"Warble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer-eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning The ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... a superficial observer, he did not spy to see more than the world would when Nataly entered the dining-room at the quiet family dinner. She performed her part for his comfort, though not prattling; and he missed his Fredi's delicious warble of the prattle running rill-like over our daily humdrum. Simeon Fenellan would have helped. Then suddenly came enlivenment: a recollection of news in the morning's paper. 'No harm before Fredi, my dear. She's a young woman now. And no harm, so to speak-at least, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... winter's crust of rime Milder spring can soften; Ere to greet the blither time Robins warble often; O'er the undulating wild, Rising like a hardy child, There the Mayflower sweet, unseen, Spreads its ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... ended The well-tun'd warble of her nightly sorrow, And solemn night with slow-sad gait descended To ugly hell; when, lo, the blushing morrow Lends light to all fair eyes that light will borrow: But cloudy Lucrece shames herself to see, And therefore still in night would ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... varied warble of other frogs. The little polliwogs had all been put to bed; and now, came stealing on, the season for silent thoughts. Always anxious to improve her mind, Miss Frog gazed about her to find a subject on which to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... deep in the flood, up, up from their caverns did sally; The gay little birds of the forest began to warble, forthwith, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... like many other creatures, Bear fleeting memories, that come and go; Nor can they oft recall familiar features, By absence touched, or clouded o'er with woe. Then rest content with sorrow: for there be Many that must that lesson learn with thee; And still thy wild notes warble cheerfully, Till, when thy tiny voice begins to fail, For thy lost bliss sing but one parting wail, Poor little sprite! and then ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... reached home, she placed the cage in the garden, and the Bird no sooner began to warble than he was surrounded by nightingales, chaffinches, larks, linnets, goldfinches, and every species of birds of the country. The branch of the Singing Tree was no sooner set in the midst of the parterre, a little distance from the house, than it took root and in a short time became a large tree, ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe herself by ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... lovely day, and all nature seemed rejoicing at the advent of spring. Flowers strewed the wayside, and the warble of the blue bird, and the lively song of the sparrow, were heard in ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthfull Poets dream On Summer eeves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned Sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, Warble his native Wood-notes wilde, And ever against eating Cares, Lap me in soft Lydian Aires, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of lincked sweetnes long drawn out, 140 With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... recompense thee, O Priapus, and thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... the morning rose, Called Lakshman gently from repose: "Awake, the pleasant voices hear Of forest birds that warble near. Scourge of thy foes, no longer stay; The hour is come ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... sunk beneath reproach; In vain affected raptures flush the cheek, And songs of pleasure warble from the tongue, When fear and anguish labour in the breast, And all within is darkness and confusion. Thus, on deceitful Etna's flow'ry side, Unfading verdure glads the roving eye; While secret flames, with unextinguish'd rage, Insatiate on her ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... very moist eyelid! How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation. Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that covers its front, ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... unseen, are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... iridescence and crossed by steamers and barges that steer in ghostly fashion about the dusky waters, I marvel that so few of our poets have responded to its beauty and signification. They find it easier, doubtless, to warble a spring song or two. The fierce pulsations of industry, the shiftings of gold that make and mar human happiness—these are themes reserved for the bard of the future who shall strike, bravely, a new chord, extracting from the sombre facts of city life a throbbing, many-tinted ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... a pause and oft reverted eye I climb the Coomb's ascent: sweet songsters near Warble in shade their wild-wood melody: Far off the unvarying Cuckoo soothes my ear. Up scour the startling stragglers of the flock 5 That on green plots o'er precipices browze: From the deep fissures of the naked rock The Yew-tree ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... aside to tell him something, and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless. Ferdinando, the 'minion', carries them away, and Hagar puts back the cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him what she has done in a song of ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... another prominent singer in England, namely, the robin,—the original robin redbreast,—a slight, quick, active bird with an orange front and an olive back, and a bright, musical warble that I caught by every garden, lane, and hedge-row. It suggests our bluebird, and has similar habits and manners, though it is ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... hour my pensive spirit loves; When, o'er the mountain flow descends the ray That gives to silence the deserted groves. Ah, let the happy court the morning still, When, in her blooming loveliness array'd, She bids fresh beauty light the vale, or hill, And rapture warble in the vocal shade. Sweet is the odour of the morning's flower, And rich in melody her accents rise; Yet dearer to my soul the shadowy hour, At which her blossoms close, her music dies— For then, while languid nature droops her head, She wakes the ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... Bird has a soft, agreeable, and often repeated warble, uttered with opening and quivering wings. In his courtship he uses the tenderest expressions, and caresses his mate by sitting close by her, and singing his most endearing warblings. If a rival appears, he attacks him with fury, and having driven him ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 356, Saturday, February 14, 1829 • Various
... thou art here, With the flowers thou dost appear; Yes, sweet little Whippowil, Thou art singing by the rill; Where the silver moonbeam plays Thou dost chant thy hymn of praise; Thy shrill voice I love to hear, And I'd have thee warble near. Come, sweet bird, the moonlight shines Through the verdant row of pines, Standing by our cottage door, Come, where thou hast sang before, When I heard thy thrilling note On the twilight breezes float, Ming'ling with the cheerful song Of our happy fireside ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... his heirlooms, laboriously disengaging himself from his kilt. Fitfully throughout this process he would warble snatches of an air which ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... residences, and have no time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, operas, symphonies, and waltzes. Anxious questions are asked; grave subjects are settled in quick and animated debate; and only by occasional accident, as from pure ecstasy, does a rich warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound through the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as busy as their voices; they are all a constant flutter and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top to hold council, they wag their tails and heads all the time ...
— Buds and Bird Voices (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... plagiarized from her predecessors. The field blushes not for its blades, though they are such as for immemorial times have spired from the sod; the boughs publish their annual book of many a verdant scroll without apprehension of having become commonplace at last; the bobolink pours his warble in cheery sureness of acceptance, unmindful that it is the same warble with which the throats of other bobolinks were throbbing before there was a man to listen and smile; and night after night forever the stars, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... when Red awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... began to sing, and he forgot all about himself in admiration of her. It took everyone by surprise, for two years of foreign training added to several at home had worked wonders, and the beautiful voice that used to warble cheerily over pots and kettles now rang out melodiously or melted to a mellow music that woke a sympathetic thrill in those who listened. Rose glowed with pride as she accompanied her friend, for Phebe was in her own world now a lovely world where ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... expression of serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers as they tend their charges, ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... faces. He stopped still and made no sound. A lovely musical voice, a young woman's voice, grave and sweet, was heard. Christophe pricked his ears. As she went on with her words he turned again, keenly interested to see what bird could warble so. He saw Ophelia. In truth she was nothing like the Ophelia of Shakespeare. She was a beautiful girl, tall, big and fine like a young fresh statue—Electra or Cassandra. She was brimming with life. In spite of her efforts to keep ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... Hartmann von Aue hits the meaning of a story! how loud and clear rings the crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"—a slightly mixed reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and romantic material which communicates to the Middle Ages so much of their ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... hill, and approach the hemlocks through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of the forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happy as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common and widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour of the day, in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the Middle or ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... was painfully dull, and some of his lighter effusions, as he would have called them, are almost ludicrously wanting in grace of movement. We cannot expect in a modern poet the thrush-like improvisation, the impulsively bewitching cadences, that charm us in our Elizabethan drama and whose last warble died with Herrick; but Shelley, Tennyson, and Browning have shown that the simple pathos of their music was not irrecoverable, even if the artless poignancy of their phrase be gone beyond recall. We feel this lack in Wordsworth ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... crows loud! And without, all ghastly and ill, Like a man uplift in his shroud, The white, white morn is propped on the hill; And adown from the eaves, pointed and chill The icicles 'gin to glitter And the birds with a warble short and shrill Pass by the chamber-window still— With a quick, uneasy twitter! Let me pump warm blood, for the cold is bitter; And wearily, wearily, one by one, Men awake with the weary sun! Life is a phantom shut in thee: I am the master and keep the key; So let me toss ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... pounce onto it powerful quick if we don't grab it while it's passin'; it's a good long name, and what if it does make a chap sling the muscles of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it'll make him think well of his town, which I prophesy is going to be the emporium of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... one hops a few feet, then the other, each one standing erect in true military style while his fellow passes him and describes the segment of an ellipse about him, both uttering the while a fine complacent warble in a high but suppressed key. Are they lovers or enemies? the beholder wonders, until they make a spring and are beak to beak in the twinkling of an eye, and perhaps mount a few feet into the air, but rarely actually deliver blows upon each other. Every thrust is parried, every ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... blue-birds warble, swallows scream, Or hens will cackle clear. In robin's song, the whip-poor-will Pours ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... it out, and as soon as it stood on her hand, it began to warble wonderfully, turning its head from side to side like some she had seen in Switzerland when she was there ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... a part of the plain. It was made good for the cultivation of a large tract; although very wild and disorderly cultivation. As we went, every spot within sight was full of interest; rich with associations; the air was warm but pleasant; the warble of the orange-winged blackbird - I don't know if I ought to call it a warble; it was a very fine and strong note, or whistle, - sounding from the rocks as we went by, thrilled me with a wild reminder of all that had once been busy life there, where now the blackbird's cry sounded alone. The ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... throats, let their wings droop, peck at one another, and in fact behave as exactly as they will next spring when fully grown. Young linnets also begin to sing before losing their youthful plumage, learn to sing well during the moulting season, and often continue to warble right on into the winter; in a mild winter young linnets will sing just as well as old ones. The young woodlark begins to sing as soon as its first moulting is nearly over, and not only does this when perching, but flies aloft like the adult bird in the spring-time, and soars for a long time, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... could not have chosen a pleasanter place; a delicious perfume of aloes-wood and pastilles came from the open windows and mingled with the scent of the rose-water which steamed up from the hot pavement. Within the palace he heard some music, as of many instruments cunningly played, and the melodious warble of nightingales and other birds, and by this, and the appetizing smell of many dainty dishes of which he presently became aware, he judged that feasting and merry-making were going on. He wondered who lived in this magnificent house which he had never ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... hymn. The only difficulty would be in keeping aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could possibly sing it. It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; but it never satisfied aunt Hitty, because the good elder always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... up and down the room, overpowered by contending emotions. The severity of her voice, that voice that hitherto had fallen upon his ear like the warble of a summer bird, filled him with consternation. The idea of having offended her, of having seriously offended her, of being to her, to Henrietta, to Henrietta, that divinity to whom his idolatrous ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... players the visitor notices an upright piano, and asks what that is for, and the attendant steer says they are all fond of music, and asks if he would not like to hear some of the cattle play. He says he would, and the steer calls out a white cow who is sketching, and asks her to warble a few notes. The cow seats herself on her haunches on the piano stool, after saying she has such a cold she can't sing, and, besides, has left her notes at home in the pasture. Turning over a few leaves with her forward hoof, she finds something familiar, and proceeds to ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... but you had another argument For staying; how the lovely dale for you Was mountain air and winged warble too. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... cricket bear a second part, They kept one tune, and played on the same string, Seeming to glory in their little art. Shall creatures abject thus their voices raise? And in their kind resound their Master's praise: Whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays. ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... of Fowl by which this is done: and his curious palate pleased by day, and which with their very excrements afford him a soft lodging at night:-These I will pass by, but not those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... camp, he quickened his pace and where the shadows permitted ran swiftly up the slope to the grade. There he paused to recover his breath. In response to his warble Tressa opened the door. Conrad looked beyond her to her father ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... had just heard, she must be there as usual to welcome him with that serene sweet smile which was the sunshine of his life. The empty desolate air of the room smote him with a sense of bitter pain,—only the plaintive warble of her pet thrush, who was singing to himself most mournfully in his gilded cage, broke the heavy silence. He looked about him vacantly. All sorts of dark forebodings crowded on his mind,—she must have met with some accident, he thought with a shudder,—for that she ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... wandered. From the time that any one came in till he went out, this bird made the vocal explosions to which it owes its name; and the good professor was certain, without ever being mistaken, that somebody was coming to his laboratory. He was notified. My Jaco in Paris has a warble that answers the ringing of the bell. If we have not heard the bell, we are notified by Jaco of its ringing, and, going to the door, find some one there. I have been told of a parrot belonging to the steward of a lyceum which had heard the words "Come in," when any one rang ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... the way novels and cinemas do, after they've given the public a good, bright opening. It was true, what I said about my voice. I've lost everything but my middle register. I had a fortune in my throat. At present I've got nothing but a warble fit for a small drawing room—and that, only by careful management. I knew months ago I could never sing again in opera. I was coining money in New York, and would be now—if they hadn't dug me out as a slacker—an embusque—whatever you like to call it. I ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... that's my warble I never heard it before! It's a marvelous atmosphere that makes a rag time tune sound like a nightingale's music. If 'Forty-niner' would join it——Hello! what's ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... wings, over the heads of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She caught with great readiness the manner of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... yellow, and the orange streaks round the eyes were of a greenish hue. But notwithstanding these slight differences, the bird which now hopped down on the grass, and answered his song by if possible a sweeter warble, was both handsome and winning. The Blackbird was delighted to have thus found so immediate a response to his petition, and he was very soon on the grass beside the interesting stranger. On nearer approach he found that this Blackbird ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... like the depth on depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden-tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music ... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! And this woman says, "My days were sunless and my nights were moonless, Parched the pleasant April herbage, and the lark's heart's outbreak tuneless, If you loved me not!" And I who—(ah, for words of flame!) adore her, Who am mad to lay my spirit prostrate palpably before her— I may enter ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, trill, tweet, pipe, whistle [small birds]; hum [insects, hummingbird]; buzz [flying insects, bugs]; hiss [snakes, geese]; blatter[obs3]; ratatat [woodpecker]. Adj. crying &c. v.; blatant, latrant[obs3], remugient[obs3], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... returned the pressure; and, cautioning Thames, "not to let the ruffles drop, or they might tell a tale," began to warble the following fragment of a ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... then bent over its questioner, as a stork does over the nestling newly fed when it looks up at her, and then wheeling round, and renewing its warble, concluded it with saying, "As my notes are to thee that understandest them not, so are the judgments of the Eternal to thine earthly brethren. None ever yet ascended into these heavenly regions that did not believe in Christ, either after he was crucified or before ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... his blood leaping joyously in his veins, felt like singing, and so he began to warble a "fighting song," over and over inviting his ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... independence, recklessness, and jollity; its antiquity—having begun no doubt with Adam—or its modes of production; as, when created grandly by the whistling gale, or exasperatingly by the locomotive, or gushingly by the lark, or sweetly by the little birds that "warble in the ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... would fail to catch them, and indifferent he stood watching the moon hanging low over the landscape, a badly drawn circle, but admirably soft to look upon, casting a gentle, mysterious light down the lake. The silence was filled with the lake's warble, and the ducks kept awake by the moon chattered as they dozed, a soft cooing chatter like women gossiping; an Arab came from the wood with dry branches; the flames leaped up, showing through the grey woof of the tent; and, listening to the crackling, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... things could be seen but confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question and the ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Like warbling water clucks the talk. From room to room in splendour walk Guests, smiling in the ry sheen; Carmine and azure, white and green, They stoop and languish, pace and preen Bare shoulder, painted fan, Gemmed wrist and finger, neck of swan; And still the pluckt strings warble on; Still from the snow-bowered, link-lit street The muffled hooves of horses beat; And harness rings; and foam-fleckt bit Clanks as the slim heads toss and stare From deep, dark eyes. Smiling, at ease, Mount to ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... garden, in a thicket of lilac bushes, a wood-dove greeted her with its first morning warble ... and where she vanished, the milk-white sky ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... Warble not so, thou nightingale, Upon thy blooming spray, Thy sweetness now will burst my heart, ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... people have fingered those ardentes sagittas which Love sharpens on his whetstone, and are stabbed, scarred, pricked, perforated, tattooed all over with the wounds, who recovered, and live to be quite lively. Wir auch have tasted das irdische Glueck; we also have gelebt and—und so weiter. Warble your death-song, sweet Thekla! Perish off the face of the earth, poor pulmonary victim, if so minded! Had you survived to a later period of life, my dear, you would have thought of a sentimental disappointment without any reference to the undertaker. Let us trust there is no present ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had sensed his presence and stood tense and alert while the cub, a few feet in her wake, gazed at the fringe of swaying reeds in the tops of which black birds with red heads sat and trilled a cheery warble. Suddenly the stems parted and the head of a deer, crowned with wide-spreading antlers appeared framed in the mass of green. Warruk was fascinated by the sight of the magnificent animal which seemed to challenge them and expected his mother to hurl herself upon it and bring it ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... peeps forth the lovely veronica, while yonder slope is enameled with bright blue violets, and the little white Mayflower. But no children are seen plucking them. The very herds in the field low in a subdued manner, and the birds warble their gladsome spring song with a depth which belongs only to sacred music. None are moving about the streets. The church doors are open, however, for it is the Sabbath. Come with me to yonder mansion—the tasteful shrubbery, the vine-covered window, ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... Suddenly the clear warble of a bugle was heard sounding the "assembly." The captain started and raised his wet face from his arms; it had turned ghastly pale. Outside, in the sunlight, were heard the stir of the men falling into line; the voices of the sergeants calling the roll; the tapping of the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... were soon attracted by a vireo's song. Search for the singer failed to find it, until we noted that the bird on the nest seemed to be singing. Then, as we watched, over and over again the bird was seen to lift up its head and pour out the long, rich warble—a most delicious sight and sound. Are such ways usual among birds, or did we chance to see and hear an ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... British vessel. The vessel becoming disabled, the gun was then mounted on wheels and placed on a bluff at Ticonderoga, where it was captured by the Americans. Right glad we were that the place knows no harsher sound than the soft, melodious warble of the bluebird and cherry carol of the robin. We thought how glorious the time when all monuments may be not merely grim reminders of war, but give shelter to the "color- bearer of the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... works in verse and prose, and, heaven be praised! but little left of the trash and trumpery stuff of those duncical mumblers of ave-maries and the barbarous foregoing Gothic age, I have made bold to choose to chirrup and warble my plain ditty, or, as they say, to whistle like a goose among the swans, rather than be thought deaf among so many pretty poets and eloquent orators. And thus I am prouder of acting the clown, or any other under-part, among the many ingenious actors in ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... spring, and the bluebird so neat? is it that the song-sparrow is a wild artist, absorbed in the composition of his lay, and oblivious of ordinary proprieties, while the smooth bluebird and his ash-colored mate cultivate their delicate warble only as a domestic accomplishment, and are always nicely dressed before sitting down to the piano? Then how exciting is the gradual arrival of the birds in their summer-plumage! to watch it is as good as sitting at the window on Easter Sunday ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... I heard an incessant warble of sweet, though feeble, notes and, looking above my head, saw the composer, his bride, dressed in olive and gold, weaving on the pendulous nest of moss and horse hair, near the tips of the overhanging limb. I then knew why ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... the real music lessons, and taught him how to whistle and how to warble and trill. "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" intoned the king. "Coo Cher! Coo Cher!" imitated the Cardinal. These songs were only studied repetitions, but there was a depth and volume in his voice that gave promise ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... house-dwellers, they built their nests, the grosbeaks in a tree near one side of the porch, the tanagers in one near the opposite side. They became so friendly that sometimes when the boy came out upon the porch and played softly on a mouth organ, the grosbeak's silvery warble and the tanager's loud, clear voice ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... streams that smoothly flow; Ye vernal airs that softly blow; Ye plains, by blooming spring arrayed; Ye birds that warble through the shade. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and full of cheer, With the warble of birds overflowing, The wind through the fresh grass blowing And the blackbirds whistle ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... writer... The man of thought comes to the man of words; and the man of words duly instructed in the thought, dips the pen of desire into the ink of devotedness, and proceeds to spread it over the page of desolation. Then the nightingale of affection is heard to warble to the rose of loveliness, while the breeze of anxiety plays around the brow of expectation. This is what the Easterns are said to consider fine writing; and it seems pretty much the idea of the school of critics to whom I ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... swing in the branches, And carol, and whistle and sing. The thrush, who is coming to-morrow, Will a charming solo bring. The wrens will warble in chorus, Rare music, so touching and sweet; The orioles sent for their tickets, And will surely give us ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Rhine-wine and beer, whereof I imbibed my full share. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, 'du Himmel!' Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument. Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult passages; and I certainly have ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... great morning and evening chorus belongs to spring and the nesting season. It is as rare to hear the perfect song of a bird in autumn, as it is to see its perfect plumage. The young birds of the season are then swelling their little throats in trying to warble a few notes; and as their feathers are a mixture of those worn by their father and mother, such birds and their songs will both, ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... any sound, and we knew he had reached his climax and was circling. Once we distinctly saw him whirling far above us. Then he was lost in the obscurity, and in a few seconds there rained down upon us the notes of his ecstatic song—a novel kind of hurried, chirping, smacking warble. It was very brief, and when it ceased, we knew the bird was dropping plummet-like to the earth. In half a minute or less his "zeep," "zeep," came up again from the ground. In two or three minutes he repeated his flight and song, and thus kept it ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... scatter'd oft, the earliest of ye Year By hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found; The Red-breast loves to build & warble there, And little Footsteps lightly ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... Kniqht of Snowdon] happens to find the notes, or some lark teaches Stephens [Catherine (1794-1882): a vocalist and actress who created Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro, and various parts in adaptation of Scott.] to warble the air—we will risk our credit, and the taste of the Lady of the Lute, by preserving the verses, simple and ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... country stone wall. June blossomed in the yellow barberry by the road-side, and in the bright rhodora and the pale orchis in the dark woods. June sang in the whistle of the robin swinging on the elm and the cherry, and the gushing warble of the bobolink tumbling, and darting, and fluttering in the warm meadow. June twinkled in the keen brightness of the fresh green of leaves, and swelled in the fruit buds. June clucked and crowed in the cocks and hens that stepped about the yard, followed by the multitudinous peep of little chickens. ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... at sunrise in summer After the May-flowers have faded away, Warble to show unto every new-comer How to hush stars, yet to waken the Day: Singing first, lullabies, then, jubilates, Watching the blue sky where every bird's heart is; Then, as lamenting the day's fading light, Down ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... have been taught by their unfailing instinct that summer has departed, and winter is near. They no more warble their rich melodies, or flit in and out of the bowery recesses of the honeysuckles or peep with knowing look under the eaves, or into the arbour. Other purposes prompt to other acts, and they are taking their farewell of ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... for a moment: during which Captain le Harnois rose; turned on his heel; placed himself astride the carronade with a large goblet of brandy in his right hand; and with the air of an old Cupid who was affecting to look amiable and to warble, but in reality more like a Boreas who was growling, he opened the vast chasm of his mouth and began to sing a ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... Providence, however, reserves him for lower things. The Examiners triumph, and the career of the Servant of Society begins in earnest. The position of his parents secures for him an entrance into good houses. He is a young man of great tact and of small accomplishments. He can warble a song, aid a great lady to organise a social festivity, lead a cotillon, order a dinner, and help to eat it, act in amateur theatricals, and recommend French novels to inquiring matrons. His manners are always easy, and his conversation has that spice of freedom which renders it specially ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... her spinning-wheel, gay and frolicsome before that box looking-glass and that kitchen table,—have heard her tender vows of affection and her passionate outbursts of despair. You have heard the timid Siebel warble out his adolescent longings for the gentle maid in the very scantiest of tunics, as becomes the fair proportions of the stage girl-boy. You have seen the respectable old Martha faint at the news of her husband's death, and forthwith engage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... lips smiled rarely, and then but slightly; hardly ever did any one hear her voice. But a rumour was in circulation to the effect that it was very beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health; and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain from thinking:—"Oh, ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... making sweet music in its winding course, ever murmuring a sweet requiem to the dead. Birds warble their matin songs in the branches, and the night dew water the graves with their tears, while the winds sigh over the grassy mounds; and all on earth must make their bed with them, and every step we take in the journey of life, is a step towards ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music—the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... know myself the wisest knight of all." "Ay, fool," said Tristram, "but 'tis eating dry To dance without a catch, a roundelay To dance to." Then he twangled on his harp, And while he twangled little Dagonet stood, Quiet as any water-sodden log Stay'd in the wandering warble of a brook; But when the twangling ended, skipt again; Then being ask'd, "Why skipt ye not, Sir Fool?" Made answer, "I had liefer twenty years Skip to the broken music of my brains Than any broken music ye can make." Then Tristram, waiting for the quip to come, ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... sound was stirring save the step of the soldiery, and the harsh clash of the shovel as it struck the earth. I felt sad and sick at heart, and leaned against a tree; a nightingale concealed in the leaves was pouring forth its plaintive notes to the night air, and its low warble sounded like the dirge of the departed. Far beyond, in the plain, the French watch-fires were burning, and I could see from time to time the fatigue-parties moving in search of their wounded. At this moment the clock of the convent ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... shall the oak and cedar fling Their giant plumage and protecting shade; For you the song-bird pause upon his wing And warble requiems ever undismayed. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... memory, and you try again and again to reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion, heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher, much modulated and partly uttered under its breath—a sort ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Explained to younger folk, or learned from old, How wealth might be increased, expense controlled. Now our good town has taken a new fit: Each man you meet by poetry is bit; Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay. E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all. None dares be pilot who ne'er steered a craft; No untrained nurse administers ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild grape's cluster, Gushed in raven-tinted plenty down her cheeks' rose-tinted marble; Then her voice's music—call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble. —Browning. ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... chorus breaks out, full and strong. The winter birds report all present but there are a number of new voices, especially the warble of the robin, the tremulous, confiding "sol-si, sol-si" of the bluebird and the clear call of the phoebe. The robins are thick down in the birch swamps, on the islands among the last year's knot-weed. You may tell them at a distance by their trim, military manner of walking, ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... you been with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in for, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... of the crab as the little red fish which walks backwards, it contains only three demonstrable errors. Shakespeare does not warble, his notes are not woodnotes, and ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well-touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... buy nowadays, for their crosses and ducats, off the Moscow pedlars who visit the villages with their baskets; that her little mouth, at sight of which the youths smacked their lips, seemed made to warble the songs of nightingales; that her hair, black as the raven's wing, and soft as young flax, fell in curls over her shoulders, for our maidens did not then plait their hair in pigtails interwoven with ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol |
