"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little seat in fwont, with an iwon wail, for the dwiver,' added his Lordship. 'I dwove it over to Bwistol the other morning, in a cwimson coat, with two servants widing a quarter of a mile behind; and confound me if the people didn't wush out of their ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... saw a very pretty parrot on a cocoanut tree. He approached until close under—the natives, about forty in number, standing breathlessly round, and wondering what was going to happen. Bang! Down dropped the parrot; a wail, hands to ears, a shout, and we were left alone with the chief, who happened to be standing close by me. Those natives only ceased running when they reached ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... wail. Into her burning eyes merciful tears rushed, and sinking on her knees she rested against the railing, shaken by a storm ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... precisely the same studies as young men. It was predicted that almost unheard-of evils would ensue. Woman, if they succeeded, would be unfitted for her "sphere," and become unwilling to soothe, with tender hand, the suffering and the distressed, etc. The wail was terrific. The experiment, however, succeeded. Women not only commenced a real collegiate course, but pursued it to the end, graduating with honors; and, despite prophecy, college-bred women made faithful wives, judicious mothers, and good housekeepers. A cruel war ravaged the fair ...
— Woman: Man's Equal • Thomas Webster
... beginning of the combe, but Marah had disappeared—I could see no trace of him. Then suddenly, from somewhere behind me, out of sight, an owl called—and this in broad daylight. Three times the "Too-hoo, too-hoo" rose in a long wail from the shrubs, and three times another owl answered from up the combe, and from up the valley, too, till the place seemed full of owls. "Too-hoo, too-hoo" came the cries, and very faintly came answers—some of ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... tongue, his big chin down on the fiddle-tail, his white eyeballs glaring in the lamplight. Harvey swung out of his bunk to hear better; and amid the straining of the timbers and the wash of the waters the tune crooned and moaned on, like lee surf in a blind fog, till it ended with a wail. ...
— "Captains Courageous" • Rudyard Kipling
... deeper sorrow Than the wail above the dead: Both shall live, but every morrow Wake ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... arm, and her long, wet braid dripped as it trailed behind them. George laughed to himself every few minutes till they got near the club-house. Then he looked very sober, and Mabel Blossom knew her cue had come, the way it does to actresses, and she let out a wail that almost made Kittie sit up. It was 'most too much of a one, and Mr. Morgan advised her to "tone it down a little," because, he said, if she didn't they'd probably have Kittie buried before she could explain. But of course Mabel had not been prepared and had not had any practice. She muffled ...
— Different Girls • Various
... music? Oh, I know I'm hopeless, from your standpoint, but I can't help it. I like mine with some go in it, and a tune that you can find without hunting for it. And I don't like lost spirits gone mad that wail and shriek through ten perfectly good minutes, and then die with a gasping moan whose home is the tombs. However, you're ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... world of pathos in the wail with which Parrot replied that Dick choked in his efforts to repress his emotions. The lads heard the victim blubbing, and pictured his humorous contortions after every cut—for Parrot was weirdly and wonderfully gymnastic under punishment—and ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... ever-varying success, ensued between the combined forces of the king and Henry of Navarre on one side, and of the League, aided by many of the princes of Catholic Europe, on the other. The storms of winter swept over the freezing armies and the smouldering towns, and the wail of the victims of horrid war blended with the moanings of the gale. Spring came, but it brought no joy to desolate, distracted, wretched France. Summer came, and the bright sun looked down upon barren fields, and upon ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... wife and seats herself on the ground in front of her; the two now encircle one another with their left arms, resting their heads on each other's shoulders, whilst they scratch their faces with their right hands and cry and wail in a tone which excites in the minds of all who hear them sensations of deep grief; indeed I know of no sound (not even excepting the Irish howl) which so fully expresses the passion of deep sorrow as this lament of the native ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... hunted stragglers. I thought of the Prince, Cluny, Lord Murray, Creagh, and a score of others, wondering if they had been taken, and fell at last to troubled sleep, from which ever and anon I started to hear the wild wail of the pibroch or the ringing Highland slogans, to see the flaming cannon mouths vomiting death or the fell galloping of the relentless ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... of those who loved the reformed Church as well as they loved their country were sadly blasted by the apostasy of their leader. From the most eminent leaders of the Huguenots there came a wail, which must have penetrated even to the well-steeled heart of the cheerful Gascon. "It will be difficult," they said, "to efface very soon from your memory the names of the men whom the sentiment of a common religion, association in the same perils and persecutions, a common ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ran and picked them up. They were blunted by smiting on the paving. Any one of them would have plowed into soft flesh and found the bone and shattered it. They seem harmless because they make so little noise. They don't scream and wail and thunder. Our guns, back on the hillocks of the Ghent road, grew louder and more frequent. Each minute now was cut into by a roar, or a fainter rumble. The battle was on. Our barricaded street was a pocket in the storm, like the center ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... of reed, Ah, flute and trumpet wail, Ah, joy decreed— The fringes of her veil Are seared and white; Across the flare of light, Blinded the torches fail. (Ah, love ...
— Hymen • Hilda Doolittle
... the rocks; flowers hanging from hedges emitting their fragrance, as they were flapped by the winds; red leaves on the tree tops swaying to and fro; groves picture-like, half stripped of foliage; the western breeze coming with sudden gusts, and the wail of the oriole still audible; the warm sun shining with genial rays, and the cicada also adding its chirp: structures, visible to the gaze at a distance in the South-east, soaring high on various sites and resting against the hills; three halls, visible near ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... not spoken, but rather moaned forth in a slow, monotonous wail of utter helplessness and broken-heartedness. I have heard human grief expressed in many forms, but I never heard or imagined anything so desolate, so surcharged with the despair of an eternal woe. It was, indeed, too hopeless for sympathy. It was the utterance of a sorrow which removed its possessor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... may be either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood his character,—we are inclined to this opinion,—or it may be a more general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of despotism,—France under the old rgime,—France in the Reign of Terror,—France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... every name: begin the wo, Ye woods, and tell it to the doleful winds; And doleful winds, wail to the howling hills; And howling hills, mourn to the dismal vales; And dismal vales, sigh to the sorrowing brooks; And sorrwing brooks, weep to the weeping stream; And weeping stream, awake the groaning deep; And let the instrument ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... absurd when one read not only the Conservative but also the Liberal comment of the time. "Political corruption is the Achilles heel of Liberalism," said an outstanding Liberal Editor; while Hugh O'Donnell in the New Witness paraphrased the wail of the "Cadbury" papers: ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... a wail, fled away. Pensee caught a glimpse of her white, agonised countenance as she rushed past them, moaning, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... call of a steamer's whistle and the wail of the fog-horn beyond the next island. The little white house was swathed in the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... allow me to speak my mind about his faults, and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they'll bear inspection—I have that idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn't the saddle hurt me? Pooh—I was as much at home in it as if I had been born there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those old soldiers admired my riding; ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... smote Dennis's heart with the deepest commiseration was the continuous wail of helpless little children, many of them utterly separated from parents and friends, and in the very ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... him, "mum's the word. If you mentions it, the kernel's family will bu'st up. I will return to the streets from vich I came. Trumps, alias Rodgers, to the den hout of vich 'e was 'auled. Susan will take the wail and retire to a loonatic asylum, an' Da-a-a-vid Laidlaw will be laid low for the rest of 'is ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... waked the man on the lookout. A moment later every grimalkin relaxed his hold on his neighbors, the column lost its cohesion and, with 121,000 dull, sickening thuds that beat as one, the whole business fell to the deck. Then with a wild farewell wail that feline host sprang spitting into the sea and struck out southward for ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... long-sounding curfew from afar Loaded with loud lament the lonely gale, Young Edwin, lighted by the evening star, Lingering and listening, wander'd down the vale. There would he dream of graves, and corses pale, And ghosts that to the charnel-dungeon throng, And drag a length of clanking chain, and wail, Till silenced by the owl's terrific song, Or blast that shrieks by fits the shuddering ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... also, madam!" said I, while Anthony looked from her to me with shining eyes. At this moment we started, all three, as borne to our ears came the distant rumble of thunder, followed by a fierce wind-gust that rattled crazy door and lattice and, dying in a dismal wail, left behind the mournful sound ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... folds the nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so, than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream! Its head was bald and burnished; its face round, and fat, and white; ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... soul of the conqueror, of a man intensely anxious for earthly fame and a conspicuous place in the gallery of human events; envious, too, of the great names of the past, his ears so tuned for admiration and applause that they fail to hear the great, long drawn wail of agony that echoes around the world. His eyes are so blinded with the sheen of his own glory that they do not see the mutilated corpses, the crime, the pestilence, the hunger, the incalculable sorrow that sweeps the ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... cry, raised by hundreds of voices, a cry which resounds through the streets of the city, and which is echoed by the surrounding hills. What can be the matter? What can be the cause of this mournful wail? ...
— The King's Cup-Bearer • Amy Catherine Walton
... you wept, when you tore your hair, when you flung yourself in sorrow upon the body, I told myself that either he or I must die. And now you bid me be merciful." Then the big tears dropped down his cheeks, and he began to wail himself,—hardly ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... drawn out in a mournful wail sent a thrill of pity through the hearts of the old negro ...
— Dorothy's Triumph • Evelyn Raymond
... was rolling off, and a piteous wail went up from the children, who understood nothing except that Barney was being carried away against his will. Little four-year-old Melissa—she always seemed a beauty to Barney, with her yellow hair, ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... was little evidence that the castle had been inhabited during recent years, though there was an ancient woman care-taker who opened the great door for us, and then took up the Irish peasant's wail for the last of the O'Haras. She never ceased her crooning except when she spoke to us, which was seldom; but she placed us at table in the state dining room, and served us with stewed kid, potatoes, and goat's milk. ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... banister and declared to the expectant father below that it was "a fine healthy Commander-in-Chief." Therefore, a Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air; dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than ever, rides with the mockery of despair ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid. And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did, And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and woe, Till the morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... to her porridge for one minute, but the next her feelings overcame her, and, with a little wail, she rushed round the table to Judy, and hung on her arm sobbing. This destroyed the balance of the whole company. Nell got the other arm and swayed to and fro in an excess of misery. Meg's tears rained down into her teacup; Pip dug his ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner
... never remembered to have had any real feeling till on that day with Kathleen—the day he died. The bitter complaint of a woman he had wronged cruelly, by having married her, had wrung from him his own first wail of life, in the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... faint odor of parching wood mingled with the torrid air within the Fort, yes, for nine long hours the elder prayed, or preached, or recited aloud the deep abasement of the penitential psalms, and the wail of the prophets, proclaiming, yet deprecating, the wrath of ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... representatives, the Secretary of State had removed only four; and that, in making appointments as governor, he never departed from the rule of refusing either to displace competent and trustworthy men, or to appoint the dishonest and incompetent. He could also have read Lorenzo Hoyt's wail that Van Buren would "not lend the least weight of his influence to displace from office such men as John Duer," Adams' appointee as United States attorney at New York. But Marcy did nothing of the kind. He made ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... by Jabez Buster, in the presence of the congregation, and listened to with devout respect and seriousness by the refined and intellectual Mr Clayton. Another hymn succeeded immediately. It must have been written for the occasion, for the sentiment of it was in accordance with the prayer. It was a wail over the backsliding of a fallen saint. To the assembly thus prejudiced—an assembly made up of men of business and their wives, mechanics, dressmakers, servant-maids, and the like, an address suitable to their capacities was spoken. Mr Clayton himself delivered it.—He ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... some minutes on the little, square, pulpit-like landing, at the top of the creaking wooden staircase, which led down the side of the building from office to yard, listening to the faint drip of the water through the sluice-gates; the wail of a child outside the walls, and the pacing step of the woman who hushed it; the distant intermittent roar of the song which reached them through the often opened doors of a public-house. Presently the night-watchman ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... her hostess, rebounding from accumulated cushions, evidently saw more in Mrs. Betterman's non-appearance than could meet the casual eye. What she saw, in short, demanded her intervention, in spite of an earnest "Let ME go!" from the girl, and a prolonged smiling wail over the trouble she was giving. The Prince was quite aware, at this moment, that departure, for himself, was indicated; the question of Miss Stant's installation didn't demand his presence; it was a case for one to go away—if one hadn't a reason ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... I saw the soul of Agamemnon approaching, together with the shades of those of his companions who had perished with him. The moment he had drunk of the blood he knew me and raised a loud wail. He stretched out his hands to me, and I tried to seize them, but I clutched only ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... happy. Do not go away again. You are a man; you do not know, you cannot understand all a woman feels. She must sit and wait, and hope, and pray for the safe return of husband or brother or sweetheart. The long days! Oh, the long sleepless nights, with the wail of the wind in the pines, and the rain on the roof! It is maddening. Do not leave us! Do not leave me! Do not leave Helen! Say ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... equally strong against all temptations. Deaf to woman's wail; brutal and heartless; too fearful of his past record to give himself up to the bowl, Fritz Braun, blase and tired of every side of human life, had drifted easily into the desperate ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... but in his present frame of mind was indifferent to the trouble of walking home. There was something so joyous in the feeling of the possession of all this money that it made the night air pleasant to him. Then, of a sudden, he remembered the low wail with which his mother had spoken of her poverty when he demanded assistance from her. Now he could give her back the L20. But it occurred to him sharply, with an amount of carefulness quite new to ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... Queen seemed to tremble between life and death as she stretched forth her arms to them with a low wail that almost unnerved those strong ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... began to send forth a thin lifeless wail. I helped the poor woman to her feet and told her to go to the church, and that I would bring her bundle and some food ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... feet. Then, as if ashamed, through all the boiling surge of his emotions, at this loss of control, he rammed his hands into the pockets of his light overcoat, and began to pace the room. "You—you—you!" he said, in a sort of wail, and in another moment, muttering some incoherency about air, he had snatched up his cap ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... was only one voice uttering those weird, triumphant sounds. Then other vocal organs took up that trilling wail, and those short, sharp chuckles of eagerness. Other questioning, wondering notes mixed with the cadence. Lacking qualities identifiable as human, the disturbance was still like the babble of a group of workmen who have ...
— The Eternal Wall • Raymond Zinke Gallun
... muster-roll was called. One after another the men answered to their names, till that of Dicky Popo was shouted out. No Dicky answered, and it became certain that he was the unfortunate individual lost. Tamaku expressed his grief with a loud wail. "O Popo! Popo! why you go overboard?" he cried out. "You not swim like Kanaka, or you get to shore. But now I know you at ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... had agreed to keep within call of each other; but as he advanced, he conceived he heard the voice of a child crying behind him to the right, on which he turned off in that direction, but heard no more of the wail. As he was searching, however, he perceived an ourang-outang steal from a thicket, which, nevertheless, it seemed loath to leave. When he pursued it, it fled slowly, as if with intent to entice him in pursuit from the spot; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... people, and intelligible to them. And withal there was a constitutional melancholy, aggravated by his weary toils, perilous fightings, and fierce throes, which led him down often into the deep mire where there was no standing; and which sighs through all his life. The penitential Psalms and Paul's wail: 'O wretched man that I am,' perhaps never woke more plaintive echo in any human heart than ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... "Tish looks about the way I feel." And with that she fell to laughing awful laughter that mingled with the bride's cries and the wail of the pipes. ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... bed, given up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, when it is looked at with the eyes of ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... had happened. She was in an inner chamber of Hector's house, weaving a great web of cloth and broidering it with flowers, and she had ordered her handmaidens to heat water for the bath, so that Hector might refresh himself when he came in from the fight. But now she heard the wail of the women of Troy. Fear came upon her, for she knew that such wailing was for the best of ...
— The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tales of Troy • Padriac Colum
... whole house sounded a wail that rose as they listened and mounted to a shriek. In spite of her desire to remain ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... his elfin harp around his neck, his minstrel cloak across his shoulders, and out into the pale moonlight he walked. And as he walked the wind touched the strings of the elfin harp and drew forth a wail so full of dole that those who heard it whispered: 'It ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... to follow them, but once more the door slowly opened, and the poor creature looked out to ascertain if her tormentors had gone off. Not seeing them she came out, and Jenny heard her in a plaintive voice thanking God for having delivered her from her enemies; then she broke into a low wail, the words she uttered being disconnected and incoherent. She was on her knees, with her hands clasped and her countenance upturned towards heaven. Jenny's heart was more touched than she had expected. Going up to the ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... who livest here by toil, Do not complain of this thy hard estate: That like an emmet thou must ever moil Is a sad sentence of an ancient date; And, certes, there is for it reason great, For though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail And curse thy star, and early drudge and late, Withouten that would come an heavier bale— Loose life, ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... without a sign or word, Passing the pipe sedately to and fro; Only a distant wail of hopeless woe, A mother mourning for her child, was heard, And Gray Cloud moved, as though the sound had stirred Some dusty memory; still that bitter wail, Rachel's despairing cry without avail, That beats the brazen firmament ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... pathetic wail: "O Henrietta! do you abandon me thus? Well, I will tell you, heartless girl! I've only kept it back till now because it was so extremely mortifying to my pride as an artist—as a student of oil. Will ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... they could hear a plaintive cry, not unlike the wail of an infant. All stopped in surprise. The Professor was the first to speak: "That is a young orang. See if you ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... started home, making a brave fight to keep back the tears. Half way across the clearing she gave up in a long pitiful wail. ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... the canoe, it was plain, that the loss of their sire had again for the instant overcome the survivors. Raising hands, they cursed us; and at intervals sent forth a low, piercing wail, peculiar to their race. As before, faint cries were heard from the tent. And all the while rose and fell on ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... was I with wild imaginings, that I saw not the Utah women as they passed down the valley. They did not approach the butte, nor make halt near, but hastened directly onward to the scene of conflict. I had for the moment forgotten them; and was only reminded of their proximity on hearing the death-wail, as it came pealing up the valley. It soon swelled into a prolonged and plaintive chorus— interrupted only by an occasional shriek—that denoted the discovery of some relative among the slain—father, brother, husband—or perhaps still nearer and dearer, some worshipped lover—who had fallen under ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... knew one song. Whenever he shaved, he sung this song; never at any other time. His voice was a bellowing roar, enough to make the window sashes rattle. Just now he woke up all the lodgers in his hall with it. It was a lamentable wail: ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... exclamation was most unkingly. Rather was it the wail of a criminal on being told that the executioner waited without. His ruddy cheeks blanched, and his hands were outstretched as if in a piteous plea for mercy. There was a tumult of objurgations in the outer passage; ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... would enable him to speak with yet more confidence. Widdowson had another brief conversation with the sisters, then bade them good-night, and went to the room that had been prepared for him. As he closed the door he heard a thin, faint wail, and stood listening until it ceased; it came from a room ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... floated over them the listeners seemed to see that lover, daring all in his desire, creep into the solemn sanctuary of the temple. They saw Hathor appear in her wrath and smite him cold in death. They saw the beauteous priestess with her lamp, and heard her wail her life away upon her darling's corpse; saw, too, the dead borne by spirits over the borders ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... himself to wait. Several times, passionately insistent, he shook his head, and it was as if the refusal were being made to an invisible presence. Suddenly he lifted his face as the sound of a weird, wild wail was borne to him, mingling with the elf-like moaning of the wind. He leaned forward slightly, listening intently. From somewhere above him pleading notes from a violin were making the night even more mournful. A change came ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... Grange opened to admit a stranger, the wail of a violin, the jingle of the piano, and the clang of Nan's hammer greeted him on the threshold, and from morn till night the echo of laughter and of happy voices never died away. There was only one occasion when the Rendell girls subsided into silence, and that was ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... shall be as you please, but I do not know that you will do any good by staying. A last month may be pleasant enough, or even a last week, but a last day is purgatory. The melancholy of the occasion cannot be shaken off. It is only the prolonged wail of a last farewell.' All this was said in the old man's ordinary voice, but it seemed to betoken if not feeling itself, a recognition of feeling which the ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... wind rises, and over the pale Face of its waters the deep sends a wail; Breaking, the chords shriek, and the voice dies. On the lagoon bridge the ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentiles, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow at the glance ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... o' cash, but they say when Ben sent for her to come to his bed whar the lawyer was ready with pen and ink and paper, an' Ben told her he was goin' to put her in entire charge of his effects, lock, stock, an' barrel—they say when she heard that she begun to wail an' take on at such a rate that they couldn't git her to talk business at all. They had to rub 'er down an' bathe 'er feet in hot mustard-water, an' it was all they could do to keep 'er from crossin' over, hand ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... and ready to be sacrificed? and what are we all coming to, and where are you all going to, and where will Boston be if this thing goes on?" But these thoughtless and jeering bachelors will not stop to hear the wail of their challengers; they feel no pity for their despair; they have no stomach for their agony; but go their ways, leaving the wretched females rooted, transfixed, the picture of perfect hopelessness, and greeting them, ere they disappear from sight, with shouts of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... worn, almost tragic face,—long, thin, sallow, hollow-eyed. The mouth had long since lost the power to shape itself into a kiss, and had a droop at the corners which seemed to announce a breaking down at any moment into a despairing wail. The collarless neck and sharp ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... that there was no necessity for her to continue her speech, and indeed no possibility of her doing so even if she were so minded. The children began to wail and cry, and the mothers also mixed loud sobbings with their loud prayers; and Emmeline and Mary, dissolved in tears, sat themselves down, drawing to them the youngest bairns and those whom they had loved the ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... tear is shed, and my last wail has been uttered," cried Philip, uncovering his face. "My angel has changed into a despicable woman. I loved her as the wretched, disconsolate being adores the one who reveals paradise to him; and she fooled me into the belief that she loved me. We exchanged vows of eternal constancy and ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... again, seeing my dear gossip still had a little wine by him. Meanwhile the dear young lord did me some injustice, which, however, I freely forgive him; for he railed at me and called me an old woman, who could do naught save weep and wail. Why had I not journeyed after the Swedish king, or why had I not gone to Mellenthin myself to fetch his testimony, as I knew right well what he thought about witchcraft? (But, blessed God, how could I do otherwise than believe the judge, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... or spring; Down from the winding ridge he sweeps amain, And thinks he tears him: so with tenfold rage, 530 The monster sprung remorseless on his prey. Amazed the stripling stood: with panting breast Feebly he pour'd the lamentable wail Of helpless consternation, struck at once, And rooted to the ground. The Queen beheld His terror, and with looks of tenderest care Advanced to save him. Soon the tyrant felt Her awful power. His keen tempestuous arm Hung nerveless, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... of melody floated down from some unseen place, in varying strains of divine music broken by many pauses, and running through every phase of jubilation, sorrow, and pain. It ended in a low wail of unutterable sadness, a pleading, yearning cry of anguish, which seemed to call on God Himself to hear. When it was over, and all was hushed around, the world seemed to have ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... to the bridal chamber, Death! Come to the mother, when she feels, For the first time, her first-born's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, 5 And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake's shock, the ocean's storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm With banquet song, and dance, and wine,— 10 And thou art terrible!—The tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier; And all we know, or ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... the cold mists rise, and hollow murmurs, like the low wail of lost spirits, rush ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... you whose garden-patch is not watered with the tears of mourners. The string of self-interest answers with its chord to every sound; it vibrates with the funeral-bell, it finds itself trembling to the wail of the De Profundis. Not always,—not always; let us not be cynical in our judgments, but common human nature, we may safely say, is subject to those secondary vibrations under the most solemn and ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... wan Unsought of any man: Grass Ceres sowed by alien hands is mown, And now she seeks Persephone alone. The gods have all gone up Olympus' hill, And all the songs are still Of grieving Dryads, left To wail about our woodland ways, bereft, The endless summertide. Queen Venus draws aside And passes, sighing, up Olympus' hill. And silence holds her Cyprian bowers, and claims Her flowers, and quenches all her altar-flames, And strikes dumb in their throats Her doves' complaining ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... or conch, or bell, Or stretch'd chords tuneable on turtle's shell; Only with utterance of sweet breath they sung An antique chaunt and in an unknown tongue. Now melting upward through the sloping scale Swell'd the sweet strain to a melodious wail; Now ringing clarion-clear to whence it rose Slumber'd at last in ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... look on a sweet face," replied Henry, as his eloquent eyes met hers. Blushing deeply, Jennie turned away and remained thoughtful and still, listening to the din of the waters and the wail of the autumn winds as they swept through the tree-tops, and her quiet revery brought the old expression of early maturity and care, for her thoughts had been roving all along her past life, and had ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... at him for a minute blinking her watery eyes, and then suddenly broke into a shrill, long-drawn wail. The Baron needed to ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... shadowy willows, that dying sunset; we have heard the wail of those melancholy water-fowl; somewhere—far from here—in some previous incarnation perhaps, or in the "dim backward" of pre-natal dreaming. It all comes back to us as we give ourselves up to the whispered cadences of this faint sweet music; while those reiterated syllables ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... another chorus of barks and shouts. Then a shot rang out, and a fusillade followed with a mournful wail that died ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... boy lay quietly while the nurse completed the dismemberment of the ragged coat, the apology for a shirt, and the bit of twine which served in lieu of suspenders. But the moment she began on the trousers, the wail was renewed. ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... shut the door and listen at the other; for I knew that the King's bed was close to it (though he was not in it at this time, but still in the barber's chair where he had been blooded); and presently I heard the poor soul begin to wail aloud. I heard voices too, as if soothing her, for all the physicians were there, and half a dozen others; but the wailing grew, as she saw, I suppose, in what condition His Majesty was—(for he still seemed all unconscious)—till she began to shriek. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... through somehow and caught Drury by the hand, but the first tug brought from him such a wail of anguish that the man fell back. He could not budge the body clamped with steel. He could only wrench it. So ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... deeply touched; for the name, twice repeated, broke in a wail of tender, mournful love, from the ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... he worshipped daily to be taken up. Leaving his usual robes he wore deer-skins and barks, and accompanied by his daughters-in-law, he set out of his mansion. When the royal son of Vichitraviryya thus set out, a loud wail was uttered by the Pandava and the Kaurava ladies as also by other women belonging to the Kaurava race. The king worshipped the mansion in which he had lived with fried paddy and excellent flowers of diverse kinds. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Fluff carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a salt-cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some annoyance against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar required relighting. Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of her sex, that it was not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was a louder one, and the ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... haid open!" screamed the high-pitched voice of a woman, breaking the stillness of the summer evening. She had just come to the door of the little cabin, where she was now standing, anxiously scanning the space before her, while a baby's plaintive wail rose and fell within with wearying monotony. The log cabin, set in a gall in the middle of an old field all grown up in sassafras, was not a very inviting-looking place; a few hens loitering about the new hen-house, a brood of half-grown chickens picking in the grass and watching ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... And without, the wail came louder and clearer still! "If you sow the bread-fruit seed, you will reap the breadfruit. If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. They have eaten the storm-fruit. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... which tradition points out as the place where Jane McCrea met her death. River flowed, and raftsmen sang below; women stood at their washing-tubs, and white-headed children stared at us from above; nor from the unheeding river or the forgetful woods came shriek or cry or faintest wail ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... man, with a vicious growl, raised his stumped arm, and the sharp part of the hook scraped the skin from her hollow cheek. It paused an instant on the level of her chin, then descended into the upturned chest of the child. With a scream, Scraggy dragged the boy back, and a wail rose from the tiny lips. Crabbe turned, cursing audibly, and stumbled up the steps to the stern of the boat. The woman heard him fall in his drunken stupor, and listened again and again for him to rise. Her face was white and rigid as she stopped the flow of blood that drenched the infant's ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... cursed with any—poor, miserable, weak fledgelings, with aged, wasted faces, water on the brain, with rickets and softening of the bones—idiots or imbeciles—dying early and scarcely regretted even by the parent whose progeny they are, for every wail of the little suffering voice pierced his heart and reminded him of his lustful sin, and passionate, inexcusable indulgence that caused all ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... lips are dumb; the orphan's wail, The mother's shriek, thou mayst not hear Above the faithless Frenchman's hail, The unsexed ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... grave That still for carrion carcases doth crave, On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owle, Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl, And all about it wandering ghosts did wail and howle"— ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced at Glafira Petrovna—and checked herself. He remembered his father, at first vigorous, discontented with everything, with strident voice; and later, blind, tearful, with unkempt grey beard; he remembered how one day after drinking a glass too much at dinner, and ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev |
