"Ditty" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the bunches lay piled amidships, while fore and aft they plied their oars, and sang. The gloaming hid all but sound and sex, and threw its veil of romance over the trollers, who sent their hearts out thus across the twilight sea. The song, no doubt some common ditty, gathered a pathos over the water through the night. It swept from one side of us to the other, softened with distance, lingered in detached strains, and then was hushed, leaving us once more alone with ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... has committed only one plagiarism in his play. But with all the triumph of vanity, we here stoutly convict him of having wilfully, maliciously and despitefully stolen, the pleasing idea of the repetition of "down, down, down," from the equally pathetic and instructive ditty of "up, up, up," in Tom Thumb; the exordium or prolegomena to which floweth sweetly and ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... bending to his oar, With measured sweep the burthen bore, In such wild cadence, as the breeze Makes through December's leafless trees. The chorus first could Allen know, "Roderigh Vich Alpine, ho! ieroe!" And near, and nearer, as they rowed, Distinct the martial ditty flowed. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... approvingly when Ward took up the ditty where she left off and sang it with the rollicking enthusiasm which only a man who has soothed restless cattle on a stormy night can ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... have the ditty o'er again! Of all the strains that mewing minstrels sing, The lover's one for me. I could expire To hear a man, with bristles on his chin, Sing soft, with upturn'd eyes, and arched brows, Which talk of trickling tears that never fall. Let's have it ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... of the vessel, gleaming brightly and throwing long, wavering, tremulous lines of colour along the polished surface of the water. On board one of these vessels, about a mile distant, someone was playing a concertina—very creditably, too—and singing a favourite forecastle ditty to its accompaniment; and it was surprising how softly yet clearly the sounds were conveyed across the intervening space of water. Singing and playing was also going on among the more distant ships; but the sounds were ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... flower-bed beneath the hollyhocks I spied the tiny tailor who makes the fairies' frocks; There he sat a-stitching all the afternoon And sang a little ditty to a quaint wee tune: "Grey for the goblins, blue for the elves, Brown for the little gnomes that live by themselves, White for the pixies that dance upon the green, But where shall I find me a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 22, 1920 • Various
... York City, Blithely every morn, I carolled o'er my artless ditty, Cheerly though forlorn! Before the rosy light, my lay Was to the maids begun, Ere winters snows had passed away, Or smiled ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... the discordant attempts of the Saxon upon the unmanageable monosyllable, and the heartfelt laugh which followed every failure. They had, however, better modes of awakening the echoes; for Wakefield could sing many a ditty to the praise of Moll, Susan, and Cicely, and Robin Oig had a particular gift at whistling interminable pibrochs through all their involutions, and what was more agreeable to his companion's southern ear, knew many of the northern airs, both lively ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... trifle, in which a French levity is wedded to the language of Prior, was first printed in 'The Bee', for Saturday, the 13th of October, 1759. Its original, which is as follows, is to be found where Goldsmith found it, namely in Part iii of the 'Menagiana', (ed. 1729, iii, 397), and not far from the ditty of 'le fameux la Galisse'. (See 'An Elegy on Mrs. Mary ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Raphael, shall we now ignore the works of Powers? Or having seen the Rose of Sharon, shall we cease to admire the humbler flowers of spring? The wood thrush's song today is divine, yet, the simpler ditty of the wren has a sweetness not found in the larger minstrel's song. Here one is not bored with the "ohs" and "ahs" of gasping tourists, who scream their delights in tones that drown the voice of the ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... was coatless and in his stockinged-feet. He had been playing a doleful ditty on a mouth-organ. Caught so unexpectedly, he blushed a beautiful brick ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... anon, anon," etc., etc., is in the same exquisite measure. This appears to us neither more nor less than an imitation of such minstrelsy as soothed our cries in the cradle, with the shrill ditty of ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... where they were bound to, this ditty was the farewell song; and it always had the desired effect of melting the bystanders, especially the females, though Jack himself showed no really soft emotion. Not that they were not sentimental, but theirs seemed always to be ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Elector, "and may good fortune attend you everywhere. Electress, give me your arm, and let us withdraw to our own apartments. And he, our son, will doubtless, first of all, have to take a most touching and tearful farewell of Leuchtmar, and sing a mournful ditty about the cruel father who would take away from him his nurse—that is to say, ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... too good-natured a fellow to remain gloomy very long at a stretch, and in ten minutes they heard him trolling a comical ditty as he worked away, showing that his "doughnut fever" ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... both sides of them. It was another crevasse, but not a long one. Presently the child came to a halt because the way ended and they could proceed no farther. He leaned against the rock and in a high-pitched, sweet voice sang part of a Sicilian ditty, neither starting the verse nor ending it, but ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... lusty brood within. The scuffle of little feet over the rough floor brings indolent, half-indifferent guessing as to which of the lesser four-foots they belonged. The whippoorwills down in the river woods call until they drop off, one by one, and the timid ditty of a singing mouse that lives under the floor by my cot is the last message the sandman sends to close our eyes before sleep. And such sleep! That first steel-blue starlit night in the open we said that we meant to sleep and sleep it out, even if we lost a whole day by it. It seemed but ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... ventricle, crop, craw, maw, gizzard, breadbasket; mouth. pocket, pouch, fob, sheath, scabbard, socket, bag, sac, sack, saccule, wallet, cardcase, scrip, poke, knit, knapsack, haversack, sachel, satchel, reticule, budget, net; ditty bag, ditty box; housewife, hussif; saddlebags; portfolio; quiver &c (magazine) 636. chest, box, coffer, caddy, case, casket, pyx, pix, caisson, desk, bureau, reliquary; trunk, portmanteau, band-box, valise; grip, grip sack [U.S.]; skippet, vasculum; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... dared glance at mademoiselle; but when I did dare, to my amazement, she was smiling good-humoredly, and I saw the words meant nothing to her. But the chorus was interrupted at that moment by a single voice which I recognized at once as Josef Papin's, singing a ditty about doves and cuckoos and nightingales, and winding up by declaring that he was dying for the soft eyes of his mistress. I saw that mademoiselle recognized the voice, too, and I was vexed to see the bright color and downcast eyes that betokened she understood ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... take thee for a gossip. Sit you there And hide the hour-glass. There was a time In early boyhood, when a thing like thee Seemed horrible, but now my mouth is dry With other terror. Thou art a cap and bells: Play me a ditty on a tambourine. [Starting up.] Who goes there? [Rushes to Smith, who enters.] Tell me that ...
— The Treason and Death of Benedict Arnold - A Play for a Greek Theatre • John Jay Chapman
... a lover's sin Let them not read my ditty, it will be To their dull ears so musicless and thin That they will have no joy of it, but ye To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile, Ye who have learned who Eros ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... found Ross there. He was sitting at the piano strumming a music-hall ditty. As the door opened be shuffled to his feet, shook hands distantly with Auntie Nan, and nodded his ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... in the commons. It was defended by Grenville, who in the course of his speech constantly demanded where another tax could be laid. Mimicking his querulous tone, Pitt repeated aloud the words of an old ditty, "Gentle shepherd, tell me where". The nickname, Gentle shepherd, stuck by Grenville. The bill passed the commons and was sent up to the lords. For the first time since the revolution the lords divided on a money-bill, and voted 49 against, to 83 ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... on the queen's grave raise dreamingly their heads of bloom, in which the dews of heaven, or the tears of the departed one, glisten like rarest gems, and seem to look forth lovingly and listen to this ditty, which now for France has won so holy a significance—holy because it is the master-chant of a religion which all men and all nations should revere—the "religion of our memories." Thus, this "Va t'en, Guerrier," which France now sings, resounds over the grave of the queen, ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... Love!'" interrupted Tom. "That must be a second cousin to the ditty entitled ''Tis Well to Meet Her at ...
— The Rover Boys in New York • Arthur M. Winfield
... sword, helmet, shield, and spurs; then ANTONIO, the DUCHESS and their children, having presented themselves at the shrine, are, by a form of banishment in dumb-show expressed towards them by the CARDINAL and the state of Ancona, banished: during all which ceremony, this ditty is sung, to very solemn music, by divers churchmen: and then exeunt [all ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... grimaces, to make them laugh or speak; but he failed, for the slumber-flag waved over them, and its fear was upon them. Then, in a freak of incredible rashness, he sang, in a loud voice, the first line of a popular ditty, and ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... Rover' and I will sing 'The Man with the Coat of Green,'" said she, with the generosity of one with many gifts. And she started upon her ditty. She had a voice that as yet was only in its making; it was but a promise of the future splendour, yet to Gilian, the hearer, it brought a new and potent joy. With 'The Rover' he lived in the woods, and set foot upon ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... by Thomas Campbell; The Beggar's Petition—"Pity the sorrows of a poor old man"—by Thomas Moss (1740-1808), a ditty in all the recitation books. Lamb alluded to it in the London Magazine version of his Elia essay, "A Complaint ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... for I'm witty, a popular ditty, To bring to me shekels and fame, And the only right way one may write one to-day Is to give it some Irish girl's name. There's "Rosy O'Grady," that dear "steady lady," And sweet "Annie Rooney" and such, But mine shall be nearly original, ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... I court in her sequestered haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove or cell, Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts, And Health, and ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... off on a low stool was a dingy Spaniard with a telescope laid across his knees, which every little while he would raise to his eye and take a steady glance around the horizon to seaward. At other times he would roll and light a paper cigar, murmuring some low ditty to himself as he sent the smoke in volumes through his nose. A small brass bell hung beside the shed near the battery, together with a telegraphic card, which was connected by a wire strung on low posts, or hooked from ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... like a suppressed sigh, through the free and light music of that Swabian era. The brightest sky of spring is not without its clouds in Germany, and the German heart is never happy without some sadness. Whether we listen to a short ditty, or to the epic ballads of the "Nibelunge," or to Wolfram's grand poems of the "Parcival" and the "Holy Grail," it is the same everywhere. There is always a mingling of light and shade,—in joy a fear of sorrow, in sorrow a ray of hope, and throughout the whole, a silent wondering at this strange ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... pulling himself desperately together, plunged recklessly into the following appropriate ditty; which, failing its proper tune, he manfully set at the top of his voice, and with all the energy he was capable of, to the air ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... seargeant said; "But where's poor Pansy? gone, I fear" "Ay, mustered out at Ashby's Gap" "I see; now for a live man's song; Ditty for ditty—prepare to cheer. My bluebirds, you can fling a ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... and I went below to the officers' corridor. Now and then, through the quiet, a mandolin or guitar could be heard far off twanging some sentimental island ditty; and beneath these sweeter sounds lay a ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... thing is that eternal ditty of tuneful youth: All for Verse and the World well lost. The enemy is around them on all sides, jailers of the Marshalsea and envious critics, the evil shepherds that preside over grates of steel and noisome beds of straw, but Youth ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Mrs. McChesney sat absolutely expressionless while a shrill blonde lady and a nasal dark gentleman went through what the program ironically called a "comedy sketch," followed by a chummy person who came out in evening dress to sing a sentimental ditty, shed the evening dress to reappear in an ankle- length fluffy pink affair; shucked the fluffy pink affair for a child's pinafore, sash, and bare knees; discarded the kiddie frock, disclosing a bathing-suit; left the bathing-suit behind the wings in favor of satin knee-breeches ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Camp-fire gatherings, so it seemed a fortunate chance that her name should be drawn first. She had brought her instrument, so as to be prepared in case the lot fell on her, and giving the E string a last hurried tuning she sat down and began a popular American ditty. It was a favourite among the girls, for it had a lively, rollicking chorus, which they sang with great gusto. Fifty voices roaring out: "Don't forget your Dinah!" seemed to break the ice and set the ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... this grave-yard ditty chimed not in with the joyous temper of the company. There was sly nudging and smiling, a snicker from an ill-mannered page, and the only sighs were those of ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... magical to me— I stood in silence and apart, And wondered more and more to see That shapeless, lifeless mass of clay Rise up to meet the master's hand, And now contract and now expand, And even his slightest touch obey; While ever in a thoughtful mood He sang his ditty, and at times Whistled a tune between the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... the Spanish cavalier, And thus his ditty ran; God send the Gypsy lassie here, And not ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... passage, he was told to go down and board the first steamer at the pierhead, and that it would leave at eleven that night. So he took all his meager belongings, which he could easily carry in a blanket roll and a sailor's ditty-bag, and went down half an hour before sailing time. There seemed no one to bar his passage, and he passed up the gangplank aboard a two-funnelled, clean-decked steamer, and made his way to a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... about it,' said he gravely. 'It is based on a sound old melody called "The Jilt's Hornpipe." Just as they turn Madeira into port in the space of a single night, so this old air has been taken and doctored, and twisted about, and brought out as a new popular ditty.' ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... in a voice surprisingly calm and gentle. It piqued Katherine. It was disappointing not to hear a fierce voice like Cedric's was wont to be. She saw the Duke's form silhouetted by a bush of white blossom and heard from his lips a quaint love ditty. It so set her very susceptible heart to fluttering she knew not whether to be glad or sorry that he was there. She was weaving a garland in a peculiar manner learned at the convent. The finished strands she placed under ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... along the path toward him on their way down town. One was slapping his book against his thigh; one was blowing a ditty through his nose, like music on a comb; one, in the middle, had his arms thrown over the shoulders of the others, and was at intervals using them as crutches. As they were about to pass the lad, who had stepped a few feet to ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... fact the name of the illustrious author whose conception he embodied; and who certainly would have hugged him for Tom's opening song, delivered in the arms of Huncamunca, if he could have forgiven the later master in his own craft for having composed it afresh to the air of a ditty then wildly popular at the "Coal Hole."[177] The encores were frequent, and for the most part the little fellow responded to them; but the misplaced enthusiasm that took similar form at the heroic intensity with which he stabbed Dollalolla, he ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... that his guest was awake, "by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... had been "stun lame" the night before, Mr. Price was able to start for Harwich, via Brampton, very early the next morning. He was driving along through Northcutt's woods with one leg hanging over the wheel, humming through his nose what we may suppose to have been a love-ditty, and letting his imagination run riot about the lady in question, when he nearly fell out of his wagon. The cause of this was the sight of fat Tom coming around a corner, with Jethro Bass behind him. Lem Hallowell and the storekeeper ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... willow, the wild weeping willow, That murmurs a dirge to the rapturous days, And moans when the kiss of the breeze laden billow Entangles and dangles among the sad sprays! A musical ditty to scatter the sadness, A warble of wildness to banish its tears, Till tremulous measures of bountiful gladness Be sounding and bounding ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... in bursts of music That make the forests ring, Comes the swelling, happy ditty His birdship ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... nodded, snapped her fingers in the air, and humming no holy ditty, returned to the ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... printed with the official account of the celebration. It was written at the suggestion of Dr. Jacob Bigelow, who thought the popular tune "The Poacher's Song" would be a good model for a lively ballad or ditty. He himself wrote the admirable Latin song to be found in the record ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... (who lived above an hundred Years ago) in the third Part of his Treatise, pag. 179, speaking of Motetts or Anthems, complains thus:—'But I see not what Passions or Motions it can stir up, being as most Men doe commonlie Sing,—leaving out the Ditty—as it were a Musick made onely for Instruments, which will indeed shew the Nature of the Musick, but never carry the Spirit and (as it were) that lively Soule which the Ditty giveth; but of this enough. And ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... of Sulev next sang a ditty relating an adventure with four coy maidens, and the drinking and ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... with such pathetic expression, as quite melted the resolution of Pallet, and utterly subdued his affection. And he, to convince her of the importance of her victory, gave a specimen of his own talents, by entertaining her with that celebrated English ditty, the burden of which begins with, "The pigs they ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... form mine eyes could find, I heard the red cock crowing, And through my window-chinks the wind A dismal tune was blowing; Thought I, My neighbor Buckingham Hath somewhat in him gritty, 150 Some Pilgrim-stuff that hates all sham, And he will print my ditty. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... gaze; Or when, in silence of the summer night, My wandering steps arresting, I before The houses of the village pause, to gaze Upon the lonely scene, and hear the voice, So clear and cheerful, of the maiden, who, Her ditty chanting, in her quiet room, Her daily task protracts into the night, Ah, then this stony heart will throb once more; But soon, alas, its lethargy returns, For all things sweet ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... You are so pretty, Charming and witty, That 'twere a pity I sung not this ditty In ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... dispersed hither and thither in the bushes, gazing with all their eyes, endeavouring to attract her attention; some by conversations with one another; one richly-dressed Gascon squire, of the train of Edward's ally, the Count de Bearn, by singing a Provencal love ditty; while a merchant of Bristol set up a counter attempt with a long doleful English ballad. All the time the fair spinster sat in the doorway, with the utmost gravity, twisting her thread and twirling her spindle; but it might be observed that she had so placed herself as to have full ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Weaver?" Not unless you are Lancashire born and bred, for it is a complete Lancashire ditty. I will ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... down the garden, and up to where the sloping glass structure stood against the wall, from out of which came the sound of the Colonel's manly voice, as he trolled out a warlike ditty in French, with a chorus of "Marchons! Marchons!" and at every word grapeshot fell to the ground, for the Colonel, in spite of the suggestions of war, was peacefully engaged, being seated on the top of a pair of steps thinning out the grapes ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn
... as she heard Miss Rothesay's steps overhead, bounded to the half-open window, moving quite as easily on the injured foot as on the other. Eagerly she listened; and soon was rewarded by hearing Lyle's voice carolling pathetically down the road, the ditty, ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... diplomacy. He hummed to himself as he went his rounds and while he sat over his diary. He only knew one song—"A Warrior Bold"—which every mess in India associated with old Jem Agar, for no evening was considered complete without the Major's one ditty if he were present. He had stood up and roared it in many strange places, quite without sentiment, without self-consciousness, without afterthought. He never thought it a matter of apology that he should have failed to learn another song. The smile with which ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... bear it no longer. They were singing now—a terrible thing with a refrain of oaths and GEE-UPS, and whistling noises like the cracking of whips—a bullock drivers' camp ditty. Bridget shudderingly decided that a row in Whitechapel could be nothing to this in the matter of bad language. She got up and paced the sitting-room in her dressing-gown, wondering when her husband would come and rescue her from these beasts. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... and twisted the course of true love This ditty explains, No tangle's so tangled it cannot improve ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... measure Comes the Teian bard of pleasure, Round his brow where joy reposes Radiant love enwreaths his roses, Rapture in his verse is ringing, Soft persuasion in his singing:— 'Twas the same melodious ditty Moved Polycrates to pity, Made that tyrant heart surrender Captive to a tone so tender: To the younger bard inclining, Round his brow the roses twining, First the wreath in red wine steeping, He his cithern to his keeping Yields, its glorious fate foreseeing, From her chains a nation ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... out in the city, A jubilant ditty, And every guitar Vibrates to the names of Pedro and Pilar; And the strings and voices are soulless and dull That sound not the name of the ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... cold. When Gudrun dismounted before the house at Holl, there was no one outside to greet her or announce her arrival, and so she entered, going straight into the bastofa. There she found her father sitting on his bed, knitting a seaman's mitten, crooning an old ditty the while: ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various
... verse is ended the children in the circle stoop quickly and the last one down must join the child in the center of the ring. The circle of children go around again singing the same ditty. The last child to stoop this time joins the one who went into the circle the previous time and the child who has remained through the two verses steps out and joins ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... town's in Brunswick, deg.1 By famous Hanover city; The river Weser, deep and wide, Washes its walls on either side; A pleasanter spot you never spied; But, when begins my ditty, Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... entered at her order; and when he saw the Commander of the Faithful, he salamed not neither kissed ground, but cried in his hurry, "Quick: up with thee! My lady Tohfah sitteth in her chamber, singing a goodly ditty. Come to her in haste and see all that I say to thee! Hasten! She sitteth awaiting thee." The Caliph was amazed at his speech and asked him, "What sayst thou?" He answered, "Didst thou not hear the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... any use in fencing, so I answered: "You mean the 'Jo-Jo' song. It's a silly little ditty, and it's ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... may even be doubted whether Virgil himself, who seems first to have invented this fancy, and behind whose broad mantle later poets have sheltered themselves, may not have felt an inclination to depart from the Greek opinion of Philomel's ditty. Why otherwise did he not simply and at once—as his masters Homer and Theocritus had done before him—describe her notes as mournful, instead of casting about for some cause that might excuse him for ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... nectar. Van Dam told a shark story. Mavick demonstrated its innate improbability. The Major sang a song—a song of the forties, with a touch of sentiment. Jack, whose cheerful voice was a little of the cider-cellar order, and who never sang when he was sad, struck up the latest vaudeville ditty, and Carmen and Miss ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... rocky shore. Harry did his best to keep the party amused, and got Paul Lizard, who could sing a good song, to strike up a merry stave; and Paul, once set going, was generally loath to stop. His full manly voice trolled forth many a ditty, sounding above the whistling of the storm and the roar of the waves. Then adventures and stories were told, and yarn after yarn was spun, most of which were no novelties to the hearers. The boatswain, who seldom condescended to tell his adventures except to the other warrant officers, ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... Virginia memories through which that old sing-song ran like the murmur of bees, made Grandma Padgett propitious, and she laid her gracious commands on Zene first, and J. D. Matthews afterwards. So that not only "Barb'ry Allen" was sung, but J. D.'s ditty, into which he plunged with nasal twanging ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... from the mountains, Where flow malignant fountains. We are ready for you—Come! Vampires from the passes, Where grow blood-sucking grasses, We are ready for you—Come! Vice Elementals pretty Give ear unto our ditty We are ready for you—Come! Planetians, forms so fearful, We inform you, eager, tearful, We are ready for you—Come! Clanogrians, things of sorrow. Postpone not till to-morrow, We are ready for you—Come! Barrowvians, shades seclusive, Be not to us exclusive, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... she wash'd her garments And upon a rose-tree hung; Whilst the garments there were drying She a plaintiff ditty sung. ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... with that John Brown whom the minstrel has immortalized as being the possessor of a diminutive youth of the aboriginal American race, who, in the course of the ditty, is multiplied from "one little Injun" into "ten little Injuns," and who, in a succeeding stanza, by an ingenious amphisbaenic process, is again reduced to the singular number. As far as we are aware, the author of this "genuine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... think I've got a noospaper in my ditty-box down below as will tell you all about it, and then, p'r'aps, you'll feel as if you'd believe there wos sich ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... bit of his own composition, "Old Aegina's Rock," or "Cockle-hat and Staff"; his cousin's Scotch ballads or Christy Minstrel songs; and if you can sing a new ditty, fresh from London, now is your chance. You are surprised to see the Prophet clapping his hands to "Camptown Races," or the "Hundred Pipers"—chorus given with the whole strength of the company; but you are in a house of ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... boy, with a long stick, pushed as if starting the boat, and then pulled as if rowing, and with every pull of the oar, the girl ran a few steps, making it appear that the boat shot forward. All the while the boy sang a boat-song or a love-ditty to ...
— The Chinese Boy and Girl • Isaac Taylor Headland
... marking them, begins a wailing note, And sings extemporally a woeful ditty; 836 How love makes young men thrall and old men dote; How love is wise in folly foolish-witty: Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe, And still the choir of ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... delighted with the child, who was quite beautiful. She fell in love with the little creature at the first sight of him—and fed him, on the evening of his arrival, with crumpets and buttered toast. And in return he danced "La Dieppoise" for her, and sang her a little ungrammatical ditty in praise of wine and women. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... of the Kegs! That I can, my boy. But read the song," replied old Harmar. His son then read the following facetious ditty: ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... curl-papers, who has just brought me my newly-hemmed black necktie, and asks what further orders I have ... and could you but see the highly respectable, fog-enveloped street, and hear the pitiable voice with which a beggar down there pours forth his ditty (he will soon be outscreamed by the street-sellers), and could you picture to yourselves that from here to the City is three-quarters of an hour's drive, and that in all the cross streets of which one has glimpses the noise, clamour, and bustle are the same, if not greater, and ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... viciousness and criminality could be expected as a result. Without going, so far as a wellknown ex-member of our State Legislature, whose antagonism to the humanitarian treatment of prisoners led him to the belief that "there wasn't nothin' in 'erry-ditty,' it was all tommy rot," I still hold to the belief that environment plays the larger part in the formation of character. Every phase of criminal reform is, I candidly admit, dealing with effects rather than causes. Effects, however, must be dealt with, and the more humanely ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... sang his plaintive and aimless ditty; at night, when his poor mother gathered up her little wares to return home, so deplorable did his defects appear, that while she carried her table on her head, her stock of little merchandize in her lap, and her stool ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... colors flashing as he dashed through a patch of sunlight,—a beautiful object, but a perfectly silent one. When his happiness demanded expression he flew to a maple-tree, and poured out his soul in the quaint though not very musical ditty of his race. Sometimes he stood still on a branch, like a bird who has something to say; but more often he rushed around after insects on this tree, and threw in the notes between the firm snaps of ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... there, the voice of the sentry, singing in a low tone, came to him. He was singing the chorus of the popular trench ditty: ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... consumption. There is enough of old medical observation and opening science in the Letter, as well as of sweet old literature, and still sweeter old religion, to make it a classic to every well-read doctor in the language. 'To be dissolved and to be with Christ was his dying ditty. He esteemed it enough to approach the years of his Saviour, who so ordered His own human state, as not to be old upon earth. He that early arriveth into the parts and prudence of age is happily old without ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... music,—not, as he said, the bray of trumpets and the squeak of fiddles, but melody; and occasionally, seated at a piano, he sang, in a voice sweet and low and full of pathos, some tender English ditty. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... and list a friend Thrill forth harmonious ditty; While I shall tell what late befell At ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... left the house, he went splashing down the road with a very elastic tread, springing over the starlit puddles, and trolling out some sentimental ditty. He reached the inn, and went up ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... reduced, and parents are actually being offered a premium of three hundred pounds to remove their sons from Osborne. On the other hand promotion from the lower deck was to be encouraged, and in future every youngster entering the Navy would metaphorically carry a broad-pennant in his ditty-box. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... horsemen on the knoll this spiritual ditty was unheard. They were, indeed, in some concern of mind, scanning every fold of the subjacent forest, and betraying both anger and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Tom," he said, sharply, "have ye turned croaker in your old age? what see you, to cause such an old woman's ditty?" ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shall become of me?" And desolate, my desolations pity, Thou in thy beauty's carack sitt'st to see My tragic downfall, and my funeral ditty. No timbrel, but my heart thou play'st upon, Whose strings are stretched unto the highest key; The diapason, love; love is the unison; In love my life and labours waste away. Only regardless to the world thou leav'st me, Whilst slain hopes, turning from the feast of sorrow, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet-Cycles - Delia - Diana • Samuel Daniel and Henry Constable
... his excellent eyes, and the pathetic placard which recited the cause of his calamity. Dot-and-go-One disencumbered himself of his timber leg and took his place, upon sound and healthy limbs, beside his fellow-rascal; then they roared out a rollicking ditty, and were reinforced by the whole crew, at the end of each stanza, in a rousing chorus. By the time the last stanza was reached, the half-drunken enthusiasm had risen to such a pitch, that everybody ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a comprehensive programme was rendered. Every popular song that occurred to the mind was turned on and yelled with wild lustiness. Those who did not know the words either whistled the air or improvised an impossible ditty. Whenever there was a pause to recall some new song, the interval was occupied with "Rule, Britannia!" This was a prime favourite, and repetition did not stale its forceful rendition, especial stress being laid upon the words, "Britons never, never, never ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... sound, moved to his former position below the alder tree. Seating himself at its root, with his eyes fixed on the window, in a voice low but distinct, he sang to one of the sweet sad lays of long ago, a ditty to his mistress, of which the following paraphrase will convey ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... girl has never played the game, and sung the ditty, "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down," even though nobody now ...
— Welsh Fairy Tales • William Elliot Griffis
... bells, Golden bells! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight! From the molten golden-notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon! Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the future! how it tells Of the rapture ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... romance of the open fire sparkling beneath the bank of evergreen, and making the roses come into the fair singer's cheeks, and warming the golden sheen of her hair, had much to do with it. When she came to "Ben Bolt," that old ditty that has all the pathos of our lost youth in it, there was a tiny quiver in her voice; and when she finished, had he been near he would have seen the glint of two unshed tears in her eyes, for the song carried her thoughts to where her ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... having joined most warmly in the request, Mr. Bodkin filled up his glass to the brim, bespoke a chorus to his chant, and clearing his voice with a deep hem, began the following ditty, to the air which Moore has since rendered immortal by the beautiful song, "Wreath the Bowl," etc. And, although the words are well known in the west, for the information of ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and how did they treat him and feel towards him. Till lately, however, I have felt a difficulty in the matter, for, to tell the truth, these deeply moving words came in the first place not from some classical writer but from that nautical ditty, "Tom Bowling." They are the work of that amazing British Tyrteus Dibdin,—the broken-down poet actor who drew an annual salary from the Admiralty for maintaining the spirit of the British Navy through his songs! ["We 'ires a poet for ourselves" was, according to Byron, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... a lilting sort of measure, the peculiar and various pleasures of a canter upon a pine rail. It was clear that the mob were by no means satisfied with the small measure of sport which they had enjoyed. A single verse of this savage ditty will suffice for the present, rolled out upon the air, from fifty voices, the very boys and negroes joining in the chorus, and making it tell terribly to the senses of the threatened person. First ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... will begin by singing us a fashionable ditty," remarked Ferdishenko, and looked at the mistress of the house, to see what she ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... great upflinging of dust. Pink, with a quite obtrusive facetiousness, began lustily chanting that it looked to him like a big night to-night—with occasional, furtive glances at Weary's face; for he, also, had been quick to read those close-pressed lips, which did not soften in response to the ditty. Usually he laughed ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... her friend and never gave way till Kurt had promised not to go on with his ditty. But her mother wanted to know now what had given Mea such red eyes. So she told them that she had followed Loneli in order to comfort her, for she was still crying. Loneli had told her then about being caught at chattering. Elvira, ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... attend and hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty, Strange things I'll tell which late befell ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... fellow,—ungrateful for not seeing through the stone walls how she had been employed all the morning; and making it up. So she bathed her red eyes, made a great alteration in her dress, and came dancing into the room humming an Italian ditty. ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... a saccharine tune sung by someone who strode stiffly to and fro in a glare of amber footlights—wasn't there a song about: "And I lo-ong to settle down, in that old Long Island town!" Wasn't there such a ditty? It came softly back, unbidden, to the sentimental attic of our memory as we passed along that fine avenue of trees and revisited, for the first time since we moved away, the wide space of those Long Island fields and the row of frame cottages. There was the little ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... listening to the hermit song, I wondered that at the first note of the king of singers all other birds were not mute. But evidently the birds have not enthroned this thrush. Possibly, even, they do not share human admiration for his song. The redstart goes on jerking out his monotonous ditty; chippy irreverently mounts a perch and trills out his inane apology for a song; the vireo in yonder tree spares us not one of his never-ending platitudes. But the hermit thrush goes on with sublime indifference to the voices of common folk down below. Sometimes he is answered ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... is given in the "Bibliotheque Universelle," of a spaniel, who, if he heard any one play or sing a certain air, "L'ane de notre moulin est mort, la pauvre bete," &c., which is a lamentable ditty, in the minor key, the dog looked very pitifully, then gaped repeatedly, showing increasing signs of impatience and uneasiness. He would then sit upright on his hind-legs, and begin to howl louder and louder till the music stopped. No other air ever affected him, and he never noticed any music ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... has a moral: I have a missing friend, — Pleiad its name, and robin, And guinea in the sand, — And when this mournful ditty, Accompanied with tear, Shall meet the eye of traitor In country far from here, Grant that repentance solemn May seize upon his mind, And he no consolation ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... the tinkling chords, and began a sweet love-ditty. Fixing my eyes on his, I made every word speak to his heart from mine. I saw his color change, his eyes melt;—when the song ended, he was at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... composed this ditty Hans Eitelfritz he, fair Colln's son, His kindred dwell in the goodly city, But he himself in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... pickle." "Importuna" is "a plaguy baggage;" "adulterium" is rendered "her pranks;" "ambages" becomes either "a long rabble of words," "a long-winded detail," or "a tale of a tub;" "miserabile carmen" is "a dismal ditty;" "increpare hos" is "to rattle these blades;" "penetralia" means "the parlour;" while "accingere," more literally than elegantly, is translated "buckle to." "Situs" is "nasty stuff;" "oscula jungere" is "to tip him a kiss;" ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... though aeons long gone by an iceberg had perched it there. The dog would have bounded in upon Sim where he sat and sang at his work, but Ralph checked him with a look. Inexpressibly eerie sounded the half-buried voice of the singer in that Solitary place. The weird ditty suited well with both. ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... equalled thine, thou prince of Ganymedes? and when were cigars more justly appreciated, than as our puffs kept time with the trolling ditty, resounding through the walls of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... she did not make up her mind and give them an answer that very day, she was to be killed and eaten by both of them. In order the more strongly to impress the audience with her forlorn condition, Whackinta sang a tender and touching ditty, composed by herself expressly for the occasion, and sang it so well ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... mount you with the sun, Call all the winds to make you speedy wings, And to my fairest Maya see you run And weep your last while wantonly she sings; Then if you cannot move her heart to pity, Let Oh, alas, ay me be all your ditty. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... arms were unusually long. With them tucked akimbo, he could take up two of the heaviest men in the ship, and run along the deck with them as lightly as he would have done with a couple of young children. He had a generous, kind heart, could tell a good story, and troll forth a ditty with any man; and as to his bravery, where all were brave, I need scarcely mention it, except to say that I do no not think anyone beat him at that. Boatswain's mate though he was, Toby Kiddle had a heart as gentle as a lamb's. He scarcely seemed cut out ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... as now thou art, That in thy waters may be seen 10 The image of a poet's heart, How bright, how solemn, how serene! Such as did once the Poet bless, [1] Who murmuring here a later [C] ditty, [2] Could find no refuge from distress 15 But in the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... seems that you are deeply studied in the Art of Witchcraft, for I fear its too true. I went from home on purpose to take my pleasure for three weeks or a month, that I might store my self with fresh provisions, and sing a sweet ditty in commendations of my Betty. Ho, Ho, saith Master Barebreech, flatter not your self with such a fancy, that you'l get as much up again in three weeks or a month, as you have been running behind ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh |
