"Lyre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... madman, though they awoke sometimes in wonder at snatches of a new, an unmistakable new music. It was the triumph of all the various modes of the power of the pipe, tamed, ruled, united. Only, on the painted shutters of the organ-case Apollo with his lyre in his hand, as lord of the strings, seemed to look askance on the music of the reed, in all the jealousy with which he put ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... a troubled sea, His body lies that was so fair and young. His mouth is stopped, with half his songs unsung; His arm is still, that struck to make men free. But let no cloud of lamentation be Where, on a warrior's grave, a lyre is hung. We keep the echoes of his golden tongue, We keep the vision of ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... spirit of song,—midst the zephyrs at play In bowers of beauty,—I bend to thy lay, And woo, while I worship in deep sylvan spot, The Muses' soft echoes to kindle the grot. Wake chords of my lyre, with musical kiss, To vibrate and ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... the manuscript of St. Blasius as a Lyre. Gerbertus rightly observes that it has only one string, and is more like a Cheli.[14] He quotes writers of different epochs relative to the meaning of the word Lyre as used by them, the tendency of his remarks apparently being to establish a connection between the German Fiddle ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... is of a melancholy cast of mind, and carries sal-volatile in her reticule, and fountains of tears in her eyes, for use on the most public occasions; she likes gloomy apartments, looking upon the sea, mountains, or black forests, and leading into endless corridors; she has an AEolian lyre ever at her casement, writes verses and weeps by moonlight, for—effect, or— nothing; and is enamoured with a being, who, in the common course of nature, could not exist; he possessing, amongst other fine qualities, that of omnipresence in an impious degree. Should the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 331, September 13, 1828 • Various
... but mellow— Callow pedant! I began To instruct the little fellow In the mysteries known to man; Sung the noble cithern's praise, And the flute of dear old Pan, And the lyre that Hermes plays. ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... long-unwonted yearning For that calm, pensive spirit-realm, to-day; Like an Aeolian lyre, (the breeze returning,) Floats in uncertain tones my lisping lay; Strange awe comes o'er me, tear on tear falls burning, The rigid heart to milder mood gives way! What I possess I see afar off lying, And what I lost is ...
— Faust • Goethe
... mysteries of love, the delightful life of youth with full cups and empty purses, the pleasures of travel and of poetry, the Roman and still more frequently the Veronese anecdote of the town, and the humorous jest amidst the familiar circle of friends. But not only does Apollo touch the lyre of the poet, he wields also the bow; the winged dart of sarcasm spares neither the tedious verse-maker nor the provincial who corrupts the language, but it hits none more frequently and more sharply than the potentates by whom the liberty ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in thy pearl we shall see the lonely grave on whose stone is chiselled a lyre and ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... no peculiar fair Touches with a lover's care; Though the pride of my desire Asks immortal friendship's name, Asks the palm of honest fame And the old heroic lyre; Though the day have smoothly gone, Or to letter'd leisure known, Or in social duty spent; Yet at the eve my lonely breast Seeks in vain for perfect rest, Languishes ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... shall I sing for thee, My Lord and Light? What shall I bring to thee, Master, to-night? O for the strong desire! O for the touch of fire! Then shall my tuneful lyre Praise ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... like Orpheus, and true sentiment is our Eurydice with her touch on our shoulder; the spirits that follow are the sham-sentiments, the temptations to look back and pose. The music of our lyre is the love and thought we bring to our every-day life. Let us keep steadily on with the music, and lead our Eurydice right through Hades until we have her safely over the Lethe, and we know sentimentality only ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... would have an opportunity to see the famous lyre bird of Australia. "We saw two of them," said he, "in the Zoo at Melbourne, and therefore, know what their appearance is, but we would like very much to see ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... absorbed with such avidity—in my yearning to quench, as it were, a long-continued thirst—that I became acquainted with the very facts which you see me now using as precedents. When I heard what Socrates had done about the lyre I should have liked for my part to have done that too, for the ancients used to learn the lyre but, at any rate, I worked ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... by thy voice, transmuted by thy wand, Their lips shall open, and their arms expand; The love-lost lady, and the warrior slain, Leap from their tombs, and sigh or fight again. —So when ill-fated ORPHEUS tuned to woe His potent lyre, and sought the realms below; Charm'd into life unreal forms respir'd, And list'ning shades the ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... should spend the alms just received on a supper or a bed. We decided for the supper, proposing to spend the night under the open sky. While we were refreshing ourselves, a strange-looking wayfarer entered. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, to which a metal lyre was attached like a cockade, and on his back he bore a harp. Very cheerfully he set down his instrument, made himself comfortable, and called for a good meal. He intended to stay the night, and to continue his way next day to Prague, ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... the dull enigma, We shall guess it all too soon; Failure brings no kind of stigma— Dance we to another tune! String the lyre and fill the cup, Lest on sorrow we should sup. Hop and skip to Fancy's fiddle, Hands across and down the middle— Life's perhaps the only riddle That ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... bell of each being of gold, attached to which is a chain depending by its centre from the ear-wire. Two tiger's claws placed base to base, their hooks pointing inwards, are strung and clasped with gold, thus forming the lyre of the Tragic Muse, as a brooch or ornament for the breast. Beetles, usually of the genus chrysochroa, also, are set as earrings. Humming birds' heads, their throats surrounded with a fillet of gold, form also handsome brooches. ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... of rock, and shadows of pine. And it divides itself, like the Oberland, into three regions: first, the region of rock and snow, sacred to Mercury and Apollo, in which Mercury's birth on Cyllene, his construction of the lyre, and his stealing the oxen of Apollo, are all expressions of the enchantments of cloud and sound, mingling with the sunshine, on the cliffs ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... its presence felt by a greater weight of ceremony, nor ever extend a more watchful and provident care to all the equipage of rank and ostentation. Flattery, we may safely assert, will never offer its incense in a more seductive form, than when it borrowed the pencil of Holbein and the lyre of Spenser. Yet these persons were the same who trode upon floors strewn with rushes, and deemed it a point of nicety and refinement if these were changed sufficiently often to prevent the soiling of their clothes. They are the same who dined without forks, and thought pewter dishes too great ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... intolerable sufferings, was phenomenal. He possessed an energy of will and vigor of temperament which enabled him to rise superior to his physical condition, and lure strong music (though sometimes jarred into discords) from the broken lyre. It was in 1829, after his illness had fastened its hold upon him, that he pronounced the beautiful epilogue in hexameters at the graduating festivities at the University of Lund, and crowned the Dane, Adam Oehlenschlaeger, as the ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... display, And on the mental eye shed purer day; In radiant colours truth array'd we see, Confess her charms, and guided up by thee; Soaring sublime, on contemplation's wings, The fountain seek, whence truth eternal springs. Fain would I wake the consecrated lyre, And sing the sentiments thou didst inspire! But find my strength unequal to a theme, Which asks a Milton's, or a Seraph's flame! If, thro' weak words, one ray of reason shine, Thine was the thought, the errors only mine. Yet may these numbers to thy soul ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Allsop, Bass! Names that should be on every infant's tongue! Shall days and months and years and centuries pass, And still your merits be unrecked, unsung? Oh! I have gazed into my foaming glass, And wished that lyre could yet again be strung Which once rang prophet-like through Greece, and taught her Misguided sons that "the best drink ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb. But she remembers thee as one Long loved and for a season gone; For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For throe her evening prayer is said At palace-couch and cottage-bed; Her soldier, closing ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... as the poets used When their fingers kissed the strings Of some sweet lyre, and caught the fire ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... the results of all these many matters were, that now, at twenty years of age, Charles found himself, as it were, alone in a strange land, with many common friends indeed abroad, but at home no nearer, dearer ties to string his heart's dank lyre withal; neither mother nor brother, nor any other kind familiar face, to look upon his gentleness in love, or to sympathize with his affections, unapprehended, unappreciated: so—while Mrs. Tracy was the showy, gay, and vapid thing she ever had been, and Julian the same impetuous ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... not; but I knew! Love like Amphion with his lyre, made all the elements conspire To build His world of music. All in rhythmic rank and file, I saw them in their cosmic dance, catch hands across, retire, advance, For me and my companion, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... pity, to all the gentler and more feminine qualities. Desire in especial has inspired him with phrases more magically expressive even than those gasped out by panting Sappho when lust had made her body a lyre of deathless music. Her lyric to the beloved is not ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... If the evil spirit, or the melancholy demon, that fitfully possessed the first king of Israel, was expelled by the skilful hand of his successor, even when his youthful fingers awoke the melodies of the lyre, how much more puissant the exquisite Odes of the sweet Psalmist, inspired as they were with sentiments and views alike honorable to God and man, to elevate the conceptions, purify the heart, ennoble the aspirations, and adorn the life ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Her presence has such more than human grace, That it can civilise the rudest place; And beauty too, and order, can impart, Where nature ne'er intended it, nor art. 10 The plants acknowledge this, and her admire, No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre; If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd, They round about her into arbours crowd; Or if she walk, in even ranks they stand, Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band. Amphion so made stones and timber leap Into fair figures ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... unapproachable by any woman who has ever touched lyre or blown through reed since the days of the great AEolian poetess. But Sappho, who, to the antique world was a pillar of flame, is to us but a pillar of shadow. Of her poems, burnt with other most precious work by Byzantine Emperor and by Roman Pope, only ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... wonder, who had the happy idea of giving me, elegantly bound, the first volumes of Victor Hugo's poems? I have forgotten who it was, but I remember what joy the vibrations of his lyre gave me. Until that time poetry had seemed to me something cold, respectable and far-away, and it was much later that the living beauty of our classics was revealed to me. I found myself at once stirred to the depths, and, as my temperament is essentially ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... harem? He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his soul,[a] And saps his goodly strength, in toils which yield not Health like the chase, nor glory like the war— He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound [Sound of soft music heard from within. To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute— The lyre—the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings Of lulling instruments, the softening voices 30 Of women, and of beings less than women, Must chime in to the echo of his revel, While the great King of all we know ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... liege, is ancient as the lyre For bards to give to kings what kings admire. 'Tis mine to offer for Apollo's sake; And since the gift is fitting, yours to take. To golden hands the golden pearl I bring: The ocean ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... know not: one indeed I knew In many a subtle question versed, Who touched a jarring lyre at first, But ever strove to ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire; Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre." ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... led on by guards, who place him in the pillory and adjust neck-irons. The populace nudge each other and point at him. Shoemaker's company slightly embarrassed. Enter a lyre player and an old blind woman, with a painted canvas on a pole. Old woman sings and points at canvas, which is painted in six panels—one for ...
— Lucky Pehr • August Strindberg
... head to foot, his limbs shine bright, his tongue gives oracles, and he is equally eloquent in prose or verse, propose which you will. What of his robes so fine in texture, so soft to the touch, aglow with purple? What of his lyre that flashes gold, gleams white with ivory, and shimmers with rainbow gems? What of his song, so cunning and so sweet? Nay, all these allurements suit with naught save luxury. To virtue they bring shame alone!' And then he proceeded to display his ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... proposal of publishing it in a separate brochure. It would have made the fortune of the Mouse-trap, if it had not been so contrary to its principles, and it had really been sent to them in mischief, together with The 'Girton Girl', of which some were proud, though when she saw it in print, with a lyre and wreath on the page, sober ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ye winds, whose fitful sound Seems from some faint Aeolian harp-string caught; Seal up the hundred wakeful eyes of thought As Hermes with his lyre in sleep profound The hundred wakeful eyes ...
— Sleep-Book - Some of the Poetry of Slumber • Various
... singer ceased; and the lyre in his hand snapped, as a cord, in twain; And neither lyre nor singer was seen in the kingdom of ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... unguarded strays One hand o'er his fallen lyre; but all his soul Is lost—given up. He fain would turn to gaze, But cannot turn, so twined. Now all that stole Through every vein, and thrilled each separate nerve, Himself could not have told—all wound and clasped In her white arms and hair. Ah! can ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... much-loved lyre awhile unstrung Till health again invigorate thy frame; With brain renewed, with vigorous heart and lung Take up thy work once more, and greater fame— A richer man by far than e'er before, For thou hast ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... ardent lyre, Pour forth your amorous ditty, But first profound, in duly bound, Applaud the new Committee; Their scenic art from Thespis' cart All jaded nags discarding, To London drove this queen of love, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... so harmonious as the Greek, yet you have given a sweetness to it which equally charms the ear and heart. When one reads your compositions, one thinks that one hears Apollo's lyre, strung by the hands of the Graces, and tuned by the Muses. The idea of a perfect king, which you have exhibited in your "Telemachus," far excels, in my own judgment, my imaginary "Republic." Your "Dialogues" breathe the pure spirit of virtue, of unaffected good sense, of ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than his might swell From my lyre ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan
... intent At call of some stern argument, When the New Woman fain would be, Like the Old Male, her husband, free. The prose-man takes his mighty lyre And talks like music set ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson, an Elegy; And Other Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... even noble, and his attitude was one of languid grace and unstudied ease that became him infinitely well. The maidens of his household waited near him,— some of them held flowers,—one, kneeling at a small lyre, seemed just about to strike a few chords, when Sah-luma silenced her by ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... foot. Amongst other novelties they had noticed the blue-gum trees, the mountain wallaroo, which had drawn their attention from being larger and fatter than those formerly familiar to them, a kind of pheasant, as they described it, now known as the lyre-bird, a specimen of which the brought back with them, and a kind of mole, the modern wombat, one of which formed their last meal before reaching the settlement. These accounts corroborated the former reports made by Wilson. This ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... sons of Gods, in Odes to sing, The Muse attunes her Lyre, and strikes the string; Victorious Boxers, Racers, mark the line, The cares of youthful ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... of the warden-angels, who stood on its watch-towers, were slowly folded together, and back rolled the massive gates from the walls of jasper; and with the great "Godlight" streaming outward, and amid the sound of archangel's harp and seraph's lyre, the ministering angels came forth. They did not ask the child-spirits there, if their earthly homes had been among the high and the honourable; they did not ask them if broad lands had been their heritage, and sparkling ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... give their loved ones for the living wall 'Twixt law and treason,—in this evil day May haply find, through automatic play Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, And hearten others with the strength we gain. I know it has been said our times require No play of art, nor dalliance with the lyre, No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with these Some softer tints may blend, and milder ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... use it against porters, and waiters, and officials. There's nothing like it. I have observed a good deal. It has a magic sound, like Orpheus' lyre; the stiffest back becomes supine at the first twinkle ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... inexhaustible fertility of invention, truth, fluency and vivacity of description, copious learning, and a pure, amiable and heart-ennobling morality shall be prized among the students of English verse, was now tuning his enchanting lyre; and the ear of Raleigh was the first to catch its strains. This eminent person was probably of obscure parentage and slender means, for it was as a sizer, the lowest order of students, that he ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... the great need of mankind. A pure af- fection, concentric, forgetting self, forgiving wrongs and forestalling them, should swell the lyre of human love. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... at my side, seeing hesitation, began a kind of paean on the room. She sang it in its complete beauty. She dissected it, and made a panegyric on the furniture in comparison with that of Mrs. Over-the-Road. She struck the lyre and awoke a louder and loftier strain on the splendour of its proportions and symmetry—"heaps of room here to swing a cat"—and her rapture and inspiration swelled as she turned herself to the smattering price charged for it. On ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... other days. Shrunken and mean the spirit fails Like old snow falling from the crags And priest and pedagog compete With nostrums for the age that ails, But learn not why the spirit lags. Tuneless and dull the loose lyre thrums Ill-plucked by fingers strange to skill That change and change the fever'd chords, But still no inspiration comes Though priest and pundit labor still. Lust-urged the clamoring clans denounce Whate'er their sires agreed was good, And swift on faith and fair return ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... my queen and goddess, come to me; My soul shall never cease to worship thee; Come pillow here thy head upon my breast, And whisper in my lyre thy softest, best. And sweetest melodies of bright Sami,[1] Our Happy Fields[2] above dear Subartu;[3] Come nestle closely with those lips of love And balmy breath, and I with thee shall rove ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... depths. But the poet, even German, is yet unborn, who, moved by sweet memories of the nectar of his fatherland, shall chant in rhyme the virtues of his national drink. Yet though its merit has inspired neither of the sister graces, poetry and song, to strike the lyre in its honor, it has had, none the less, an important mission to perform. To its plebeian sister beer, as a healthful beverage, wine must yield the palm. As a common drink, suited to human nature's daily need, it has never been surpassed. If it has nerved no hand to deeds of daring, or struck ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... Japanese historian remarks with regard to the event and to the growth of the spirit fostered by Yamazaki Ansai, Takenouchi Shikibu, and Yamagata Daini, that "the first string of the Meiji Restoration lyre vibrated at this time in Japan." Kokaku's reign will be referred to again ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... renovation. The phenomena of the universe are explained by Heraclitus as "the concurrence of opposite tendencies and efforts in the motions of this ever-living fire, out of which results the most beautiful harmony. This harmony of the world is one of conflicting impulses, like the lyre and the bow. The strife between opposite tendencies is the parent of all things. All life is change, and change ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... to his antique lyre praise of the flesh and contempt of the soul; Baudelaire on a mediaeval organ chaunted his unbelief in goodness and truth and his hatred of life. But Verlaine advances one step further: hate is to him as commonplace as love, ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... memory for any composition she heard once was unfailingly accurate; her rendition of anything she knew was more than perfect, since to perfection of rendition she added sympathetic interpretation. She was already reputed the best female performer on the lyre, the most popular instrument in ancient times. The lyre had an effect something between that of a guitar and a harp, with some of the characteristics of the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... and the brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain, For sorrow has torn from my lyre The string which was ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... whence, when joy should brighten o'er the land, This sullen gloom in Judah's captive band? Ye sons of Judah, why the lute unstrung? Or why those harps on yonder willows hung? 80 Come, take the lyre, and pour the strain along, The day demands it; sing us Sion's song. Dismiss your griefs, and join our warbling choir, For who like you ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... confident, however, when praised; and never, except in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds that so indeed it is—but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... philosophy; he never struggles to impress upon us his views about this or that; you can scarcely tell indeed whether his sympathies are Greek or Trojan; but he represents to us faithfully the men and women among whom he lived. He sang the Tale of Troy, he touched his lyre, he drained the golden beaker in the halls of men like those on whom he was conferring immortality. And thus, although no Agamemnon, king of men, ever led a Grecian fleet to Ilium; though no Priam sought the midnight tent of Achilles; though Ulysses and Diomed and Nestor were ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... (p. 114.) In one, Art, as a beautiful woman, stands in the center, while on either side the idealists struggle to hold back the materialists, here conceived as centaurs, who would trample upon Art. In another, Bellerophon is about to mount Pegasus. Orpheus walks ahead with his lyre, followed by a lion, representing the brutish beasts over whom music hath power. Back in the procession come Genius, holding aloft the lamp, and another figure bearing in one hand the pine cones of immortality, in the other a ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... inventor of the lyre, is said to have derived the idea of it from the harmony of the spheres. This astral music, apprehended by reason alone, is said to form one of the delights of heaven. 'If philosophers had placed that enjoyment not in sweet sounds but in the contemplation of the Creator, they would have ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... proverbially both plays upon and is a lyre. This instrument, as is well known, was first made out of a vacant turtle-shell, by Mercury, the god of gymnastic exercises and of theft, that is to say, of technic, and of plagiarism. Mercury was nimble with his affections also; among his ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... rear of the idol, cross-legged against the wall of the entrance to the conical hut, were the musicians beating a monotonous rhythm upon big and small drums and twanging a primitive lyre of five strings. Just as Marufa and MYalu took their respective places without among the wizards and the chiefs, a young goat skipped into the open and stared inquisitively at the Keeper of the Fires. As the man waved the animal back from the sacred ground, the goat lowered ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... certain notices which seem to show that he had his purely poetical motives also, as befitted his age; motives which prompted works of mere fancy, like his Muse [248] with the Lyre, symbolising the chromatic style of music; Aristocles his brother, and Ageladas of Argos executing each another statue to symbolise the two other orders of music. The Riding Boys, of which Pliny speaks, like ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... high resounding lyre To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire; A little lute I lightly touch and small My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be I ever woke ear-winning melody, 'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string, Thy praise alone—for all my worshipping Is at ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... not his own dignity more highly than he does thine. I have been sick, man, and, by my soul, I believe it was for lack of thee; for, were I half way to the gate of heaven, methinks thy strains could call me back. And what news, my gentle master, from the land of the lyre? Anything fresh from the TROUVEURS of Provence? Anything from the minstrels of merry Normandy? Above all, hast thou thyself been busy? But I need not ask thee—thou canst not be idle if thou wouldst; thy noble qualities are like a fire burning within, and compel thee to ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... (act iii. sc. i) the words:—' On the far side of all Tyber yonder.' In this scene, where the two Pyrgi are examined, there are some more allusions to Julius Caesar. Even the boy, whose instrument Brutus takes away when he is asleep, is not wanting. In The Poetaster it is a drum, instead of a lyre (the drum in All's Well that Ends Well). And are the following words of the same scene no satire upon act i. sc. 3 of Julius Caesar, where Casca and Cicero ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... covers him from head to tail, but protects those in the sleigh from the snow flying in their faces. I should think that this net would be excellent in summer to keep the flies off; it does certainly suggest mosquito-netted beds and summer heat. Over the net is an arrangement which looks like a brass lyre, adorned with innumerable brass bells, which jingle and tinkle as we trot along, and make noise enough to awake all the echoes in the forest. On each side of the horse's head hang long, ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... to do injustice and to escape punishment is not the worst of all evils; or, if you leave her word unrefuted, by the dog the god of Egypt, I declare, O Callicles, that Callicles will never be at one with himself, but that his whole life will be a discord. And yet, my friend, I would rather that my lyre should be inharmonious, and that there should be no music in the chorus which I provided; aye, or that the whole world should be at odds with me, and oppose me, rather than that I myself should be at odds with myself, ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... yes, Ion, because you may possibly have a knowledge of the art of the general as well as of the rhapsode; and you may also have a knowledge of horsemanship as well as of the lyre: and then you would know when horses were well or ill managed. But suppose I were to ask you: By the help of which art, Ion, do you know whether horses are well managed, by your skill as a horseman or as a performer on ...
— Ion • Plato
... declined, lyric poetry flourished. Lyric comes from the Greek word lura, a lyre, and all lyric poetry was at one time meant to be sung. Now we use the word for any short poem whether meant to be sung or not. In the times of James and Charles there were many lyric poets. Especially in the time of Charles ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven— When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore, To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song— He won them well, and ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... been known to court the muse, but in truth he could not have written correctly a line of verse to save himself from the Killer of the Wise. Still, there was no knowing when the dormant faculty might wake and smite the lyre. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... pie crust, and rich soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve men into virtues or vices, and affect them more powerfully with my instruments of torture than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre." ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... in paradise as the daughter sang below. Honour to the poet who, while so many singers of our time vex us with entanglements metaphysical and exasperating, had thought always for the simplest hearts and attuned his lyre ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... sojourning-place. At his head and feet burnt lamps, and by his side were placed several of the beautiful painted vases that I have described, which were perhaps supposed to be full of provisions. The little chamber was crowded with mourners, and with musicians playing on an instrument resembling a lyre, while near the foot of the corpse stood a man holding a sheet, with which he was preparing to cover it ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... double puissance;" and "immortal crayon" to "admiration." They spilled the rosy inks. Le Brun, not the picture-dealing husband, but the poetical fellow who modestly nicknamed himself the Pindar of his age, plucked at the lyre with both ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... Sung by the ancient masters of the lyre, Where disembodied spirits, ere they left Their earthly mansions, lingered for a time Upon the confines of eternal night, Mourning their doom; and oft the astonished hind, As home he journeyed at the fall of eve, Viewed unknown forms flitting across his path, And in the breeze that waved ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... clogged with gush, My little lyre is false in tone, And when I lyrically moan, I hear ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... praised you to the skies. 'Would that she could accommodate herself to my house as easily,' he said; 'she should have every indulgence that an adoring husband could yield her.' And then he said much more, but as lovers always sing the same repetitive song, and have no more strings to their lyre than the ancients had before Mercury expanded it, I confess to not listening over carefully, and will leave you to imagine the eloquence of a manly and honourable love. Ah, sweetheart! you do wrong to reject him. Thou hast a quiet ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... kisses that she pours upon my mouth. Ah, never any more when spring like fire Will flicker in the newly opened leaves, Shall I steal forth to seek for solitude Beyond the lure of light Alcaeus' lyre, Beyond the sob that stilled Erinna's voice. Ah, never with a throat that aches with song, Beneath the white uncaring sky of spring, Shall I go forth to hide awhile from Love The quiver and the crying of my heart. Still I remember how I strove to flee The love-note of the birds, ...
— Helen of Troy and Other Poems • Sara Teasdale
... gratitude he owes to the inaugurator of a completely original system of fiction. Speaking of Balzac's impecunious and ambitious heroes, Gautier cries:[*] "O Corinne, who on the Cape of Messina allowest thy snowy arm to hang over the ivory lyre, while the son of Albion, clothed in a superb new cloak, and with elegant boots perfectly polished, gazes at thee, and listens in an elegant pose: Corinne, what wouldst thou have said to such heroes? They have nevertheless one little quality which Oswald lacked—they live, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... of my Sires! a long farewell— Yet why to thee adieu? Thy vaults will echo back my knell, Thy towers my tomb will view: The faltering tongue which sung thy fall, And former glories of thy Hall, Forgets its wonted simple note— But yet the Lyre retains the strings, And sometimes, on AEolian wings, In ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... borrows its charm from sorrow; Sorrow feverish with the color of joy; An opaque crystal, a stone on life's string Made of music that doth ring As the stars on the lyre of night. ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... prey of the mountaineer. It was in the mountain districts where were preserved the recollections of Scander Beg, and where the manners of ancient Laconia prevailed, the deeds of the brave soldier were sung on the lyre, and the skilful robber quoted as an example to the children by the father of the family. Village feasts were held on the booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish was always a stolen sheep. Every man was esteemed in proportion to his skill and courage, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire? How, in your darkness, did you come to know The power and beauty of the minstrel's lyre? Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes? Who first from out the still watch, lone and long, Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise Within his ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... asked the Takur, "do you know that the lyre of this Greek demigod was not the first to cast spells over people, animals and even rivers? Kui, a certain Chinese musical artist, as they are called, expresses something to this effect: 'When I play my kyng the wild animals hasten to me, and ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... shall resume her seat in the Hall of Nations vast; And strike upon her restrung lyre The requiem of the past: And sing a song of thanks to God, For his great mercy shown, In leading, with an outstretched arm, The ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... impossible to give a list of the objects of every variety found among the ruins of Troy, with the aid of which we can form a very definite idea of the private life of its people. Some fragments of an ivory lyre, and some pipes pierced with three holes at equal distances, bear witness to their taste for music; a distaff, still full of charred wool, deserted by the spinner when she fled before the conflagration, tells of domestic industry and manual dexterity, while marble and stone phalli prove that the ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... seems to be in motion, and the whole body dancing. Another of a boy with head bent forward, and the whole body in the attitude of listening. Then there is a fine group of statuary representing the mighty Hercules holding a stag bent over his knee; another of the beautiful Apollo with his lyre in his hand leaning against a pillar. There are figures of huntsmen in full chase, and of fishermen sitting patiently and quietly "waiting for a bite." A very celebrated curiosity is the large urn or vase of blue glass, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... how, on hill on glade, Quick leaping from your side, The lightning flash of sabres made A red and flowing tide— How well ye fought, how bravely fell, Beneath our burning sun; And let the lyre, in strains of fire, So speak ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... exact and beautiful. He was a productive writer, and his activity expressed itself in every sort of literary form. He left upward of thirty volumes in prose and verse. [Footnote: His poetry was collected in one volume, and published at Vienna, under the title Tofes Kinnor we-'Ugab ("Master of the Lyre and the Cithern").] His Hebrew version of Faust, published at Vienna, is a masterpiece in point of style, and it gained him conspicuous renown. He ventured upon a bold departure from Goethe's work. Desiring to transfer ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... on the sixth of June, about the hour Of half-past six—perhaps still nearer seven— When Julia sate within as pretty a bower As e'er held houri in that heathenish heaven Described by Mahomet, and Anacreon Moore,[57] To whom the lyre and laurels have been given, With all the trophies of triumphant song— He won them well, and may ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... track. Now her retinue is lean, Many rearward; streams the chase Eager forth of covert; seen One hot tide the rapturous race. Quiver-charged and crescent-crowned, Up on a flash the lighted mound Leaps she, bow to shoulder, shaft Strung to barb with archer's craft, Legs like plaited lyre-chords, feet Songs to see, past pitch of sweet. Fearful swiftness they outrun, Shaggy wildness, grey or dun, Challenge, charge of tusks elude: Theirs the dance to tame the rude; Beast, and beast in manhood ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... picking of the strings produced. He set to work to make a musical instrument, using the shell of a tortoise for the body and placing strings across it. In substantiation of this legend we find in examining the lyre of the ancient Greeks that almost every one was ornamented with a tortoise. We find also in the records of the Hindus, the Chinese, the Persians, and the Hebrews that these people had stringed musical instruments at a very early date and that the most ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... wake thy silent lyre Our British Muse, our charming Seward, deigns!— With more harmonious tones, more sportive fire Beneath her hand arise ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... the Bards, the Eubages,[49] and the Druids. The Bards were accustomed to employ themselves in celebrating the brave achievements of their illustrious men, in epic verse, accompanied with sweet airs on the lyre. The Eubages investigated the system and sublime secrets of nature, and sought to explain them to their followers. Between these two came the Druids, men of loftier genius, bound in brotherhoods according to the precepts ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... lived happy and naked in the Garden of Eden, when Iaveh conceived—to their misfortune—the design of governing them and all the generations which Eve already bore in her splendid loins. As he possessed neither the compass nor the lyre, and was equally ignorant of the science which commands and the art which persuades, he frightened these two poor children by hideous apparitions, capricious threats, and thunder-bolts. Adam and Eve, feeling his shadow upon them, pressed closer to one another, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... o'er his glowing lyre A wild and careless hand had flung. The base, cold crowd, that nought admire, Stood round, responseless to his fire, With heavy eye and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... you know — Achilles stays be- hind a screen until she wants to illustrate a point, and then he comes out with a lyre or a lute or something, and just stands there and LOOKS Greek. And then he goes back behind the screen and changes into the next ...
— Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers • Don Marquis
... evidently amused at her comparison. "But that constellation is in the Southern Hemisphere. However, here is the 'ring' or 'planetary' nebula in the Lyre." ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro
... tread uplifted land? And leavest thou thy lowland race, Here amid clouds to stand? And wouldst be my companion Where I gaze, and still shall gaze, Through tempering nights and flashing days, When forests fall, and man is gone, Over tribes and over times, At the burning Lyre, Nearing me, With its stars of northern fire, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson |
