"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dried up before her, and she began to weep. Then after a while the water began slowly to rise. When it reached her ankles she tried to fill her pitcher, but it would not go under the water. Being frightened she began to wail and cry to ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Collected by Joseph Jacobs
... "be pleased to spare this vessel; let not the wail of women, the shrieks of the poor children, now embarked, be heard; the numerous body of men, trusting to her planks,—let not them be sacrificed for my father's crimes." And Philip mused. "The ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... bed, you naughty children; you're always quarreling," rang the sharp voice, rising above Letitia's wail, and Arthur's storm of furious sobs. The girl yielded, but the boy hung back; and it was not until after a regular stand-up fight between him and the woman—a big, sturdy woman too—that he was carried off, still desperately ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... far when a cry rose behind me. It was louder than the calls of the dying. It was the wail of an Indian woman for her dead. I ran back. Singing Arrow lay ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... said, "my angels! a wail of woe and sin Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... nature asserts itself in the presence of such dastardly outrages, and neither legal enactments nor moral codes nor religious sanction can restrain it. The perpetrators cannot be defended or pitied. It is a waste of sympathy to wail over the deep damnation of their taking off. And yet we must remember that when the two races are concerned rape has a larger definition than is set down in the dictionaries. There can be no doubt that there have been many lynchings chargeable to rape, when the true cause should ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller
... by the sure and certain hope that they would be among the lucky ones who would get on board one of the boats. Alas for their hopes, the two boats did not sail, and when they realized this I fancied I heard a low wail of anguish ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... music changed to the wail of the Dead March in "Saul," and once more—we were crossing a ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... lifting up their heads, "Oh, what will we do, what will we do?" they cried to the Weasel. "There's only one thing to be done," said the Weasel. "You gather up all the pebbles in the bed of the fiver and we'll make a big wail on the bank to defend you." The frogs dived into the water at once and dragged up pebbles. Gilly and the Weasel piled them on the bank. Then three frogs carried up the Crystal Egg. The Weasel took it from ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... spite of the soft bloomy clouds that had hung about all day, imbrowning the sunshine! far off in the valley doves were grieving, and over the reaped and glittering cornstalks curlews were flying and calling with their melancholy—shrill wail, an echo from the sea, while small birds in flocks flew away twittering as he rode up, and settled again further on, and rose and settled again, always with a clatter of tiny wings. Evening coming on: and winter coming on: ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... near sundown when Lum got back. Smoke was coming out of his rickety chimney, and the wail of an old ballad reached his ears. Singing, the girl did not hear him coming, and through the open door he saw that the room had been tidied up and that she was cooking supper. The baby was playing on the floor. She turned at the creak of his footstep on the threshold and ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox
... heard the same noise, set up a low whine. The watch-dog in the yard, hearing the moan of his associate, began to howl loudly and distinctly. His melancholy notes were taken up directly afterwards by the dogs in the kennel a long way off, in every variety of wail. ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... at length to a door. He knocked. No answer. But there was a curious noise inside. It was difficult to determine what it was. It bore a resemblance to the low moaning of one in pain, but it was not that, being far too regular and constant. Now it seemed a kind of song, now a wail—seemed, that is, to his changing fancy, for the sound itself was never changed or checked. It was unlike anything he had ever heard; and in its tone there was ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... innocent has not been stolen," thought he. The child threw its little hands towards him as it awoke; and he could have wept. Its short feeble wail had ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... ready for immediate flight. Those who lived in the comparative security of the Pale trembled for their brothers and sisters without, and opened wide their doors to afford the fugitives refuge. And hundreds of fugitives, preceded by a wail of distress, flocked into the open district, bringing their trouble where trouble was never absent, mingling their tears with ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... Hearing the doubtful tale of the dim past made plain. And, ere the end shall be, Each man the truth of what I tell shall see. And if there dwell hard by One skilled to read from bird-notes augury, That man, when through his ears shall thrill our tearful wail, Shall deem he hears the voice, the plaintive tale Of her, the piteous spouse of Tereus, lord of guile— Whom the hawk harries yet, the mourning nightingale. She, from her happy home and fair streams scared away, Wails wild and sad for haunts beloved erewhile. Yea, and for Itylus—ah, well-a-day! ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... peaks And the low moaning of the billowy winds Among the abysses. Dull lights here and there Kindled, like wreckage of a city razed By vandals, and the inky sky cupped up Into a black, impenetrable roof.... But now from out the chaos there arose Another sound more fearful than the wail Of tempest, or the quake of mighty hills— A mortal cry, ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... sorrowful cart came up to the manse, and there were full a score of parishioners collected with one little paltry trouble or another. They had missed the parson already. And when they saw what it was, and saw their healer so stricken down, they raised a loud wail of grief, and it roused him from his lethargy of woe, and he saw where he was, and their faces, and tried to speak to them, "Oh, my children! my children!" he cried; but choked with anguish, could say ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... guarding carefully her injured arm, I drew her close to me. And then, out of the darkness of the night, far over the solitude of the sea, there came to us the sound of a voice. That voice was a woman's wail. The girl beside me shuddered and drew back. I did not ask her if she had heard. ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... choicest unguents to arrest the progress of decay, crowned with fresh flowers, and laid out in sumptuous raiment; an obvious precaution, this last; it would not do for the deceased to take a chill on the journey, nor to exhibit himself to Cerberus with nothing on. Lamentation follows. The women wail; men and women alike weep and beat their breasts and rend their hair and lacerate their cheeks; clothes are also torn on the occasion, and dust sprinkled on the head. The survivors are thus reduced to a more pitiable condition than the deceased: ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... says the tall young gentleman, as he slammed the door and so shut off the wail. "Damn 'em, they worry Charles to death. If he would only stick to quinze and picquet, and keep clear of the hounds*, he need never go ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... rigid in a moment. A man had shouted something. There had been a wail from the crowd. Was it true? Some one ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... a seagull, the sun bright upon her sail. Bronze, left upon the rock, lifted his head and gave one long, low wail. It echoed woefully and terribly over the wide, quiet waters. They gave back no answer—not even the poor ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... at last, and, after listening for a moment he, too, caught the sound which had so alarmed his mother, and made 'Lina stop her reading. A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant's wail, now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind shifted its course and drove first at the uncurtained window of the sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... walls were levelled to the earth. The black fungus, the burdock, the nettle, and all those offensive weeds that follow in the train of oppression and ruin were here; and as the dreary wind stirred them into sluggish motion, and piped its melancholy wail through these desolate little mounds, I could not help asking myself—if those who do these things ever think that there is a reckoning in after life, where power, and insolence, and wealth misapplied, and rancor, and pride, ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... I stand here and fancy These people who now play a part, All forced by some strange necromancy To speak, and to act, from the heart. What a hush would come over the laughter! What a silence would fall on the mirth! And then what a wail would sweep after, As the night-wind sweeps over ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... clock. And scarcely had it ceased, Than tolled the chapel bell, As though for some long-suffering soul released, Its slow funereal knell, And on its ebon wings the rising gale Swept landward from the sea, And mingled with the chapel bell's long wail Its ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... mellowing!" He turns his light, and the shadows play, spectre-like, along a low, wet aisle, hung on each side with rusty bolts and locks, revealing the doors of cells. An ominous stillness is broken by the dull clank of chains, the muttering of voices, the shuffling of limbs; then a low wail breaks upon the ear, and rises higher and higher, shriller and shriller, until in piercing shrieks it chills the very heart. Now it ceases, and the echoes, like the murmuring winds, die faintly away. "Look in here, now," says Mr. ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... comment, and they drove on. As they swept around the point, the sloop, slanting sharply, dipped her lee rail in the froth. Ahead of them the inlet was flecked with white, and the wail of the swaying firs came off from the shadowy beach and mingled with the gurgling ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... execution for this survivor of times long past. Under the fingers of the Polish artist, again were heard, side by side with the descriptions, so popular, of the Polish bard, the shock of arms, the songs of conquerors, the hymns of triumph, the complaints of illustrious prisoners, and the wail over dead heroes. They memorized together the long course of national glory, of victory, of kings, of queens, of warriors; and so much life had these phantoms, that the old man, deeming the present an illusion, believed the ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... first engagement had cut Milly off from her more fashionable friends and the world outside, and this second emotional crisis cut her off from the sympathy of her family. After that first wail Horatio was glumly silent, as if his cup of sorrow was now filled, and Grandma Ridge went her way in stern oblivion of Milly. The girl was so happy—and so much away from home—that she hardly ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... maintained, as did almost every one else, that the water-route was the only safe and sure and economical way of transportation. When the railroad was built from Albany to Schenectady the first idea was to have the engine tow canal-boats. Peter Cooper heard the wail of the Baltimoreans, and said, "I'll knock an engine together in six weeks that will pull carriages ten miles an hour and beat any ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... by electric shocks, the yellow bearded veterans and nobles sat stupefied, frozen in their last gesture. Then, in the midst of their silent despair, came the sound of a curious, high-pitched horn that had in its note something of the eery wail of a fire siren. The effect was magical, for the nobles sprang up, hands on sword hilts ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... the forest prime|val. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in gar|ments green, indistinct in the twilight. Loud from its rocky cav|erns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents discon|solate answers the wail of the forest. Lay in the fruitful val|ley. Vast meadows stretched ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... yet. For in the north Eadmund and Utred marched across the country, laying waste all as they went, lest the north should rise for Cnut; and going east as they went west, Cnut ravaged and burnt all the southern midlands. Then rose the wail of all England, for friend and foe alike had turned on her, and her case was at its hardest. And from that time forwards I know that none who chose Cnut for king ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... none to steer. A shrunken stream is Lethe's water wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about our woodland ways, bereft, The endless summertide. Queen Venus draws aside And passes, sighing, up Olympus' hill. And silence holds her Cyprian bowers, and claims Her flowers, and quenches all her altar-flames, ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... depicted grew distinct and life-like; the characters encompassed me about real living men and women; the drawing-rooms, dining-halls, parlors, opened out before me; the streets, walks, drives, were all visible, and I became a spectator instead of a reader. Suddenly a low, unearthly wail broke the stillness, and my hair stiffened somewhat at the roots, as the fancy struck me that I heard the voice of the defunct Mrs. Lovell. A moment's reflection, however, dispelled this disagreeable thought. Looking toward the corner of the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... himself, next, slipping northward between the glazed walls of the Subway, another languid crowd in the seats about him and the nasal yelp of the stations ringing through the car like some repeated ritual wail. The blindness within him seemed to have intensified his physical perceptions, his sensitiveness to the heat, the noise, the smells of the dishevelled midsummer city; but combined with the acuter perception of these ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... president of something or other or else been put on exhibition where the rest of suffering womankind could have gone and feasted their eyes upon such an impossible paragon. If there is not a general wail about over-weight or under-weight, then it's a thin neck, or big hips, or an inclination to too much "tum-tum," or skinny arms, or cheeks like miniature pumpkins—and goodness only knows what else. And by the time one particular horror is massaged out of existence another crops ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... fail. Ensign and pennon are rent and cleft, And the Franks of their fairest youth bereft, Who will look on mother or spouse no more, Or the host that waiteth the gorge before. Karl the Mighty may weep and wail; What skilleth sorrow, if succour fail? An evil service was Gan's that day, When to Saragossa he bent his way, His faith and kindred to betray. But a doom thereafter awaited him— Amerced in Aix, of life and ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... to time the shrill wail of the shriek-owl, and the flapping of its wings against the diamond-paned windows of the church, added to the awful gloom of ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... others; and at their own hour they reign in their own right. The heart of the romantic utterances, whether poetical, critical, or historical, is this inward remedilessness, what Carlyle calls this far-off whimpering of wail and woe. And from this romantic state of mind there is absolutely no possible theoretic escape. Whether, like Renan, we look upon life in a more refined way, as a romance of the spirit; or whether, like the friends of M. Zola, we pique ourselves ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... invisible, unknown, and doubtless horrible, for he was bristling all over. The gamekeeper with livid face cried: 'He scents him! He scents him! He was there when I killed him.' The two women, terrified, began to wail in concert ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... of a mile of the ark, and the sound, accelerated by the water-charged atmosphere, struck upon their ears with terrible distinctness. Sometimes, when a gust of wind blew the rain into their faces, the sound deepened into a long, despairing wail, which seemed to be borne from afar off, mingled with the roar of the descending torrent—the ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... the day closed amidst scenes of unspeakable woe. Stout swimmers threw themselves into the stream, only to fall victims to the ice floes and the numbing cold. At dawn of the 29th, the French rearguard fired the bridge to cover the retreat. Then a last, loud wail of horror arose from the farther bank, and despair or a loathing of life drove many to end their miseries in the river or in ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... judge how it was in his power to gratify her; and as he was generous and imaginative he was stirred and shaken as it came over him in a wave of figurative suggestion that he might make up to her for many things. He scarcely needed to hear her ask with a pleading wail that was almost tragic: "Don't you see how things have turned out for us? Don't you know how unhappy I am, don't you know what a bitterness——?" She stopped with a sob in her voice and he recognised vividly this last ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Red Place the first instalment of two hundred thirty prisoners: they came in carts, with lighted torches in their hands, nearly all already broken by torture, and followed by their wives and children, who ran behind chanting a funeral wail. Their sentence was read, and they were slain, the Czar ordering several officers to help the executioner. John George Korb, the Austrian agent, who as an eye-witness has left us an authentic account of the executions, heard that five rebel heads had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... morning in the latter part of March. The blustering wind that had raged all night had almost subsided, and he felt glad for Floyd's sake; for, no matter how warm they kept the little lad, the sound of the wind through the trees and the dismal wail of the branches at night made him shiver and fret with nervous pain. Horace had scarcely seated himself when Everett Brimbecomb ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... sitting high in glory, Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory: "Have mercy, mighty angel, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... his forces for a mighty storm. On this dark, fearful night he blew his fiercest blasts. The wild beast was affrighted from his lair and rushed down with a moan, or the mountain eagle screamed out a wail, indistinctly heard through the moaning sounds. During the whole night, which was black as wickedness, the wind howled in mournful cadence, or went sobbing along the sand. As the hours wore on we seemed to hear, in every shriek of the blast, the ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... even get them here on time," the employer's wail continues. The employee may respond that the employer is not there, but this has nothing to do with it. Most people are paid to get to their work at a certain hour. They have a daily appointment with their business at a specified time. It ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... dinner boomed. Elsa missed the clarion notes of the bugle, so familiar to her ears on the Atlantic. The echoing wail of the gong spoke in the voice of the East, of its dalliance, its content to drift in a sargassa sea of entangling habits and desires, of its fatalism and inertia. It did not hearten one or excite hunger. Elsa would rather have lain down in her ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... biscuits. Marvin had to have his hot bread. Suddenly she heard a little splintering crash, followed by a whimpering wail—"Myry! Oh, Myry! I've broke the sasser!" The last remnants of Nellie's saucer, with their pink, fluted edges like ravished petals, lay spread out at old ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... so new that its light was very dim, but the stars were bright. Presently a long, quivering wail arose and was answered from a dozen hills. It seemed just the sound one ought to hear in such a place. When the howls ceased for a moment we could hear the subdued roar of the creek and the crooning of the wind in the pines. So we rather ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... If it were so, There now would be no Venice. But let it Live on, so the good die not, till the hour Of Nature's summons; but "the Ten's" is quicker, And we must wait on't. Ah! a voice of wail! [A ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... horrors of the deepen'd glooms. —Here oft the Naiads, as they chanced to play Near the dread Fane on THOR'S returning day, Saw from red altars streams of guiltless blood Stain their green reed-beds, and pollute their flood; 105 Heard dying babes in wicker prisons wail, And shrieks of matrons thrill the affrighted Gale; While from dark caves infernal Echoes mock, And Fiends triumphant shout from every rock! —-So still the Nymphs emerging lift in air 110 Their snow-white shoulders and their azure hair; Sail with sweet grace the dimpling ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... that might have been brought by dogs, by birds, by wolves, by winds, or by flies, how soon all this material world of mine would be only one Peshotanu, bent on the destruction of righteousness, and whose soul will cry and wail! so numberless are the beings that die upon the face of ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... to the assembling sons and thanes of the ill-starred monarch, that, "confusion now has made its masterpiece, most sacrilegeous murder has broken open the Lord's anointed temple, and stolen hence the life o' the building," was the outcry and disorder on the discovery of Amanda's absence; and the wail and lamentation rung in Claude's ear as he rode away from the gate to return to Montreal, where, still pacing the library, the advocate anxiously awaited him. By the ratiocination, as well as by the intuition, ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... sons, their daughters, and the whole court after the banquet—Franz was the first to display his work. He sat down at the clavichord and sang what he had composed in honour of the Princess. He had made three little songs for her. Franz had not much voice, but it had a peculiar wail in it, and he sang, like the born and trained musician that he was, with that absolute mastery over his means, that certain perfection of utterance, that power of conveying, to the shade of a shade, the inmost spirit and meaning of the music which only belong to ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... heard mysterious hubbubs of tumblings and rumblings, which I could not at all comprehend, like the moving-about of furniture in the houses of Titans; while pervading all the air was a most weird and tearful sound, as it were threnody, and a wild wail of pain, and dying swan-songs, and all lamentations and tribulations of the world. Yet I was aware that, at an hour so early, the flames must be far from general; in fact, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... speaking, Merlin had been eagerly watching the wreck; and now, stretching out his fore-feet and neck towards her, he uttered a loud mournful howl or wail, which sounded strangely wild and sad to ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... "Wail, maybe so," said Golyer with a weary smile—"leastways I've been a-running this spade into the ground ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... Committee Office. As to those three days there was no escape for him; but he made Alexandrina understand that the three Commissioners were men of iron as to any extension of those three days. "I must be absent again in February, of course," he said, almost making his wail audible in the words he used, "and therefore it is quite impossible that I should stay now beyond the Monday." Had there been attractions for him at Courcy Castle I think he might have arranged with Mr Optimist for a week or ten days. ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... shall wail While we rejoice to see the day: Come, Lord; nor let thy promise fail, Nor let thy chariots ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... built for the worship of God, where Bibles are circulated by the million, and where hundreds of sleek gentlemen flourish on the spoils of philanthropy. Read Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story of East-end life; read the lucubrations of General Booth; listen to the ever-swelling wail over the poverty, misery, and degradation of hosts of our people; and then say if it is not high time to cease all this cant about Our Father which ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... dear Spenser, doth not require tears and lamentations. Dry thine eyes; rebuild thine house: the queen and council, I venture to promise thee, will make ample amends for every evil thou hast sustained. What! does that enforce thee to wail ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... wail, save a cry of woe, That burst forth in fitful throbbing— A bullet had pierced its metal through, For the Dead the wounded ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Have mercy on Thy servant! I swear by the beard of Thy holy Prophet that I will attend more closely to my duties to Thee if Thou wilt get me loose from this ill-begotten monstrosity! Help me or I perish!" The last words were a wail. ...
— Hanging by a Thread • Gordon Randall Garrett
... There was little evidence that the castle had been inhabited during recent years, though there was an ancient woman care-taker who opened the great door for us, and then took up the Irish peasant's wail for the last of the O'Haras. She never ceased her crooning except when she spoke to us, which was seldom; but she placed us at table in the state dining room, and served us with stewed kid, potatoes, and goat's milk. The walls of the dining room were covered with ancient pictures ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing— Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale? Do not the dews of darkness steep All pinings of the day in sleep? Why, then, when rocked in starry nest We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?" A Moon was there. So still her beam, It seemed ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... unseen, To vernal airs attunes her varied strains; And Itylus sounds warbling o'er the plains; Young Itylus, his parents' darling joy! Whom chance misled the mother to destroy; Now doom'd a wakeful bird to wail the beauteous boy. So in nocturnal solitude forlorn, A sad variety of woes I mourn! My mind, reflective, in a thorny maze Devious from care to care incessant strays. Now, wavering doubt succeeds to long despair; Shall I my virgin nuptial vow revere; ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... eyes regarding the cowards with scorn as he made his report—the colonel simply could not understand the situation. All these men! "What are you—soldiers?" he flung at the wretched group. And one answered, "No, my officer. We are not soldiers, we are the cooks." At that there was a wail. "Ach! Who, then, will the breakfast cook for my general? He will schrecklich angry be for his sausage and ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... threatened me, I have invariably turned first in thought to the memory of that harbour of refuge from the storm. There I sat for long hours secure in my father's arms, and knew that the soundless snow was falling thick around us, and marked occasionally the threatening wail of the wind like the cry of a wild ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... awful stillness was broken. The man bent his head in a listening attitude. The sound came from behind and he turned sharply. His movement was hurried and anxious. His nerves were not steady. A long-drawn-out wail rose upon the air. Fifty yards behind stood the wounded hound gazing after him as if he, too, were endeavouring to ascertain the right direction. The creature was standing upon three legs, the fourth was hanging useless, and the ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... paused disconcerted. He had adopted a varying rhythm to express each last fine shade of the text, and the air was already littered with abrupt and disjointed phrases which began with a quick snarl or with a prolonged nasal wail, leaving a sudden hiatus here, and giving there a long, lingering scream ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... of the cross," she said, "think of leaving their native land, while the wail of women and of orphans is in their ears?—it were to convert their pious purpose into mortal sin, and to derogate from the high fame they have so well won. Yes—fight but valiantly, and perhaps, before the very sun that is now slowly rising shall sink in the sea, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... altar without releasing her hold upon her shoes, the heels of her feet, which were bruised and bleeding from the stones, showing from under her skirts, repeated a refrain at the end of each stanza, imploring the protection of the Virgin. Her voice had a weak and hollow sound, like the wail of a child. Her sunken eyes, misty with tears, were fixed upon the Virgin with a dolorous expression of supplication. Her words came more tremulous and more distant ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... wall, against the indigo of the sky, and in front of him the prairie rolled away, silent and shadowy. There was scarcely a sound but the low ripple of the creek, until, somewhere far off in the distance, a coyote howled. The drawn-out wail had in it something unearthly, and Muller, who was by no means an imaginative man, shivered a little. The deep silence of the great empty land emphasized by the sound reacted upon him and increased ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... words of command of their different officers, the "En avant, mes amis!" of the French, the stern "Vorwarts!" of the Germans, and the occasional wild, weird, frenzied scream of some stricken charger echoing shrilly in the distance, like the wail of a lost soul in purgatory—the whole realised a mad riot of destruction and carnival of blood, the essence of whose moving spirit appeared to take possession of each one engaged, rendering him unaccountable ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the stranger's touch and began to wail. He had no mind to go with the Shepherd; he wanted to stay where he was. So as they went he screamed at the top of his lungs, hoping some of his friends would come. And the mother Deer, who was on her way thither, heard his ...
— The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts • Abbie Farwell Brown
... elsewhere. The earnestness with which I dwelt on the character of our past life together, on that occasion, so impressed and shocked her that, fully realising it was through her fault that the home it had cost us so much pain to build up had been destroyed, she broke into a low wail of lamentation for the first time in our lives. This was the first and only occasion on which she gave me any token of loving humility, when late at night she kissed my hand as I withdrew. I was deeply touched ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... for her soul is thrilled With valour and with spirit invincible. But we—to right, to left, lie woes on woes About our feet: this mourns beloved sons, And that a husband who for hearth and home Hath died; some wail for fathers now no more; Some grieve for brethren and for kinsmen lost. Not one but hath some share in sorrow's cup. Behind all this a fearful shadow looms, The day of bondage! Therefore flinch not ye From war, O sorrow-laden! Better far To die in battle now, than afterwards Hence ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... which was a roomy one of the saddle-bag variety. It was Kitty. Presently I became aware that she was crying, softly, as women usually do,—men gulp noisily, because they have lost control of themselves, and children wail, chiefly to attract attention,—but so softly on this occasion that I knew she was trying ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... her shoulder, and then went out quietly, and Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two or three worn-out men hauling a sled ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... to many Americans, that at that time American commerce in the Mediterranean depended largely for protection upon Portuguese cruisers; its own country extending none. When peace was unexpectedly made between Portugal and Algiers in 1793, through the interposition of a British consular officer, a wail of dismay went up to heaven from American shipmen. "The conduct of the British in this business," wrote the American consul at Lisbon, "leaves no room to doubt or mistake their object, which was evidently aimed at us, and that they will leave nothing unattempted to effect ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... beauty's flowers soon wither; Those lips within whose rosy cells Thy spirit warbles its sweet spells, Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together. I know, that face so fair and full Is but a masquerading skull; But hail to thee, skull so fair and so fresh! Why should I weep and whine and wail, That what blooms now must soon grow pale, That worms must feed on that sweet flesh? Let me laugh but to-day and to-morrow, And I care not for sorrow, While thus on the waves of the dance by ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Brian from his infant years; A moody and heartbroken boy, 125 Estranged from sympathy and joy, Bearing each taunt with careless tongue On his mysterious lineage flung. Whole nights he spent by moonlight pale, To wood and stream his hap to wail, 130 Till, frantic, he as truth received What of his birth the crowd believed, And sought, in mist and meteor fire, To meet and know his Phantom Sire! In vain, to soothe his wayward fate, 135 The cloister oped her pitying gate; In vain, the learning of the age Unclasped ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... for sorrow, but for joy. Our souls were not so delicately wrought to be wasted in fear and melancholy. Our minds were not so gifted to spend themselves on clouds and in darkness. Our hearts were not so firmly strung to wail notes of grief and woe. This beautiful world, so ever fresh and new about us, was not designed to imprison self-convicted souls away from its sunshine and flowers. The bending heavens arching so grandly over us, so studded with sparkling joy-lights, and animated with ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... the cloud-blanket overhead were torn, or dropped trailing, or gathered again in the arms of the hurrying wind. As he stood, it seemed suddenly to change, and take a touch of south in its blowing. The same instant came to his ear a loud wail: it was the ghost-music! There was in it the cry of a discord, mingling with a wild rolling change of harmonies. He stood "like one forbid," and listened with all his power. It came again, and again, and ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting wail. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... by the way, why most babies find existence so miserable? Convicts working on roadways, stout ladies in tight shoes and corsets, teachers of the French language—none of these suffering souls wail in public; they don't go around with puckered-up faces, distorted and screaming, and beating the air with clenched fists. Then why babies? You may say it's the nurse; but look at the patients in hospitals. They put ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... vision the dying spark of our council fires, the ashes cold and white. I see no longer the curling smoke rising from our lodge poles. I hear no longer the songs of the women as they prepare the meal. The antelope have gone; the buffalo wallows are empty. Only the wail of the coyote is heard. The white man's medicine is stronger than ours; his iron horse rushes over the buffalo trail. He talks to us through his 'whispering spirit.' " (The Indian's name for the telegraph and telephone.) "We are like birds with a broken wing. My heart is cold within me. My ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... Salona once ranked among the great cities of the earth; their destruction is matter of recorded history. The destruction of Uriconium is so far matter of recorded history that a reference to it has been detected in the wail of a British poet. The fall of Anderida was sung by our own gleemen and recorded by our own chroniclers. But the fall of Calleva and the fall of Naeodunum are alike matters of inference. Geography shows that Calleva fell in ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman
... hard to explain as a long hair of another color, or hair pins and blue bows, and pieces of switch. They are gone, and we miss them. No more shall we hear the young Christian slip up on the golden stairs and roll down with his boot heel pointing heavenward, while the wail of a soul in anguish comes over the banisters, and the brother puts his hand on his pistol pocket and goes out the front door muttering a silent prayer, with ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... fell lower, because God had lifted him higher. The difference is that when Saul fell there was no sign of repentance, but when David fell, a wail went up from his broken heart; there was true repentance. No man in all the Scripture record rose so high and fell so low as David. God took him from the sheepfold and placed him on the throne. He gave ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Dwight Moody
... women bear children in strength, And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn; But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length Into wail such as this, and we sit on forlorn When the man-child ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... were tossed aside, broken as kindling wood is broken. It was good that the jailer was either deaf, or, like the heathen gods in the Old Testament, away on a journey. Finally, we gave up in despair. The big negro collapsed with a wail. The first sign of weakness I ever ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... on the point of casting loose the car, Ala and a crowd of attendants watching our movements, when there came the second great sound of united voices which we had heard in this speechless world. It rose like a sudden wail from the whole city. There was a rushing to and fro, Ala's face grew as pale as death, and her attendants fell upon their knees and began to lift their hands heavenward, with an expression ...
— A Columbus of Space • Garrett P. Serviss
... northern lands Had covered Italy with barren sands, Rome's Genius, smitten sore, Wail'd on the Danube, and was heard no more. Centuries twice seven had past And crush'd Etruria rais'd her head at last. A mightier Power she saw, Poet and prophet, give three worlds the law. When Dante's strength arose Fraud met ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... eye, and look, and voice, the popular tribute spoke in honor of the popular instrument,—an instrument whose strings can sound almost every passion forth: The quip and quirk of merriment, the mourner's wail, the measured praise of solemn psalms, the lively beat of joy, the subtle charm of indolent moods, and the sweet ecstacy of youthful pleasure, when with flying feet and in the abandon of delight she swings, ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... a terrifying cry that rang shivering across the valley. She started to her feet, and listened. It must have been a dream, she thought. No! There it was again—a cry that started low, like a child's peevish wail, and ended in a piercing scream. She grabbed up her rifle, and stood peering into ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... hast thou done? Upon the blighted earth I hear a melancholy wail resounding; Among the blades of grass where flowers have birth I hear a new-born tone mournfully sounding. It is thy brother's blood Crying aloud to God ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... Grand in robes of skin and bark, What sepulchral mysteries, What weird funeral-rites, were his? What sharp wail, what drear lament, Back scared wolf ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... shutters of the little dwelling, and turned the key on it. My uncle was made tolerably comfortable, with my aunt seated beside him; and in this way we stealthily quitted the neighborhood. I could hear uproarious voices in the distance, and occasionally a faint scream or wail, but gradually left these painful sounds behind. To say truth, I was by no means sure of our performing this journey in safety, and had many alarms by the way; and as for my uncle, my aunt afterwards ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... from Burnham seen her," pursued the Hardscrabbler, in the same thin wail, moving nearer, but not again raising his eyes to the other's face. Instead, his gaze seemed fixed upon the man's shining expanse of waistcoat. "He said you doped her with the ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... be there. Instantly on arriving Johnny set up a wail, because there was talk of putting him inside the vehicle; and this persisted until the coachman, a goat-bearded Yankee, came to the rescue and said he was darned if such a plucky young nipper shouldn't get his way: he'd have the child tied on beside him on the box-seat—be blowed if he wouldn't! ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... Taffy began: but the poor child, who for two minutes had been twisting his face heroically, interrupted with a wail: ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... wreathed, Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell, Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed, And through those groves wail'd the sweet Philomel; The tears of Ceres swell'd in yonder rill— Tears shed for Proserpine to Hades borne; And, for her lost Adonis, yonder ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... wrinkled old Nokomis Nursed the little Hiawatha, Rocked him in his linden cradle, Bedded soft in moss and rushes, Safely bound with reindeer sinews; Stilled his fretful wail by saying, "Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!" Lulled him into slumber, singing, "Ewa-yea! my little owlet! Who is this, that lights the wigwam? With his great eyes lights the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... consider that that fault is not a slight one. It is said in the Book of Revelation, "Behold He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him[11]." We, my brethren, every one of us, shall one day rise from our graves, and see Jesus Christ; we shall see Him who hung on the cross, we shall see His wounds, we shall see the ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... soft and tender nature, easily borne down and overwhelmed, partly to what seems an almost constitutional inability to find rest in God's will. She assents to all we say to her about submission, in a sweet, gentle way, and then comes the invariable, mournful wail, "But it was so unexpected! It came so suddenly!" But I love the little thing, and her affection for us all is one ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... spirit, and ought to come as a revelation to the searcher. He may first find it in some pure lyric such as Shelley's "Skylark," or in some mystical fantasy such as Moore's "Lallah Rookh" or Coleridge's "Christabel," or in some story of human abnegation such as Tennyson's "Enoch Arden," or some wail of a soul in pain, as in Shelley's "Adonais," or in some outburst of exultant grief such as Whitman's "Captain, My Captain," or in some revelation of the unseen potencies close about us, as in Browning's "Saul," or in some vision of the mystery of this our earthly struggle ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... infant began to wail. Ursus fed it with the milk by means of a small bottle, took off the tatters in which it was wrapped, and swathed it in a large ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... crimson from the sunset, yet, as some chanties have become so well known ashore, as others so richly deserve to be known there, and as all are now being threatened with extinction, perhaps a few may be mentioned in passing. Away for Rio! with its wild, queer wail in the middle of its full-toned chorus, has always been ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... strains still continued, rising into a mournful wail, then sinking info the soft cries of the whip-poor-will. In a few minutes the perplexed fugitives were deep in a clump of wild hawberries, invisible to any one who should pass. The strains had ceased ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... a moment of the keenest suspense, and just when it was at its height there came a strange sound of hurrying feet behind the outermost crowd, a murmur such as a great pack of wolves might make rushing through snow, while a soft long wail ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... shall flee and woman fail, And folly mock and hope deceive, Let cowards beat the breast and wail, I'll homeward hie; I will not grieve: I'll draw the blind, I'll there set free ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... said, "the ghosts who have no tongue, and who can only wail like infants. Let us be going; this place is bad ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... Mrs. A. G. Nichols, of Kingston, was her successor, serving two years; and Mrs. A. T. Stewart, of Peekskill, who retained the superintendency four years. Statistics are called dry, but these faithful women did not find them so. Mrs. Nichols said in reference to her report of the department: "A wail as of a lost spirit goes surging through it; moans of woe sound through it; tears and ...
— Two Decades - A History of the First Twenty Years' Work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of the State of New York • Frances W. Graham and Georgeanna M. Gardenier
... fathers high marvels we are told Of champions well approved in perils manifold. Of feasts and merry meetings, of weeping and of wail, And deeds of gallant daring I'll tell ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... train attending, And visions fair of many a blissful day; First-love and friendship their fond accents blending, Like to some ancient, half-expiring lay; Sorrow revives, her wail of anguish sending Back o'er life's devious labyrinthine way, And names the dear ones, they whom Fate bereaving Of life's fair hours, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... couldn't tell him, and asked him to let her go. They parted at the entry of the wood with Good night, and Lucy flitted back with a pain in her heart like the sound of wailing. But women can wail at heart and show a fair face to the world. Her stretched smile had lost none of its sweetness, her eyes none of their brightness. Vera Nugent watched her narrowly, and led the conversation upstairs. She thought that she detected a pensive note, but assured herself that all was pretty well. ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 'Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sun Too long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream. Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one, And let us sup with summer; ere the gleam Of autumn set the year's pent sorrow free, And the woods wail like ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... inexpressibly lonesome and spooky. To the newcomer it is apt to be a ghostly sort of place at any time of year, unless mayhap he be from some similar strand, for its rolling sand hills are swept by winds that wail, and beaten by a sea that grumbles when it does not cry aloud. At the time of year when Standish and his men patrolled its beaches, it is no wonder they saw savages behind every liliputian pitch pine and heard them shouting in the wind and sea. So far as the records go ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... in there?" There was a long pause, and then came the pitiful little wail: "I am unpacking, ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... clutched wildly at it, but the cloth sailed ahead of the blast as if on wings, then, dropping to the surface of the snow, opened out, whereupon some twisting current bore it aloft again, and it swooped down the hill like a great bat, followed by a wail of despair from the owner. Other loose articles on the top of the load were picked up like chaff—coffee pot, frying pan, and dishes—then hurtled away like charges of canister, rolling, leaping, skipping down into the swale ahead, then up over the ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... brushing his way through the clamorous mass and directing his staggering steps toward Tyee. The old squaw raised the wail, and one by one the women joined her as they swung in behind. The men crawled out of their trenches and ran back to gather about Tyee, and it was noticed that the Sunlanders climbed upon their ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... their place shall serve me, and sustain Their plagues, their torments suffer, sorrows bear, And they his absence shall lament in vain, And wail his loss and theirs with many a tear:' Thus talking to herself she did ordain A false and wicked guile, as you shall hear; Thither she hasted where the valiant knight Had overcome and slain her men ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... we hardly understand." "Probably a drunken brawl of the reckless fishermen who may have landed there," I say to myself, and go on with my work. In another half-hour I see the men returning, reinforced by others, coming fast, confusedly; and suddenly a wail of anguish comes up from the women below. I cannot believe it when I hear them crying, "Karen is dead! Anethe is dead! Louis Wagner has murdered them both!" I run out into the servants' quarters; there are all the men assembled, an awe-stricken crowd. Old Ingebertsen comes forward ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... the hill shadows upon the other side of the river there had risen a high shrill whimpering, rising and swelling, to end in a long weary wail. ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... wept her child, He left the world his garland bright. Wail, Ocean, surge in tumult wild, To sing of thee was ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... and instantly the fawn dropped dead, and seeing this, its mother raised her head and uttered a poignant, almost human wail of agony. Exasperated, Julian thrust his knife into her chest, and felled her to ...
— Three short works - The Dance of Death, The Legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, A Simple Soul. • Gustave Flaubert
... dead lies here, Clean washed, and laid out for the bier, O modest matrons, weep and wail! For now the corn and wine must fail: The basket and the bin of bread, Wherewith so many souls were fed, Chor. Stand empty here for ever: And ah! the poor At thy worn ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... been in the hands of his murderer. The use of them for a few days could do no one any harm. Such risk as there was he took himself. That it was a risk he knew and fully realized. Laverick had sat in his place unmoved when his partner had poured out his wail of fear and misery. Yet of the two men it was probable that Laverick himself had felt their position the more keenly. He was a man of some social standing, with a large circle of friends; a sportsman, and with many interests outside the daily routine of his city life. To him failure ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... That year indeed, he was trobled with a rheume, What willingly he did confound, he wail'd, Beleeu't ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... A wail struck on Martin's ears—the voice of a little child, and soon he brushed aside the branches in the direction of the cry, until he struck upon a faintly trodden path, which led to the cottage of one of the foresters, or as ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... is the same. So like an outcast, dowerless and pale, Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale Spread her young banner, till its sway became A wonder to the nations. Days of shame Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail. When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand Points his long spear across the narrow sea,— "Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... in their erratic flight, and sometimes almost brushed the faces of the boys with their clammy wings. The strange noises always to be heard in a wood at night assailed their ears, and mingled with the quick beating of their own hearts; whilst from time to time a long unearthly wail, which seemed to proceed from the interior of the house itself, filled them with an unreasoning sense of terror that they would not confess ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... fantastic folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a horrible specter, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream! Its head ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... bliss; it drives sleep from our eyes and forces them to watch in fruitless jealousy. Far below us earth's old forests rustle and her seas chant the primal hymn of creation: they sound like the wail of a memory that wanders ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... It was a name of little note, but there was one to whom it was the synonyme of all that gave beauty or gladness to life; and ere the bells had ceased to sound, or the eager crowd to huzza, her heart was still. With her last quivering sigh had mingled the wail ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... her vision as she attempted to read his poem. It was a piece of sombre brilliance. Like black-draped monks half crazed with mystic devotion, the poet's thoughts flitted across the page. It was the wail of a soul that feels reason slipping from it and beholds madness rise over its life like a great pale moon. A strange unrest emanated from it and took possession of her. And again, with an insight that was prophetic, she distinctly recognised behind the vague fear ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... the trees, next soaring remote through the upper heavens, waning at last to a sphere of pale unquickening light. I would lie thus for hours motionless, with lulled mind, until the breeze forerunning the dawn, or the quavering wail of the jackal, recalled the startled thought to the prison bonds ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... a resolved face she went to her room. She would really tell this boy a home-truth or two. It was a—a sister's place to do so. The mother, she knew well enough, would do no more than send a little wail, and would end by telling the dear boy that, of course, he knew best, and that she was very happy to think that he was taking such pains about his studies. Someone must point out to the boy his overwhelming selfishness, and it seemed that no one was at hand but herself. ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson |
