintance. Some of our readers may happen to recollect the very witty and popular ditty called "Captain Wedderburn's Courtship," a peculiar favourite amongst the lower orders in Scotland, but not, so far as we knew, transplanted from its native soil. Our surprise, therefore, was great when ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... real whip-poor-will or night-jar last night frequently, sighing his melancholy ditty along the banks of the beautiful Thames. The cry of the Canada quail, which is a very small partridge-like bird, is very plaintive. As we passed them, they gave it out heartily—Phu—Phoo-iey. We arrived at Smith's tavern, seventeen miles, at half-past seven, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... heavily, his face crimson and blear-eyed and brutalized, his speech thickened disgustingly. He was sprawled in an armchair, waving an empty glass in an erratic attempt to mark the time of a college ditty six or seven years out of date, which he was trying to sing. He leered up ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... spared that disagreeable work and permitted to arrange our belongings for the long voyage before us. In the service each man is allowed a black bag about three feet six inches high, and twelve inches in diameter, and a small wooden box, eighteen inches square, known as a "ditty box," to keep his wardrobe in. All clothing is rolled, and careful sailors generally wrap each garment in a piece of muslin before consigning it to the black bag. In the ditty box are kept such articles as toothbrush, ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... Burke is seven miles up the canon from Wallace and the grade drops two hundred and thirty-five feet to the mile, being a masterpiece of engineering. Ed gets his two cars to the main line, all right, whistling a careless ditty. Then when they should of stopped they did not. They kept sneaking and creaking along on him. He couldn't get the brake of the forward car up very tight, and in setting the brake of the rear car, with a brakeman's stick for ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... ocean; wide he spreads His bounds abrupt; confin'd by Sardis here, By small Hypaepe there. Upon his top, While Pan in boastful strain the tender nymphs Pleas'd with his notes, and on his wax-join'd reeds A paltry ditty play'd; boldly he dar'd To place his own above Apollo's song. The god to try th' unequal strife descends; Tmolus the umpire. On his mountain plac'd, The ancient judge from his attentive ears The branches clear'd; save that his azure head With oak was crown'd, and acorns dangling down ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... a tavern ditty, and not too nice in its sentiments, as, indeed, why should it be, to please its hearers? There was a lilt in its chorus which even Stefan's unmusical voice could not hide, and it set the men's heads nodding in time as they roared it out together, ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... signify, as many of the more settled Ostjaks had adopted the Russian costume. Godfrey intended to fish as they drifted along, but they had at present at least as much fish on board as they could consume while it was good. Luka, as he worked, sang a lugubrious native ditty, while with his knife he trimmed the skins into shape. Having done this he proceeded to sew them together with ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... the most vulnerable knob of the human vertebrae. The knapsack sits easy and does not chafe. The one shown in the engraving is of good form; and the original—which I have carried for years—is satisfactory in every respect. It holds over half a bushel, carries blanket-bag, shelter-tent, hatchet, ditty-bag, tinware, fishing tackle, clothes and two days' rations. It weighs, empty, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... chant a ditty about the virtues of one notorious Molly O'Morgan; Colonel Parker repeated several times, "Aurelle, my boy, don't forget that if Englishmen can afford to make fools of themselves, it is only because England is such a ...
— General Bramble • Andre Maurois
... before, Mr. Price was able to start for Harwich, via Brampton, very early the next morning. He was driving along through Northcutt's woods with one leg hanging over the wheel, humming through his nose what we may suppose to have been a love-ditty, and letting his imagination run riot about the lady in question, when he nearly fell out of his wagon. The cause of this was the sight of fat Tom coming around a corner, with Jethro Bass behind him. Lem Hallowell ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of where the Baron de Ross danced to his ditty of reiteration, Jastrow the Granite Jaw reached up and in through the rail, capturing one of the jiggling ankles, elevating the figure of the Baron de Ross ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst
... was vigorously encored, and Tom at once responded with a second—and I have no doubt, genuine—barrack-room ballad. The hero of this ditty is a "Lancer bold." He is duly wetted with tears before his departure for the wars; but is cheered up at the last moment by the lady's assurance that she will meet him on his return in "a carriage gay." Arrived at the front, he performs the usual prodigies: ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... had a suspicion, either of their honesty or of their good-humour. Not only the four who had most immediately to do with us, but also the two chief muleteers, Mohammed 'Ali and Mousa, and the songful boy, Mohammed el Nasan, who warbled an interminable Arabian ditty all day long, and Faris and the two other assistants, were models of fidelity and willing service. They did not quarrel (except once, over the division of the mule-loads, in the mountains of Gilead); they got us into no difficulties and subjected us to no blackmail ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... toward the coming judgment; and as he stood thinking of the awfulness of this critical moment, the exercises of the Adventists grated on the deep peacefulness of his spirit, for from singing their more beautiful hymns, they had passed to an excited shouting of the old camp-meeting ditty whose refrain is: ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Crittenden. They had been imbibing freely. Rousseau insisted upon my turning back and going with them to his quarters. Crittenden was the merriest of the party. On the way he sang, in a voice far from melodious, a pastorial ditty with ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... "and may good fortune attend you everywhere. Electress, give me your arm, and let us withdraw to our own apartments. And he, our son, will doubtless, first of all, have to take a most touching and tearful farewell of Leuchtmar, and sing a mournful ditty about the cruel father who would take away from him his nurse—that is ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... safety or in doubt, Always keep a safe lookout; Strive to keep a level head, Mind your lights and mind your lead. —Pilot-house Ditty. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... familiar with that John Brown whom the minstrel has immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of this "genuine autobiography" claims no relationship with the famous owner ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... quiet; no light was visible from the window of Herrera's room, which was at about a dozen feet below him. The mist and thick darkness prevented any view of the sentry; but he could hear the sound of his footsteps, and the burden of the royalist ditty which he was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... she could bear it no longer. They were singing now—a terrible thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like the cracking of whips—a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband would come and rescue her from these beasts. Watching ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... foot, which was inclined to swell and give him pain; and another request which he made was, that they would repair a gun, which had been deprived of its stock by fire. He then sung them a doleful ditty, not in praise of female beauty, as is the practice with the songsters of England, but it was in praise of elephants and their teeth, in which he was assisted by his cane bearer, and afterwards took his leave. They received little presents of goora nuts, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the edge of a swamp a mile from camp. When brought, the green wood smoked so badly that suppers were late and rather cheerless; still there was spirit enough left in those stalwart hearts to start some mirth-provoking ditty, or indulge in good-natured raillery over the joys ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... will be gratified. In that hope I am content to drag on the brief remnant of my days. Meanwhile, I must not omit the stimulant. In a short time I may not require it." Draining the bottle to the last drop, he flung it from him, and commenced chanting, in a high key and cracked voice, a wild ditty, the words of which ran ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Through this house give glimmering light, By the dead and drowsy fire: Every elf, and fairy sprite, Hop as light as bird, from brier; And this ditty after me Sing, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... ditty does remember my drown'd father. This is no mortal business, nor no sound That the earth owes.[389-102] I hear it now ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... yet be as now thou art, That in thy waters may be seen The image of a poet's heart, How bright, how solemn, how serene! Such heart did once the poet bless, Who, pouring here a[3] later ditty, Could find no refuge from distress, But in the ...
— Lyrical Ballads 1798 • Wordsworth and Coleridge
... over the rough floor brings indolent, half-indifferent guessing as to which of the lesser four-foots they belonged. The whippoorwills down in the river woods call until they drop off, one by one, and the timid ditty of a singing mouse that lives under the floor by my cot is the last message the sandman sends to close our eyes before sleep. And such sleep! That first steel-blue starlit night in the open we said that we meant to sleep and sleep it out, even if we lost a whole day by it. ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... causing a general stampede among the disciples of the onion and a hasty adjournment of the festival. What law against irregular assemblages was infringed by these onion-worshipers is not clear, for one can hardly detect sedition lurking under the rustic ditty, and it is equally difficult to suspect an Orsini bomb conspiracy of being typified by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... come on immediately after the 'First Part,' succeeding which I suppose Lohengrin will sing his Duck Ditty, while the Boy Scout, dressed as Uncle Tom's Cabin, after biting the triggers off all the guns, and pulling his wig well down over his eyes"—imitating the action—"will sally forth into the limpid limelights, and after he has been shot once in the face by ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... words—but when I reached 65 That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... tremendous thumping upon the table announced the fact, and after a few preliminary observations from Mike, illustrative of his respect to the service in which he had so often distinguished himself, he began, to the air of the "Young May Moon," a ditty of which I only ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... joints. Well Cousin, saies the t'other, it seems that you are deeply studied in the Art of Witchcraft, for I fear its too true. I went from home on purpose to take my pleasure for three weeks or a month, that I might store my self with fresh provisions, and sing a sweet ditty in commendations of my Betty. Ho, Ho, saith Master Barebreech, flatter not your self with such a fancy, that you'l get as much up again in three weeks or a month, as you have been running behind hand in four. If you'l do well, let's for a frolick go into France, there's ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... song, your Honor," continued Pothier, waving one hand in cadence to a ditty in praise of wine, which a loud voice was heard singing in the Chateau, accompanied by a rousing chorus which startled the very pigeons on the roof and chimney-stacks. Colonel Philibert recognized the song as one he had heard in the Quartier ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... St. Cecilia, that you will never read it again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in all the terms of landscape, painted lawns and chequered shades, a Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... a Christian to oppose him, and he had no chance of better treatment if he were to remain quiet." The snow-storm continued, and the men remained below, all but Jemmy Ducks, who leaned against the lee side of the cutter's mast, and as the snow fell, sang, to a slow air, the following ditty, it probably being called to his recollection by the state ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... station was just out of hailing distance. Nobody seemed stirring. The whole shore and back land thereabout was deserted; the edge of the city was four miles distant. Hoang returned to the forecastle-hatch and went below, groping under his bunk in his ditty-box. ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris
... and "squalidus" is "in a sorry pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... this over to himself with considerable satisfaction. He possessed a remarkably sweet tenor and pleasurably anticipated singing his ditty to its hero, and doubtless getting a cushion pitched at his head for his pains. But it happened that Varney was to go to his grave without ever hearing that ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... I'll owe it him," calmly remarked the young gentleman, as he departed with his booty, whistling a cheerful ditty. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... at the bedroom window and wonder with a foolish face of horror. The pavement was often blocked for hours together, and itinerant vendors of refreshment made it a new market centre, while vocalists hastened thither to sing the delectable ditty of the deed without having any voice in the matter. It was a pity the Government did not erect a toll-gate at either end of the street. But Chancellors of the Exchequer rarely avail themselves of the more obvious expedients for paying off the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the willow, the wild weeping willow, That murmurs a dirge to the rapturous days, And moans when the kiss of the breeze laden billow Entangles and dangles among the sad sprays! A musical ditty to scatter the sadness, A warble of wildness to banish its tears, Till tremulous measures of bountiful gladness Be sounding and bounding through all of ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... of domestic affection. All the family had been christened in it. The eldest sister had been married in it. Generations of ancestry mouldered under the chancel-floor. Christmas decorations were an occasion of much innocent merriment, and a little ditty high in favour in Tractarian homes warned the ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... singular," I continued, "that the house wren should dwell in such secluded places. It would seem that his name is a misnomer—at least, in a good many instances." Several times I stopped to listen more intently to the rolling ditty. "There's something odd about that wren's song," I repeated. "Does the house wren always close its song with the rising inflection, as if it were asking ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... tea, sugar, canned milk, dried fruit, rice, cornmeal, flour and baking powder mixture, a little bacon, butter, and seasoning. This will weigh less than ten pounds. With other minor appurtenances in the ditty bag, including an arrow-repairing kit, one's burden is less than twenty ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... eulogy on him, was printed, Ralegh had acquired the reputation at Court of a poet. Puttenham, a critic of high repute, had, in The Art of English Poesy, printed in 1589, pronounced 'for ditty and amorous ode, Sir Walter Ralegh's vein most lofty, insolent, and passionate.' By 'insolent,' not 'condolent,' as Anthony Wood quotes, Puttenham meant original. His first public appearance as a poet was in 1576, when in grave and sounding lines ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... A close palkee, with a passenger; the bearers, with elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a monotonous, jerking ditty, which the sirdar, or leader, is impudently improvising, to the refrain of Putterum, ("Easy now!") at the expense of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... to chant this ditty to his loving subjects, was a monstrously fat old man, with only one eye; and a nose which bore evidence to the frequency, strength, and depth of his potations. He wore a murrey-coloured plush jerkin, stained with the overflowings of the tankard, and much the worse for wear, and unbuttoned ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... A simple ditty Private Smithy sang for me, Entitled "Beans."... The tune was not a joy; The words were commonplace as they could be, But just to hear his ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... a position on the main drive, and began in a deep roar, coupled with an unsteady gait, the following ditty: ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... but wholesome salad from the brook, These shades are all my own. The timorous hare, Grown so familiar with her frequent guest, Scarce shuns me; and the stock-dove unalarmed Sits cooing in the pine-tree, nor suspends His long love-ditty for my near approach. Drawn from his refuge in some lonely elm That age or injury has hollowed deep, Where on his bed of wool and matted leaves He has outslept the winter, ventures forth To frisk awhile, and bask in the warm sun, The squirrel, flippant, pert, and full of play. He ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... was called on for a good old Christmas song. He bethought himself for a moment, and then, with a sparkle of the eye and a voice that was by no means bad, excepting that it ran occasionally into a falsetto like the notes of a split reed, he quavered forth a quaint old ditty: ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving |
