"Chant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... children still inside the Mission house were helping to chant the Doxology, and the woman appeared to listen to it with interest. When it was finished she ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... sabre, and, bending, took the dead woman by the wrist, lifting her limp, trampled body from the dust. He began to mutter, holding his sabre above his head, and the men took up the savage chant, standing close ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... darker-complexioned than would have been expected in that part of the world; and when some of our men went on shore and showed them bells and pictures, they began to dance round our men with a hoarse noise and unintelligible chant, and to excite our admiration they took arrows a cubit and a half long, and put them down their own throats to the bottom of their stomachs without seeming any the worse for it. Then they drew them up again, and seemed much pleased at having shown their ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... This chant is sung by the soul of the Francesca of the Bird-ordained purgatory; whose torment is to be dressed only in falling snow, each flake striking cold to her heart as it falls,—but such lace investiture costing, not a cruel price per yard in souls ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... and descended a little way in the direction whence the sounds seemed to come. But no door, no light, only the black walls, the black wet flags, with their faint yellow reflections of flickering oil-lamps; moreover, complete silence. I stopped a minute, and then the chant rose again; this time it seemed to me most certainly from the lane I had just left. I went back—nothing. Thus backwards and forwards, the sounds always beckoning, as it were, one way, only to beckon me ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... him; so that their Compositions had kept up a Spirit against him, and he had the Mortification of seeing the People always receive with Pleasure any thing that exposed and satyriz'd his Conduct. That indeed in his own Defence, he had imploy'd some others to chant his Praise; but they were such wretched Poetasters, and did it so awkardly, that their Performances prov'd more bitter Invectives than the Satyrs of the others; for whenever there happen'd the least Flaw in his Administration, he was sure to ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... virgin woods, while the companionable and friendly robin, the little melodious wren, the thrush, the lark, the swallow, the marten, and all those pleasant little winged creatures, that flit about our dwellings and grounds, and seem to be sent by Providence, expressly to chant their morning and evening hymns to God in our ears, most frequent the peopled districts. It has been said by Europeans that the American birds are mute, in comparison with those of the Old World. This is true, to a certain extent, as respects those which are properly called forest ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... go down again. You'd find the whole earth pale. You'd count the days until you went down again. Do you remember Orpheus? I think he looked back not to see if Eurydice was coming after him but because he knew it was the last glimpse he would get of Hell." At that he broke off and began to chant in a crazy voice, wagging his head and swaying his body to the rhythm ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... over, and rising, they turned and stayed a moment hand in hand while the sweet-voiced choir sang some wondrous chant. Margaret's eyes wandered over the congregation till presently they lighted upon the dark face of Morella, who stood apart a little way, surrounded by his squires and gentlemen, and watched her. More, he came to her, and bowing low, whispered ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... very much like another in this magnificent metropolis. Black figures are seen scattered over the long white avenues; the silence of earth and heaven is alone broken by the noise made by the crackling branches of hedges planted around the monuments; then follows the melancholy chant of the priests, mingled now and then with a sob of anguish, escaping from some woman concealed behind ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... was at first a singular aspect to a stranger. So were the naked coolies, by fours, bearing heavy loads of merchandise swung from their shoulders upon stout bamboo poles, while they shouted a measured chant by which to keep step. No beggars were seen on the public streets, the people without exception seeming neat and clean in their ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... upon the ground, Thou shalt find a cross in spring; There, as evening gathers 'round, Swallow, come and rest thy wing. Chant a strain of peace to me, Swallow from ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... were singing with the volume of a cathedral organ, the chant rising from all around them, and the sun was already above the horizon. Finding a deep natural spring, in which the water was at about blood-heat, they prepared for breakfast by taking a bath, and then found they ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... let them weep, my God, and groan for fear, The miserable, who will not see The eternal splendour of Thy holy city. But we must chant, to whom Thou dost reveal Thy everlasting light; Of all Thy gifts and grandeur ...
— Athaliah • J. Donkersley
... the alley sounded a chant, drawing nearer and nearer, until there shambled into view a decrepit horse drawing a dilapidated huckster's cart. Perched on the seat was a Greek who turned his dusky face up toward the two women leaning over the porch railings. "Rhubarb, leddy. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... chant, lo! out of death, and out of ooze and slime, The blossoms rapidly blooming, sympathy, help, love, From west and east, from south and north and over sea, Its hot spurr'd hearts and hands humanity to human aid moves on; And from within a thought and ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... which they do not wear during the day, but keep stowed away under the cargo that it may be dry to put on at night. Their bronzed, glistening, naked bodies, as they ply their long poles together in unison, and chant some Spanish boat-song, is one of the things that linger in the memory of the traveller up the San Juan. Our boatmen paddled and poled until eleven at night, when we reached Machuca, a settlement consisting of a single house, just below the rapids ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... and rills, in meadows green, We nightly dance our heydeguys; And to our fairy king and queen We chant our moon-light minstrelsies. When larks 'gin sing, Away we fling; And babes new-born steal as we go, And elf in bed We leave instead, And wend us laughing, ho, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... or descending equally slow into the pass gloomy with impending rocks and drooping boughs, the travellers will burst involuntarily into a wild and plaintive lament over some fallen chieftain, one portion of the party singing in subdued tones a hurried chant like the English litany, and the other answering at the end of the stanzas with their full, mellow Ay! ay! a-rira! which, like the pealing organ through the aisles, swells and floats away between the rocky sides of ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... seven miles farther on—there were country lanes and by-ways, sleepy-looking farms, and picturesquely careless houses. Below them there was a great fish entrepot, with fishing-boats plying up and down, brawny fishermen trilling their musical half-chant, half-song, as they floated ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... her profile, which was what you might call firm, and saw the mild-looking little king, who seemed quite eclipsed by her presence, one understood—or anyway one thought one understood—why an English assemblage, when standing to chant the national anthem these times, always puts such fervor and meaning into the first ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and began to chant in a quiet happy ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... for word, certain emphatic passages, messages, and so on. That custom is essential in the ballad, it is an accident not the essence of the epic. The epic is a poem of complete and elaborate art, but it still bears some birthmarks, some signs of the early popular chant, out of which it sprung, as the garden-rose springs from the wild stock, When this is recognised the demand for ballad-like simplicity and 'ballad-slang' ceases to exist, and then all Homeric translations in the ballad manner cease to represent our conception of Homer. After the belief in ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... when the hush of the desert night still lay deep over the land, the Navajo stirred in his blanket and began to chant to the morning light. It began very soft and low, a strange, broken murmur, like the music of a brook, and as it swelled that weird and mournful tone was slowly lost in one of hope and joy. The Indian's soul was coming out of night, blackness, the ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... me slowly, and using a stout bamboo, about six feet long, to support his steps, while in his left hand he carried a bowl formed of a gourd, and this he tapped against his stick at every stride, while he went on half shouting, half singing, a kind of chant, and turning his head, and swaying it ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... we shall have a church as wide as the horizon, domed by the blue, lighted by the sun, the Sun of Righteousness, the Eternal Truth of the Father; a church in which all men shall be recognized as brothers, of whatever sect or whatever religion, in which all shall kneel and chant or lisp their worship according as they are able, the worship of the one Father, cheered and inspired by the one universal and eternal ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... high elevation, because it is a nearer approach to the spirit world. They bury on scaffolds and in trees that in some mute, sorrowful way they may still hold communion with their loved and their lost. At the grave they go to the four points of the compass and mourn, singing all the while a weird chant. They bury with their dead all of the belongings of the deceased, the playthings of the Indian child, for the Indian boy and girl have dolls and balls and baubles as does the white child: you may see them all pendent from the ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... over the side for the phosphorescence of the water, and watching the smoke of the funnel lose itself overhead. The silent stars and sparkling waves would have set Phoebe's dutiful science on the alert, or transported Honor's inward ear by the chant of creation, but to her they were of moderate interest, and her imagination fell a prey to the memory of the eyes averted, and hand withdrawn. 'I'll be exemplary when this is over,' said she to herself, and at ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Dutchman's footsteps, and when they were inside, he listened intently as Peter recited a monosyllabic chant over the feather. "The chant is easy enough to learn," Peter assured him. "You will ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... possession of it as it had never been held before. He played from memory as he had implied, but it was the memory of a musician. He began with one or two familiar anthems, in which they all joined. A fragment of a mass and a Latin chant followed. An "Ave Maria" from an opera was his first secular departure, but his delighted audience did not detect it. Then he hurried them along in unfamiliar language to "O mio Fernando" and "Spiritu gentil," which they fondly imagined ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... these monasteries are universities. Candidates for ordination study a course of theology and are not received as novices or full monks unless they pass successive examinations. In every monastery there is a central temple in which the monks assemble several times a day to chant lengthy choral offices. Of these there are at least five, the first before dawn and the last at 7 p.m. Though the value of Lamas' learning and ritual may be questioned, it is clear that many of them lead strenuous lives in the service of a religion which, if fantastic, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... long May blush with blood, (and with whose blood he cares not,) Swearing, if so his arm may purchase glory, He'll pay its price, a thousand human hearts. And all these mad, these impious vows are ushered With chant of cloistered maids, and swell of organs— As could our earthly songs charm Him, who hears Seraphs and cherubs wake their harps divine, While the blest planets, hymning in their orbits, Pour fourth such tones as reached their mortal ears, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... There was a heavy engagement at Charleroi, and a four days' battle was begun at Mons August 23. Slowly but surely the Franco-British army was forced back across the French border, to take up a new position on the line, Noyon-Chant-La Fere, which constituted the second line ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... French temple! thou whose hundred kings Watch over thee, emblazoned on thy walls, Tell me, within thy memory-hallowed halls What chant of triumph, or what war-song rings? Thou hast known Clovis and his Frankish train, Whose mighty hand Saint Remy's hand did keep And in thy spacious vault perhaps may sleep An echo of the voice of Charlemagne. ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... or call to prayer see Lane, M. E., chapt. xviii. The chant, however, differs in every country, and a practical ear will know the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... was upon the mighty deep, and the waves moved by the breeze which had sprung up, seemed to chant a mournful dirge for the boy, who, far below, lay sleeping in a dishonored grave, if grave it can be ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... chant it over Yen Sin's scow when I was a boy on Urkey water-front, and how unfailingly it brought the minister charging down upon us. I can see him now, just as he used to burst upon our vision from the wharf lane, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... never went off... you will understand the allusion. This song achieved instant popularity, and when Tartarin was passing, the stevedores on the quay and the grubby urchins hanging round his door would chant this insulting little ditty... only they sang it from a safe distance because of the ...
— Tartarin de Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... tent, the wooded knoll, the whole vicinity was ringing with the uproarious notes of the mirth-inspiring banjo; and Sweeney was chanting, as only that great master could chant, the mighty epic of ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... whom he met with exaggerated but inoffensive courtesy. Not yet was Calliope's melancholy at the danger point. He would seat himself at the window of the room he occupied over Silvester's tonsorial parlours and there chant lugubrious and tuneless ballads until morning, accompanying the noises by appropriate maltreatment of a jangling guitar. More magnanimous than Nero, he would thus give musical warning of the forthcoming municipal upheaval that Quicksand ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... after the pilgrims were heard singing, and Evelyn would have to go on the stage. She pressed her hands against her forehead, ridding herself by an effort of will of her present individuality. The strenuous chant of the pilgrims grew louder, the procession approached, and as it passed across the stage Elizabeth sought for Tannhaeuser, but he was not among them. So her last earthly hope has perished, and she throws herself on her knees at the foot of the wayside cross. And it was ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... j'avais os! Mais je n'osai pas.... Songez donc!... Religion! Religion! pome en douze chants!... Pourtant la vrit m'oblige dire que ce pome en douze chants tait loin d'tre termin. Je crois mme qu'il n'y avait encore de fait que les quatre premiers vers du premier chant; mais comme disait Eyssette (Jacques) avec beaucoup de raison: "Maintenant que j'ai mes quatre premiers vers, le reste n'est rien; ce n'est qu'une affaire ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... to our order. She lived in prayer alone, would remain in ecstasy before the altar of the virgin, which is on the side of the fields, and pretend so distinctly to hear the angels flying in Paradise, that she was able to hum the tunes they were singing. You all know that she took from them the chant Adoremus, of which no man could have invented a note. She remained for days with her eyes fixed like the star, fasting, and putting no more nourishment into her body that I could into my eye. She had made a vow never to taste meat, either cooked or raw, and ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... listen awhile as the service continues. See it I cannot, nor the altar and its ministrants. We are separated from these by a great screen and closed gates of iron, through which the lamps glitter and the chant comes by gusts only. Seeing a score of children trotting down a side aisle, I think I may follow them. I am tired of looking at that hideous old pulpit with its grotesque monsters and decorations. I slip off to the side aisle; but my friend the ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the grass, and read, in a chant, or rather in a lilt, the Danish ballad of Chyld Dyring, as translated by Sir Walter Scott. Gibbie's eyes grew wider and wider as he listened; their pupils dilated, and his lips parted: it seemed as if his soul were looking out of door and windows at once—but a puzzled soul ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... metal implements hung up on nails to be out of the way. Down came saws and pails and a sprinkling can, and the hoe, and a dozen other articles in a noisy crash. It sounded as though a cyclone had suddenly descended upon the little shop, or a 42-centimeter shell had burst within. The exultant chant of the lone occupant of the building suddenly ceased. But its place was instantly taken by another voice as Henry's mother suddenly appeared on the back porch of the house, looking anxiously ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... sure that the victory was his own, the yellow-maned lion loosed his grip and sniffed at the fallen foe. Then he licked the dead lion's eye, and next, with his fore-feet resting on the carcass, sent up his own chant of victory, that went rolling and pealing down the dark paths of the night. And at this point I interfered. Taking a careful sight at the centre of his body, in order to give the largest possible margin for error, I fired, and sent a.570 express ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... I heard that song last night, methought it did relieve my passion much. Mark it, Cesario, it is old and plain. The spinsters and the knitters when they sit in the sun, and the young maids that weave their thread with bone, chant this song. It is silly, yet I love it, for it tells of the innocence of love ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... contrast, or in the pride of swaying moods by her voice, she chose a mournful song that drifted along in a minor chant, sad ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... one against the other. In this equipage they neither sing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as shrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market. The nonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:— ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... details. The broad horizon above the lake was piled deep with clouds. Beyond the oak trees, in the southern sky, great tongues of flame shot up into the dark heavens out of the blast furnaces of the steel works. Deep-toned, full-throated frogs had begun their monotonous chant. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... of earls, gold in the earth, where ever it lies useless to men as of yore it was. Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode, atheling-born, a band of twelve, lament to make, to mourn their king, chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor. They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess worthily witnessed: and well it is that men their master-friend mightily laud, heartily love, when hence he goes from life ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... is, as Austin says, The first of sin is, and the next of praise. If ill it goes with thee, thy faults confess: If well, then chant ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... the van of an illustrious line of poets who turned their impressions de voyage into glowing verse, for the others only trod in his footsteps and wrote on his model, while Lamartine openly imitated him in his Dernier Chant de Childe Harold. For the first time the Eastern tale was now told by a poet who had actually seen Eastern lands and races, their scenery and their cities, who drew his figures and landscape with his eye on the objects, and had not mixed his local colours by the process of skimming ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... Middleton, for heaven's sake," said Gwendolen, hastily, a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; "that is Anna's chant. I hear the hounds. Let us ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... interpretation to which he chiefly owed his fame. Greek, a rare accomplishment in the West, came to him from the school which the Greek Archbishop Theodore founded beneath the walls of Canterbury. His skill in the ecclesiastical chant was derived from a Roman cantor whom Pope Vitalian sent in the train of Benedict Biscop. Little by little the young scholar thus made himself master of the whole range of the science of his time; he ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... of black mud and emerald prairies—that she was—a—a corker; and as for mine, I cared not if she were as cruel as a serpent's tooth to her fond parents, or if she couldn't tell a plugged dollar from a bridle buckle, if I might sing, chant, praise, glorify, and worship her ...
— Options • O. Henry
... The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant. Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp. Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western sky. ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of his panting team. From his window, looking eastward, he sees the advance beams of the sun flung across the savanna: he takes the hint, and hurries out to look after his young plantains. At night the sea keeps up its everlasting chant by the side of his palenca, and the pure stars watch over his humble roof; yet, unconscious of both, he sleeps on the calm deep sleep appointed as the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... formula, was of the Bear clan. His son, Onwanonsyshon, was of the Wolf (the clan-ship descends through the mother's side of the family). Then one other chief, of the Turtle clan, and in whose veins coursed the blood of the historic Brant, now stepped to the edge of the scarlet blanket. The chant ended, these two young chiefs received the Prince into the Mohawk tribe, conferring upon him the name of "Kavakoudge," which means "the sun flying from East to West under the guidance ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... is as natural as life, and a deal kinder. But it is all good—I accept it all and give thanks—you have not forgotten my chant to death?" ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Through her weird song fall echoes from that lore That lived when Time was young, e'er yet the rime Of years lay on his brow. In that far prime Nature and man, couched 'neath God's earliest sky, Heard clear-voiced spheres chant Earth's first lullaby. Now, in the blast loud sings the Finn, and long, Nor knows that faint through her wild cradle-song Yet sweetly thrills the vanished Elf-babes' cry, Nor dreams, as low she croons her lullaby, Still breathes through ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... to chant the score with the hopes of further disheartening the Bartlett eleven. "We want more! We want more!" ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... with them. And surrounded by those utterers of Brahma, the king shone resplendent in their midst. And that evening, at once beautiful and terrible, those Brahmanas having lighted their (sacred) fires, began to chant the Vedas and hold mutual converse. And those foremost of Brahmanas, with swan-sweet voices spent the night, comforting that best of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... hasteth to a myrtle grove, 865 Musing the morning is so much o'erworn, And yet she hears no tidings of her love; She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn: 868 Anon she hears them chant it lustily, And all in haste ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... the rite, according to the account we have received, consisted in a low monotonous chant; the manual, in keeping a ball about the size of an orange constantly whirling in a vertical circle. The whole was performed in a kneeling posture. Like most other rude nations, the New Zealanders have certain fancies with regard to several of the more remarkable constellations; and ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... offerings at his feet: And, almost wondering why they loved him so, Kissed him with reverence, promising to yield Grave fealty. And Jesus did return Their childish salutations; and they passed Singing another song, whose music chimed With the sea's murmur, like a low sweet chant Chanted in some wide church to Jesus Christ. And Jesus listened till their voices sank Behind the jutting rocks, and died away: Then the wave broke, and Jesus felt alone. Who being alone, on his fair countenance And saddened beauty all ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... acquaintance with Bion's life, we are left in doubt whether he accompanied his friend Moschus to the court of Alexandria; but it is probable that he did. In his beautiful lamentation for the death of Adonis, we have an imitation of the melancholy chant of the Egyptians, named maneros, which they sang through the streets in the procession on the feast of Isis, when the crowd joined in the chorus, "Ah, hapless Isis, Osiris is no more." The tale has ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... as she spoke, we heard faint voices singing. The sound seemed to rise from beneath our feet, and muffled and far distant rose the sweet, solemn chant of the Huguenot hymn: "When Israel went ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... rang with a note of vitality, of life, as if to chant, 'I have come back to you from a long way off!' Mrs. ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... its way, The world revolved from night to day A voice, a chime, A chant sublime Of peace on ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... grown so much more so, that the companions who surrounded her, with sentiments almost akin to awe, declared her too beautiful to live, and sagely hinting that ere long she would hear the songs of those spirits who chant around ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... middle-aged man, well-dressed, with a lined and sunken face; the other a mere boy who is chiefly eyes and overcoat. Disguising well the tedium begotten by many repetitions, the server of drinks begins to chant the sanitary saga of Santone. "Rather a moist night, gentlemen, for our town. A little fog from our river, but nothing to hurt. ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... thought according to the strictest laws, and to "narrow it down" to some extent, such was his aim. Following the example of one of his comrades of Medan, being readily carried away by precision of style and the rhythm of sentences, by the imperious rule of the ballad, of the pantoum or the chant royal, Maupassant also desired to write in metrical lines. However, he never liked this collection that he often regretted having published. His encounters with prosody had left him with that monotonous weariness that the horseman and the fencer feel after a period in the riding ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... satisfy the deputation, a goat would be brought, and he would name its sex with any distinguishing marks on the body. The sick person's representative would then produce his nazar or fee, formerly Rs. 25, but lately the double of this or more. The Janta would now begin a sort of chant, introducing the names of the families of the kuri other than that containing her who was to be proclaimed a witch, and heap on them all kinds of abuse. Finally, he would assume an ironic tone, extol the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... bystanders watched him in breathless silence—while the crackling of the wood, the roar of the flames, and the dull thump of falling timber mingled with the distant chant of a procession of priests who were now approaching the burning pile, Nefert roused by little Scherau knelt on the bare ground in fervent and passionate prayer to the saving Gods. She watched every movement of her husband, and she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... have heard the prayer of a blind old negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in touching broken English he poured forth his thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden to be sung on Southern plantations,—the psalm of this modern exodus,—which combines the barbaric fire of the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... element should have disappeared for a considerable time from the church music is not at all remarkable, for in the first steps toward regulating the liturgy simplification was a prime requisite. Thus in the centuries before Gregory the plain chant gained complete ascendancy in the church and under him it acquired a systematization which had in it the ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... veil the sunlight from mine eyes, I'll chant the splendour of the sunlit skies! Just for a season let me beg or borrow A great, a crushing, a stupendous sorrow, And soon you'll hear my hymns of gladness rise! But best, Miss Jay, to nerve my wings for flight, Find ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... to remain sole masters of the soil, they found themselves sufficiently powerful to forbid the Protestant sailors certain favorite exercises of their worship: "At last it was agreed that they should not chant the psalms," says Champlain, "but that they should assemble to make their prayers." A hand more powerful than that of Madame de Guercheville or of the Jesuits was about to take the direction of the affairs of the colony as well as ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... When it was recognised as one of the accelerating causes of the revolution, he drily remarked that they would have done better to take his advice. The grand chorus, 'O Signore dal tetto natio,' in which the censor had only seen a pious chant, became the morning-song ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... woman's place, and Nonna was in the kitchen, ashamed to appear in the state she was in. Signor Francesco must please her in this—she would be vexed— and surely he would not vex his hostess. To this wilful chant the doctor contributed his burden of "Che! che! S'accommodi!" and rapped with his knife-handle upon the table. Old Nonna, toothless, bearded and scared, popped her head beyond the kitchen door; to be short, insistence went to a ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... the tall trees, a silent file that came winding down to the Council Rock in a stately procession. The circle closed around Nyoda and she stooped to kindle the fire. As the bow flashed quickly back and forth and the drill whirled in its center, a low, musical chant ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... schoolhouse where I had passed many days, the tomb of my lost relatives in the church of St. Augustine, were all visited by me with a sweet and melancholy interest. But the cathedral, the brass eagle in the middle aisle, under which, when an infant, I used to sit and join in the loud anthem, or chant the morning service, most sensibly attached me. I longed again to occupy my place beneath its expanding wings, and once I went before the service ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... Robespierre, St. Just, and Couthon; on the other Collot and Billaud. Barere leaned towards these last, but only leaned towards them. As was ever his fashion when a great crisis was at hand, he fawned alternately on both parties, struck alternately at both, and held himself in readiness to chant the praises or to sign the death warrant of either. In any event his Carmagnole was ready. The tree of liberty, the blood of traitors, the dagger of Brutus, the guineas of perfidious Albion, would do equally well for ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the earliest gleam Of golden sunlight shines On the rippling waves, that brightly flow Beneath the flowering vines. Awake! awake! for the low, sweet chant Of the wild-birds' morning hymn Comes floating by on the fragrant air, Through the forest cool and dim; Then spread each wing, And work, and sing, Through the long, bright sunny hours; O'er the pleasant earth We journey forth, For a day ...
— Flower Fables • Louisa May Alcott
... there was a deep silence, and then, as upon his arrival, there rose the sound of music—not joyful this time, but solemn, like a chant at the grave of the dead. It came nearer and again the swan ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... in regard to music holds good when applied to the Eskimo, for they have but little music in their souls, and among no people is there such a noticeable absence of "treason, stratagem and spoil." A rude drum and a monotonous chant, consisting only of the fundamental note and minor third, are the only things in the way of music among the more remote settlements of which I have any knowledge. Mrs. Micawber's singing has been described as the table-beer ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... again the voices of the unseen choir within the chapel. The organ pealed out in loud flute tones that mounted like a lark, higher, higher, higher, winging its way in the clear morning air. It was the chant of a returning angel scaling heaven. Then came the long sweeps of a more solem harmony. Peace, peace! And rest! ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... the inquiry into the murder, and orders the people to be summoned. The suppliants arise from the altar, and a solemn chorus of the senators of Thebes (in one of the most splendid lyrics of Sophocles) chant the terrors of the plague—"that unarmed Mars"—and implore the protection of the divine averters of destruction. Oedipus then, addressing the chorus, demands their aid to discover the murderer, whom he solemnly excommunicates, and dooms, deprived of aid and intercourse, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friends is held to be evidence of backwoods' manners excusable only in a people so new. In the deep recesses of the Domkirke dark shadows are gathering. The tower clock peals forth. At the last stroke the watchman lifts up his chant in a voice that comes quavering down ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... Marster! de devil is 'bout heah, sho'! Marse Nat, you fling it up, suh. I ain' nuttin but a po' sinful nigger. Oh, Lordy!" And handing over the quarter tremulously, George Washington flung himself flat on the ground and, as a sort of religious incantation, began to chant in a wild, ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... a man of me when I'd nearly forgotten. Now you stay here." He knew he could count on her obedience, and so he left her. When he had gone she drew the shawl up over her face and crouched in the doorway, straining her eyes after him through the dark. In time she began to rock and sway, and then to chant, until the night moaned with the ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... for some kingly match in Town, To give the scene its fitting ode, Sir! Could Pindar fire the athletic lyre, A truant from his bright abode, Sir, How would he chant the Chief heroic, The trundler's hope become zeroic, The drives from liberal shoulders poured, The changing history of the Board! Long may the champion's pith be scored In figures ...
— More Cricket Songs • Norman Gale
... cavity which had been hollowed into a grave. Three priests of the Cathedral, several nuns, Ramesay with his officers, and a throng of townspeople were present at the rite. After the service and the chant, the body was lowered into the grave by the light of torches; and then, says the chronicle, "the tears and sobs burst forth. It seemed as if the last hope of the colony were buried with the remains of the General."[794] ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... buzzing of lots and lots of flies, bluebottles, midges, bees, cockchafers—every sort of creature of the kind, so that Lena started up in a fright. But no—no flies of any sort were to be seen, but nearer and nearer, louder and louder came the sound, till at last it grew into a sort of chant, as if a great number of little feet were stepping along together, and a great number of little buzzing voices singing in time to them. And glancing up at the curtains Lena plainly saw a whole quantity of tiny brown figures stepping—you couldn't call it sliding, they ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... the conversation was, for the most part, a chant, sung as a solo by George Kent, and having as its subject, the wonders of Miss Berry. Captain Sears joined occasionally in the chorus, and smiled cordial and complete agreement. His ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... to be some secret understanding. It seemed as if our military suitor had resolved to assail the fort from within as well as from without, and therefore had brought down with him this fair ally. Nothing better than such a fair ally. She could not only chant his praises when absent, (and there is much in that,) but she could so manoeuvre as to procure for the captain many a tete-a-tete, which otherwise would not fall to his share. Especially, (and this task she appeared to accomplish most adroitly,) she could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... sing-song chant of the Africans as they swung their paddles, and the frightened shriek of a glittering parrot, broke the stillness as the boat pushed ...
— The Book of Missionary Heroes • Basil Mathews
... even the usually gentle Nora, but for once with all her gentleness vanished, gave vent to their feelings against Darn by making a chant out ...
— The Circus Comes to Town • Lebbeus Mitchell
... each side of the candidate, and, grasping his arms, marched him to and fro in the Council house, between the lines of the assembled senators. As they walked they proclaimed his new name and office, and recited, in a measured chant, the duties to which he was now called, the audience responding at every pause with the usual ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale
... with Mr. Hoyer in a canoe propelled by twenty paddlers. These at first keep up a kind of chant to the time of the paddles which is quite musical and pleasant. As we approach the game grounds however, they become quite silent. After travelling up stream for about a mile, we land in a kind of bog which is full of a species of duck, somewhat ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... quite unrivalled in Europe; for, although the Scandinavian peninsula has a glorious garland of its own, and Spain and England are both rich in traditionary story, our northern ballad poetry is wider in its compass, and far more varied in the composition of its material. The high and heroic war-chant, the deeds of chivalrous emprise, the tale of unhappy love, the mystic songs of fairy-land,—all have been handed down to us, for centuries, unmutilated and unchanged, in a profusion which is almost marvellous, when we reflect upon the great ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... spirit, and the Black Prince's most redoubtable enemy, fell at last into the hands of the English. One day at Bordeaux the Prince summoned him from his prison, and asked him how he fared. 'Par may foy, monseigneur,' replied Bertrand, 'il m'ennuye de n'entendre que le chant des Souris de Bourdeaux; je voudrois bien ouyr les Rossignols de nostre pais'; but he added that he loved honour better than aught else and never had anything brought him more glory than his prison, seeing that, as all the other prisoners ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... to these effusions, LEGION poured forth Ballades, and Rondeaux, and wrote a Chant Royal on a General Election which occupied a whole column of a newspaper, and needed three men to read, with a boy for the "envoy." But this ditty was not thought to have seriously affected the voting classes in any direction. LEGION was now usually spoken of as "the versatile Mr. LEGION," a compliment ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... pulsation and strung high the nerves. Time-worn shields, careering in mad holders' hands, clashed; and keen lances, once reeking in Pawnee blood, clanged. Braves seized one another with an iron grip, in the heat of excitement, or chimed more tenderly in the chant, enveloped in the same robe with some maiden as they approvingly stepped through one of ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... I can answer you," said the book-hawker. "I was once a monk, a lazy drone. Our convent was rich, and we had nothing to do except to appear for so many hours every day in church, and repeat or chant words, of the sense of which we did not for a moment trouble ourselves. Copies of the blessed gospel, however, were brought among us, and certain works by Dr Martin Luther, and friends of his, which stirred ...
— The Woodcutter of Gutech • W.H.G. Kingston
... made songs among themselves—fantastic descriptions of their own country. By word of mouth these poems were handed on from generation to generation, and generally sung to the accompaniment of the kantele in a weird sort of chant. By such means the wonderful Sagas of Iceland were preserved to us until the year 1270, when they first began to be written down on sheepskins, in Runic writing, for Iceland at that date shone as a glorious literary light when all was gloom ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... and, led by the little quarter-back on top of the van, they set off down the street, two men at the heads of the doctor's carriage horses, holding them in place behind the van. On went the swaying crowd and on went the swaying chant, with Martin, director of ceremonies and Dunn hurling unavailing objurgations and ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the parish constable, and a large part of his flock, though he had not tact or energy enough to bring them round to his own views. So a compromise was come to; and the curate's choir were allowed to chant the Psalms and Canticles, which had always been read before, while the gallery remained triumphant masters ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... is called "The Hall of a Thousand Pillars," though the actual number is nine hundred and eighty-five. Here and there among the pillars are seated learned men or pundits, who place offerings of flowers and perfumed water before their sacred books and chant the meaning of Sanskrit scriptures ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... one or two visitors. Tennyson, like many men of letters, loves to talk about his own work, and is very fond of reading his poems to his friends. This is, of course, very delightful to those friends, if the reading be not too prolonged, although he is said to chant them in rather a disagreeable manner. He is a great egotist, and does not like to listen to other people when they talk about themselves. We are told that Charles Sumner once paid him a visit, and bored him very much by a long talk upon American affairs ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... complete transformation. Ordinarily it is a very quiet, demure sort of bird. It walks about over the leaves, moving its head like a little hen; then perches on a limb a few feet from the ground and sends forth its shrill, rather prosy, unmusical chant. Surely it is an ordinary, commonplace bird. But wait till the inspiration of its flight-song is upon it. What a change! Up it goes through the branches of the trees, leaping from limb to limb, faster and faster, till it shoots from the tree-tops fifty or more feet into the ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... me. My wrongs might slumber till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the record, but hers—have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come, memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of Notre Dame will not tremble and dissolve as soon ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... (perhaps exaggeratively) would have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilees hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: 'Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... with thy club on a hollow tree While I chant the song of Kaa for thee: I lived in a cave, alone, at first, Till into a neighbouring valley I burst Wild and bearded and seeking prey, And I came on Naa, and bore her away ... Away to my hole in the crest of the hill, Where I broke her body ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... monotonous tones, marking the time by measured beats upon an odd-looking drum, broad and shallow, upreared upon a stick planted in the ground. At the first sounds of the strange music, in which joined the voices of the lamas in a melancholy chant, the doors along the wall opened simultaneously, giving entrance to about twenty masked persons, disguised as animals, birds, devils and imaginary monsters. On their breasts they bore representations of fantastic dragons, demons and skulls, embroidered with Chinese ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... four, five, six, sounded a deep-throated bell upon the evening air, and then a chime of bells played Luther's Chant. ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... blushes to welcome the sun, Through the gay gardens we stroll and we run; In fields where lambs gambol less happy than we, Glittering grass makes a sheen like the sea; Birds unexpectedly set up a chant, Adding a joy that the world seem'd to want. Creation is made for our pleasure alone: Adam and Eve, with no sin to atone, Knowledge ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... banks o'erflows, Uxorious flood. Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel That better Persian lives had spilt, To youths, whose minish'd numbers feel Their parents' guilt. What god shall Rome invoke to stay Her fall? Can suppliance overbear The ear of Vesta, turn'd away From chant and prayer? Who comes, commission'd to atone For crime like ours? at length appear, A cloud round thy bright shoulders thrown, Apollo seer! Or Venus, laughter-loving dame, Round whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly; Or thou, if slighted sons ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... "But who is Kazmah, and where is Mrs. Monte Irvin?" Sin Sin Wa placidly pursued his arrangements for immediate departure to the paddyfields of Ho-Nan, and sometimes in the weird crooning voice with which he addressed the raven he would sing a monotonous chant dealing with the valley of the Yellow River where the opium-poppy grows. Hidden in the cunning vault, the search had passed above him; and watchful on a quay on the Surrey shore whereto his dinghy was fastened, George Martin awaited the signal which should tell him that Kazmah and Company were ready ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... thus prepared, commenced dancing around the circle in a most frantic manner, pulling with all his might, so as to stretch out the rope, and by his jerking movements loosening himself by tearing out the flesh. The young man's dance was accompanied by a chant by those who were standing around, assisted by the thumping of a hideous drum, to keep the time. The young brave who was undergoing this self-torture finally succeeded in tearing himself loose, and ...
— Three Years on the Plains - Observations of Indians, 1867-1870 • Edmund B. Tuttle
... about to seize a musquito, and, clutching the kicking legs with one hand, he spun the little fellow a somersault over his head, and skinning off at the same time his diminutive frock, plunged him into the sparkling brine, singing the while in a laughing chant: ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... 'Hansom's' cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat a crowd of grave brown men chanting 'Allah il Allah' to the most monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant seemed to swell, and then fade, like the ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... finished, Roland looked at her with a certain intelligence in his eyes, and then struck a few wild, startling chords. They proved to be the basis of a sea-chant. Denas heard them with a quick movement of her head and an involuntary though slight movement of the hands, as she cried out ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy understood now that in the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood enshrined like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch at his side until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the monotone continued. Then the five men turned and without a word, without looking ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... zeal no respite know," they sang on, and Garnet's "Whosoever will, let him come," and other calls swept across their chant like the crash of falling trees across ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... for reclaiming the child carried away by the Fairies was to take the Fairy's changeling and place it on the top of a dunghill, and then to chant certain invocatory lines beseeching the Fairies to restore ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... Migajima!" How would enchantment chant The syllables within me, till Desire should cease and pant Of passion press no more my will— But let charmed peace supplant All thought of birth and death and ...
— Nirvana Days • Cale Young Rice
... at Constantinople, and exhibited the qualities of a great statesman. He regulated the Roman liturgy, the calendar of festivals, the order of processions, the fashions of sacerdotal garments; he himself officiated in the canon of the mass, devised many solemn and pompous rites, and invented the chant known by his name. He established schools of music, administered the Church revenues with precision and justice, and set an example of almsgiving and charity; for such was the misery of the times that even Roman matrons had to accept the benevolence of the Church. He authorized ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... sacred tree or plant. Thus in the Hindoo Koosh a fire is kindled with twigs of the sacred cedar; and the Dainyal or sibyl, with a cloth over her head, inhales the thick pungent smoke till she is seized with convulsions and falls senseless to the ground. Soon she rises and raises a shrill chant, which is caught up and loudly repeated by her audience. So Apollo's prophetess ate the sacred laurel and was fumigated with it before she prophesied. The Bacchanals ate ivy, and their inspired fury was by some believed to be ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... Ship—that old true history of the generosity with which a youth, worthless in life, flung himself upon death—he was contented with a single utterance of the refrain, "given out" like the keynote or tune of a chant. ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... the chorus sounded directly above her, and the chant seemed to soar away like voices from an upper world. She glanced up the dark fissure as through a flume. The cross-beams were faintly visible. Over the cleft rested a moonlit sky, but to the rocks clung the figure of a man. That man stood there a moment only, then shouting ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... mentioned above. His clear, ringing voice was in itself a much more interesting sound than Father Nicholas's drowsy monotone, or Father Warner's dry staccato. He at least was interested in his subject; no one could doubt that. As soon as the last note of the last chant had died away, Bruno came forward to the steps of the altar. He had given due notice of his intention beforehand, and every one (with Beatrice in particular) was prepared ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt |
