"Croon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and shifted the music. There were dozens of songs about roses. She dropped to the bench and began to play and croon Edward Carpenter's luscious music to Waller's old ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... wavering air. We heard the reef's far rollers croon About the ocean's margent, where Loitered the waning moon ... So fond the hour; the scene so fair; And fate came home so soon ... Some sorrow wept,—I knew not where. Some sudden presence made the air Chill ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... from Faith's reproving face, fell on her father, and with a croon of delight a pair of plump dimpled arms was held out pleadingly. "Dad! Dad!" cooed the baby voice coaxingly, and the arms were not ...
— Anxious Audrey • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... sort of noise with her tongue rolled over against the roof of her mouth, then croons the charm which is to make the child a free giver: so is generosity inculcated in extreme youth. I have often heard the grannies croon over the babies: ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... of coming to an abrupt end without embarrassing any one. As Dan sat looking into the fire, with his thoughts far away in the past, the Maluka began to croon contentedly at "Home, Sweet Home," and, curled up in the warm, sweet nest of leaves, I listened to the crooning, and, watching the varying expression of Dan's face, wondered if Mrs. Bob had any idea ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... damp, the sun shines hot, And ever on the Eastern shore, Faint envoys from the far monsoon, There in the gap the breakers croon Their old unchanging rhythmic rune (The noise is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 3, 1917 • Various
... Often and long would she look into his face as he lay in her arms, until at last she, too, caught the child-feature and the child-smile. Rehoboth said old Deborah was renewing her youth; for she had been known to laugh and croon, and more than once purse up her old lips to sing a snatch of nursery rhyme—a thing which in the past she had denounced as tending to 'mak' childer hush't wi' th' songs o' sin.' The hard look died away from her eyes, and her mouth ceased to wear its sealed and drawn expression. The voice, ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... of the marsh and halted for a moment. In front of us lay a dark pool, still as death and fringed with long grass and osier beds. A mournful breeze blew across the place, raising a (p. 134) plaintive croon, half of resignation and half of protest from the osiers and grasses as it passed. A little distance away the skeleton of a house stood up naked against the sky, the cold stars shining through its shattered rafters. "'Twas shelled ...
— The Red Horizon • Patrick MacGill
... say, In lanely glens ye like to stray; Or where auld ruin'd castles, gray, Nod to the moon, Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way Wi' eldritch croon. ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... ill-defined as those of the clouds, which also seemed vaguely wandering there on high. He thought of his childhood, of his mother, how they brought him to her 011 her death-bed, and how, pressing his head to her breast, she began to croon over him, but looked up at Glafira Petrovna and became silent. He thought of his father, at first robust, brazen-voiced, grumbling at every thing—then blind, querulous, with white, uncared-for beard. He remembered how one day at dinner, ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... and going back to her chair by the fireside, seated herself in it, and clasping her knees with her hands, rocked back and forth, and sang in a low, sweet croon: ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... insisted on keeping watch. Then he set two men to hold him; each of them was to take an arm, and shake him and jerk him by the arm whenever he seemed to be going to fall asleep; and he set two men to watch his Bushy Bride. But as the night wore on the Bushy Bride again began to croon and to sing, so that his eyes began to close and his head to droop on one side. Then came the lovely maiden, and got the brush and brushed her hair till the gold dropped from it, and then she sent her Little Snow out to see if it would soon be day, and this she did three times. The third time ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... croon, And clap their hands and dance in glee; And even the kettle hums a tune To tell you when it's ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... stars, the mysterious night, the bells, the watchful bay of dogs, the sting of snow, the croon of loving voices, the clasp of tender arms, the touch of parting lips—these things, these joys outweigh death and hell, and all that makes the criminal tremble. Being saved, they must ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... prevent me? I am as good as you any day—or Miss Lamarque either, or any of those haughty ones—though my father was a negro-trader. Well, whose business was that but God's? If He don't care, who need care?—An't I right, old mammy?" appealing to the ancient negress, who had suspended her croon to listen. ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... splendid noon, When all the hills were lit with Spring, And through the bushland throbbed a croon ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... as swiftly and as mysteriously as they came. It was just two minutes of frantic, aimless conflict, and then the silent night was round them again, without any sound but the slow creaking of branches, the swish of leaves as they swung and poised, and the quiet croon of the wind along ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... ever a mother who did not croon to her fretful child, and who did not rock her babe to sleep with rhythmic lullaby? Song spans the gap from mother Eve to the mother of to-day: the song may vary, though the emotion of the mother-love remains the ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... queer, loving, old smile that showed me how glad she was to see me, but never another word did she utter. I almost never remember hearing Mammy say an articulate word; but all children and those grown up who have any child left in their hearts can understand her croon. It ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the pine boughs croon me a lullaby, And trickle the white moonbeams To my face on the balsam where I lie While the owl hoots at my ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... from out a midnight sky, The falling embers and a kettle's croon— These three, but oh what sweeter lullaby Ever ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... Coulevain. Then she turned to revolve about the bright figure of her young mistress, her eyes glistening fondly, her dark fingers touching a soft fold of silver ribbon, while under her breath she chanted in a croon like a lullaby, "Beautiful as the dawn ... she will walk upon the heart of her husband with foot of rose petals ... she will dazzle him with the beams of her eyes and with the locks of her hair, she will bind him to her ... ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... you just as I do about one of Mrs. Ewe's lambkins," I whispered, with a queer answering laugh in my voice, which held and repeated the croon in his. ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... says,' quoth Carlyle magisterially, 'that if you allow him the love of his lass, you may take away all else, even his cogie, his cup or can, and he cares not,' just as a professor expounds Lycophron. And just before I left England, six months ago, did not I hear him croon, if not certainly sing, 'Charlie is my darling' ('my darling' with an adoring emphasis), and then he stood back, as it were, from the song, to look at it better, and said 'How must that notion of ideal wondrous perfection have impressed itself in this old Jacobite's "young Cavalier"—("They ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... First in the Humanity and first in the Greek, sweepit the field, Lord preserve us. A' can hardly believe it. Eh, I was feared o' thae High School lads. They had terrible advantages. Maisters frae England, and tutors, and whatna', but Drumtochty carried aff the croon. It'll be ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... had been the integral part was dead to her. What was she to do without him, without Bobbie to pet and love? But a feeling of thanksgiving pervaded her when she remembered she still had Lafe's smile, the baby to croon over, and dear, stoical Peggy. They would live with her in the old home. It was preferable to staying in Bellaire, where her heart would be tortured daily. Rather the brooding hills, the singing pines, and all the wildness of nature, which was akin to the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... her with the moon, Were met by branches stirred, And whiter grew as grew the croon That ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... old monks said, Sweet honey-fly, From lilting overhead The lullaby You heard some mother croon Beneath the harvest moon. Go, hum it in the hive, The old monks said, For we were once alive Who ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... him? There had been something; of that he was certain. So he kept perfectly still, listening with the utmost intentness; then he started slightly, for there was repeated the noise that had roused him from his sleep. It was a low, terrible croon, like "o-o-h—o-o-h," repeated and repeated, and every once in a while its monotone was ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... where do I come in?" asked an injured voice, as the two young women continued to croon over ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... Jean Armour; and "Tam O' Shanter" a facetious farmer of Kyle, who rode late and loved pleasant company, nay, even "The Deil" himself, whom he had the hardihood to address, was a being whose eldrich croon bad alarmed the devout matrons of Kyle, and had wandered, not unseen by the bard himself, among the lonely glens of the Doon. Burns was one of the first to teach the world that high moral poetry resided in the humblest subjects: ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sheep-bells tinkle frae the west, My lambs are bleating near; But still the sound that I lo'e best, Alack! I canna hear. Oh, no! sad and slow, The shadow lingers still; And like a lanely ghaist I stand, And croon upon the hill. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... him "how Alkestis helped," and he, on bidding her farewell, had given her these tablets, with the stylos pendant from them still, and given her, too, his own psalterion, that she might, to its assisting music, "croon the ode ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... mother Mary leaned over her little son again and began to croon a song as if she were ...
— The Sad Shepherd • Henry Van Dyke
... as gentle with the grand old dog as other children had been rough. She loved to cuddle down close beside him, her arms around his shaggy neck; and croon queer little high-voiced songs to him; her thin cheek against his head. She used to save out fragments from her own sparse lunch to give to him. She was inordinately proud to walk at his side during Lad's rare rambles around the Place. Child and dog ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... leap the Moonstone rider was in the saddle. The pony shook her head as he reined her round toward the corral gate. The men stared. Gleason swore. Billy Dime began to croon a range ditty about "Picking little Posies on the Golden Shore." The roan's sleek, sweating ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... there is no room in me for aught but love and the days are far too short to hold my happiness. I pass them near my baby. I croon to him sweet lullabies at which the others laugh. I say, "Thou dost not understand? Of course not, 'tis the language of the Gods," and as he sleeps I watch his small face grow each day more like to thine. I give long hours to thinking of ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... wooed; and at all times and through all moods he remains the primeval sentimentalist. He will detach his life entirely from the catchwords which pretend to govern his actions; he will sit and croon the most heartrending ditties in celebration of home-life and a mother's love, and then set forth incontinently upon a well-planned errand of plunder. For all his artistry, he lacks balance as flagrantly as a ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... veil would cover you Our loving eyes could still pierce through; And see through dusky shadows still Move as of old your wild sweet will, Impatient every heart to win And flash its heavenly radiance in.' Though all the worlds were sunk in rest The ruddy star within his breast Would croon its tale of ancient pain, Its sorrow that would never wane, Its memory of the days of yore Moulded in beauty evermore. Ah, immortality so blind, To dream all things with it conjoined Must follow it from ...
— By Still Waters - Lyrical Poems Old and New • George William Russell
... the banks of the Nile an old crocodile Lay sunning himself one day, And he gently did croon an attempt at a tune, As he watched some small children at play— At play— As he watched some ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... which the duke of Marlborough had acquired, and such a bigoted papist, that he repined at the success of an heretical general. On the twelfth day of September he marched towards Landau with the troops destined for the siege; and the duke of Marlborough, with prince Eugene, encamped at Croon Weissenburgh to cover the enterprise. By this time Ulm had surrendered to Thungen, even before the trenches were opened. Villeroy advanced with his army towards Landau, as if he had intended to attack the confederates; but retired without having made any attempt for the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... miserable court we found the haggard old woman blowing at a kind of pipe made of an old penny ink-bottle. The identical words which Dickens puts into the mouth of this wretched creature in "Edwin Drood" we heard her croon as we leaned over the tattered bed on which she was lying. There was something hideous in the way this woman kept repeating, "Ye'll pay up according, deary, won't ye?" and the Chinamen and Lascars made never-to-be-forgotten pictures in the scene. I watched Dickens intently as he ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... boisterous fun, the croon of intimate talk, the gently rising and falling tide of melody fell to complete silence. Only remained the crackling of the fire and the innumerable voices of ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... 4 p.m. till long after sunset, you may see the Shirazi taking his rest, undisturbed save for the ripple of running water, the sighing of the breeze through the branches, and croon of the pigeons overhead. Now and again the tinkle of caravan-bells breaks in upon his meditations, or the click-click of the attendant's sandals as he crosses the tiled floor with sherbet, coffee, or ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt
... a buik upo' the links, my lord, which was like to be hers, wi' the twa beasts 'at stans at yer lordship's door inside the brod (board) o' 't. An' sae it turned oot to be whan I took it up to the Hoose. There's the half croon ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... what it means for a woman to die a workin'," Severn went on. "My mother did that. I can remember it, though I was only a kid. She was bent an' stoop-shouldered, an' her hands were rough and twisted. I know now why she used to hug me up close and croon funny things over me when father was away. When I first told my Marie what I was goin' to do, she laughed at me; but when I told her 'bout my mother, an' how work an' freezin' an' starvin' killed her when I needed her most, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... mysterious companion in the air. He thought it was a "French laddie." Nor had he any story to tell about the driving down of the baron's machine. He could only say that he "kent" the baron and had met his Albatross before. He called him the "Croon Prince" because the black crosses painted on his wings were of a more ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace
... my home, not ringed with roses blowing, Nor set in meadows where cool waters croon; Parched wastes were round it, and no shade was going, Nor breath of violets nor song-birds' tune; Only at times from the adjacent dwelling Came down with Boreas the quaint, compelling ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... in rough Loch Awe, A weary cry frae ony toun; The Spey, that loups o'er linn and fa', They praise a' ither streams aboon; They boast their braes o' bonny Doon: Gie ME to hear the ringing reel, Where shilfas sing, and cushats croon By ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... baby starts its expressive habits by emitting with wide-open mouth an undifferentiated shriek of pain. A little later it yells in the same way at any kind of discomfort. It begins before the end of the first year to croon when it is contented. As it grows older it begins to make different sounds when it experiences different emotions. And with remarkable rapidity its repertoire of articulatory movements ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... birds that greet us with the spring, That fly along the sunny blue, That hover round your last year's nests, Or cut the shining heavens thro', That skim along the meadow grass, Among the flowers sweet and fair, That croon upon the pointed roof, Or, quiv'ring, balance in the air; Ye heralds of the summer days, As quick ye dart across the lea, Tho' other birds be fairer, yet The dearest ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... Tibo, though he kept up an almost continuous mumbling throughout the long day. Tibo caught repeated references to fat goats, sleeping mats, and pieces of copper wire. "Ten fat goats, ten fat goats," the old Negro would croon over and over again. By this little Tibo guessed that the price of his ransom had risen. Ten fat goats? Where would his mother get ten fat goats, or thin ones, either, for that matter, to buy back just ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... cries "Who-oh-who," And a fox barks back where the moon slants through The moss that sways to a sudden breeze ... Or That she sees. Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon— "Soon, oh, soon," hear her croon, "Woe, oh, woe to ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... me,—two or three trashy novels, given me by Tom Salyers, of which my mother knew nothing,—and (the only poetry I had ever seen) a song-book, which had, scattered among its vulgarisms and puerilities, some gems of Burns and Moore. These my natural, unvitiated taste had singled out, and I would croon them over to myself, set them to a tune of my own composing, and half sing, half chant them, when at work out-of-doors, till my mother declared ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... doused the fire, an action which was now being methodically attended to by Thorvald. Shann pushed down on the bed of leaves he had heaped together. The night was quiet. He could hear only the murmur of the sea, a lulling croon of sound to make one sleep ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... should be ashamed of the fact that my body has all day long surprised me by a sort of indolent contentment, repeating over and over that it is glad to be alive. The mind and soul crave for death and silence. Yet all the while my faithful and useful friend, the body, seems to croon a low song of delight. That is the worst of it, that I seem built for many years of life. Shall I ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Ann's slowly began to strike ten o'clock. It brought home to her by association one of the evening hymns in the little black book she was frequently accustomed to croon to herself at night as she ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... breathed. When his eyes opened blankly, she kissed them till they closed again, because she could not bear to see the dreadful blankness that was in them. When he moaned she fell to rocking gently back and forth, holding his head closer against her breast, and presently began to croon softly. She never once thought of calling for help; it was to her as if there had been no one but themselves in the whole world. And presently his faintness passed away, and when his arms, so weakly raised, went round her, she did not try to escape. After a little he found strength ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... youth and beauty, Speak for them the spell of law Which shall bar and bolt withdraw, And the flaming sword remove From the Paradise of Love. Still, with undimmed eyesight, pore Ancient tome and record o'er; Still thy week-day lyrics croon, Pitch in church the Sunday tune, Showing something, in thy part, Of the old Puritanic art, Singer after Sternhold's heart In thy pew, for many a year, Homilies from Oldbug hear, Who to wit like that of South, And the Syrian's golden mouth, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of the harem, passed upon the divan or stretched on the floor. In a low voice she would croon Oriental songs, incomprehensible and mysterious. Suddenly she would spring up impetuously like a spring that is unwound, like a serpent that uncoils itself, and would begin to dance, almost without moving her feet, waving her lithe limbs.... And he would smile with stupefied ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... sighed:—'From the Virgins my mid-sea course was ta'en Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... as if from the depths of embarrassment, and against my will, as it were, a queer sort of a croon of an echo came from ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... packed in wool, and finding him lively! how he and "Mary" would doat upon him, feeding him upon some celestial, unspeakable pap, "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes, or Cytherea's breath." How the brother and sister would croon over him "with murmurs made to bless," calling him their "tender novice" "in the first bloom of his nigritude," their belated straggler from the "rear of darkness thin," their little night-shade, not deadly, their infantile Will-o'-the-wisp caught before ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... laid down in the grass, where the dew soaked them through and through. On another occasion, after a long silence up in the bedroom, she fell sobbing on the lad's neck, declaring in broken accents that she was afraid of dying. She would often croon a favorite ballad of Mme Lerat's, which was full of flowers and birds. The song would melt her to tears, and she would break off in order to clasp Georges in a passionate embrace and to extract from him vows of undying affection. In short she was extremely silly, as she herself ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... first things he learned to love in his baby world. If he was cross, they had but to lay him on the grass in the garden and put a daisy in his hand, and he would croon happily over it for hours. He was four years old when his father took him to a wedding in the neighborhood. The men guests took a tramp over the farm, and in the twilight they sat and rested in the meadow, where the spring flowers grew. The minister began telling them ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... content?' 'Damon, not so: This life has brought me health but not content. That boy, whose shouts ring round us while he flings Intent each stone toward yon shining object Afloat inshore ... I eat my heart to think How all which makes him worthy of more love Must train his ear to catch the siren croon That never else had reached his upland home! And he who failed in proof, how should he arm Another against perils? Ah, false hope And credulous enjoyment! How should I, Life's fool, while wakening ready wit in him, Teach how to shun ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... the Croon" is published, with music, by Mr. R. W. Pentland, Edinburgh, and it also appears in The British Students' Song Book along with "The Pawky Duke." This latter first appeared in St. Andrews University Bazaar Book, and is included in Seekers after a City. "Macfadden and Macfee" was contributed ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie
... nonsense. Rabbie would hae kent fine that a king or queen either disna ganga to bed wi' a croon on their head. He'd hae kent they hang it over the ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... Michigan break On the beach where the jacksnipes croon— The breeze sweeps in from the purple lake And tempers the heat of noon: In yonder bush, where the berries grow, The Peewee tunefully sings, While hither and thither the people go, Attending to ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... where the pulpit and pews were commonly filled by blacks alone. There the sable exhorter might indulge his peculiar talent for "'rousements" and the prayer leader might beseech the Almighty in tones to reach His ears though afar off. There the sisters might sway and croon to the cadence of sermon and prayer, and the brethren spur the spokesman to still greater efforts by their well timed ejaculations. There not only would the quaint melody of the negro "spirituals" swell instead of the more sophisticated ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... is the spell, when her fledglings are cheeping, That lures the bird home to her nest? Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping, To cuddle and croon it to rest? What the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms, Till it cooes with the voice of the dove? 'Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low— And the name of the secret is Love! For I think it is Love, For ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year - Edited by Katherine D. Blake and Georgia Alexander • Various
... over me," she mused, with Indian fatalism. "As well resign myself to sorrow with dignity. Hayoka, Hayo—ka!" and she began to croon softly a hymn of propitiation to the Hayoka, the Sioux god of contrariety. According to the legends, he sat naked and fanned himself in a Dakota blizzard and huddled, shivering, over a fire in the heat of summer. Likewise the Hayoka cried for joy ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... the merry tune Of mating warblers in the boughs above And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon That like the voice of visionary love Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze (Even as my feet thread ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... a sudden rustle Fills the air! All the birds are in a bustle Everywhere. Such a ceaseless croon and twitter Overhead! Such a flash of wings that glitter Wide outspread! Far away I hear a drumming,— Tap, tap, tap! Can the woodpecker be coming After sap? Butterflies are hovering over (Swarms on swarms) Yonder meadow-patch of clover, Like snow-storms. Through ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... murmuring strain Like the falling of far-away fairy rain. Just a soft and silvery song That would swing and swirl along; Not a word Could be heard But a lingering ding-a-dong. Just a melody low and sweet, Just a harmony faint and fleet, Just a croon Of a tune Is the ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... of cold meats and pickled fish, fruit and junket and a kind of harsh cheese, as if in contest for a wager. And copious was the thin spicy wine with which we swam it home. Ever and again my host would desist, to whistle, or croon (with a packed mouth) in the dismallest of tenors, a stave or two of the tune we had danced to, bobbing head and foot in sternest time. Then a great vacancy would overspread his face turned to the window, as suddenly ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... of rubbish. Everything was to be square and solid and stony. They heard Mr. Granger giving orders that the chimney was to be flush with the wall, and so on; the stove, an "Oxford front," warranted to hold not more than a pound and a half of coal; no recesses in which old age could sit and croon, no cosy nook for ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... subjects; founded and endowed bishoprics and abbeys at the expense of the crown, on account of which he was called St. David, and characterised by James VI., a successor of his, as a "sair saunt to the croon"; the death of his son Henry was a great grief to him, and shortened ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... air, and trembled among the tallest pines and the summits of great hills. And in it were the sting of rain and the blatter of hail, the soft crush of snow and the rattle of thunder among crags. Then it quieted to the low sultry croon which told of blazing midday when the streams are parched and the bent crackles like dry tinder. Anon it was evening, and the melody dwelled among the high soft notes which mean the coming of dark and the green light ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Edgarton. Indolently she withdrew her eyes from her father's and stared off Nunko-Nonoward—in a hazy, geographical sort of a dream. "Good old John Ellbertson—good old John Ellbertson," she began to croon very softly to herself. "Good old John Ellbertson. How I do love his kind brown ...
— Little Eve Edgarton • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... And croon they did through the long crowded way to Covent Garden. By the time the motor reached St. Martin's Lane, Waggin was in possession of all that had happened. She had long expected it, having shrewdly noted many ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... so I love thee, great, free, rugged land Of cloudless summer days, with west-wind croon, And prairie flowers all dewy-diademed, And twilights long, with blood-red, low-hung moon And mountain peaks that glisten white each noon Through purple haze that veils the western sky— And well I know the meadow-lark's far rune As up and down he lilts and circles high And sings ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... represented a wild forest foliage, from the top, down to the sides, which, in the same stuff, were figured with fluted pilasters, with their spaces between filled with flower vases, the whole having a pay effect croon the ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... walk down to the valley And lay my head in her breast, Where are two white doves, The Queen of Love's, In a silken nest; And, all the afternoon, They croon and croon The one word "Rest!" And a little stream That runs thereby Sings "Dream!" Over and over It sings— ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... was partly caused by the close observation of Mrs Fotheringham and the parrot, who seemed to lie in wait for all shortcomings with cold and critical glances. The bird was accustomed often to sit on its mistress's shoulder in which position it would trifle lovingly with the border of her cap and croon softly and coaxingly into her ear. At these times there was an air of most complete and confidential understanding between the two, which did not include the outside world, and there was something weird about it which might well affect the nerves ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... golden hair had been cut off long before; her head was covered with wet cloths, and she was moving it backwards and forwards on the pillow, with weary, never-ending motion, her poor eyes shut, trying in the old accustomed way to croon out a hymn tune, but perpetually breaking it up into moans of pain. Her mother sate by her, tearless, changing the cloths upon her head with patient solicitude. I did not see the minister at first, but there he was in a dark corner, down upon his knees, his hands ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... drawing over them the blankets and cloaks that had happily been saved in the chest, and nestling on either side of the fire, which, if well managed, would smoulder on for hours. There the two elder ones would teach Rusha her catechism and tell old stories, and croon over old rhymes till both the little ones were asleep, and then would hold counsel on their affairs, settle how to husband their small stock of money, consider how soon it would be expedient to finish their store ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fish if he makes a very long run. If your line happens to be short—which it will not be, if you have followed the instructions given in Chapter III.—you need not be surprised if you find nothing left but your rod and reel, your line, and mayhap a "half-croon flee" flying about the loch in charge of a fish. The management of the landing-net or gaff is another serious matter. If the fish be small, tell the man to have the net ready, and "run it in;" but if it is a good-sized fish, you must tell him not to put ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... gettin' five shillin's ae day," remarked Jamie Soutar, who was at the Free Kirk that morning; "he hed started Dr. Chalmers wi' the minister; Dr. Guthrie he coontit to be worth aboot half-a-croon; but he aince hed three shillin's oot o' the Cardross case. He wes graund on the doctrine o' speeritual independence, and terrible drouthy; but ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... Vandy and I separated instinctively without a word. You want to be with the Taj alone, for it leads you captive and invites to secret communion. I wandered around many hours, gazing at every turn, deliciously, not joyously happy; there was no disposition to croon over a melody, nor any bracing quality in my thoughts—not a trace of the heroic—but I was filled with happiness which seemed to fall upon me gently as the snow-flakes fall, as the zephyr comes when laden with sweet odors. I sat down at length in ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... grace about her little ones, watching their play with exquisite fondness, and watching the great dangerous world for their sakes, now chiding them gently, now drawing near to touch them with her strong bill, or to rub their little cheeks with hers, or just to croon over them in an ecstasy of that wonderful mother love which makes the summer wilderness beautiful,—in ten minutes she upset all my theories, and won me altogether, spite of what I had heard and seen of her destructiveness on the fishing grounds. After all, why should she not fish as well ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... knowing strife! Look you, that fragile thing at Adam's side— I heed her not. But Lilith is denied The treasure she so careless doth possess. See how the babe, scarce waking, doth caress The mother! Look! Oh, hear the mother croon Above her child! Ah, Eblis, love, I swoon— I shall not know such joy. Alas, to me No babe shall come! Accursed may she be, Cursed Adam too. Thrice heavy on the head Of this poor babe my wrong be visited." So, trembling, she brake off. "Fast fades the light, Sweet love. Once more to our ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... Ophir, Last year in Tartary piped for the Khan. Now it's the song of a lover; Now it's the lilt of a loafer,— Under the trees in a midsummer noon, Dreaming the haze into isles to discover, Beating the silences into a croon; Soon Up from the marshes a fall of the plover! Out from the cover A flurry of quail! Down from the height where the slow hawks hover, The thin far ghost of a hail! And near, and near, Throbbing and tingling,— With a human cheer In the ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... rests from its rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done,—no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night-wind, which, coming down the canon, makes it croon and mutter in ripples along its ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... round, For ever rolling with a hollow sound. And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters go Swish to and fro Their long, cold tentacles of slimy grey. There was no day, Nor ever came a night Setting the stars alight To wonder at the moon: Was twilight only and the frightened croon, Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind And waves that journeyed blind— And then I loosed my ear ... O, it was sweet To hear a cart go jolting down ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... poor root toot loop loon soon food hoot boor rood noon coop hoop hoof coon loom loose moor boon sloop proof stoop troop stool spool boost noose sooth room boom croon moon mood roost shoot broom doom goose scoop tooth bloom brood gloom groom swoop ...
— The Beacon Second Reader • James H. Fassett
... later he was still in Salzburg, no longer at the Goldene Alp, but in rooms over a shop near the Boleskeys'. He had spent a small fortune in the purchase of flowers. Margit would croon over them, but Rozsi, with a sober "Many tanks!" as if they were her right, would look long at herself in the glass, and pin one into her hair. Swithin ceased to wonder; he ceased to wonder at anything they did. One evening he ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... She'd jes' croon above de babies, she'd jes' sing when t'ings went wrong, An' no matter what de trouble, she would meet it wid a song; She jes' prayed huh way to heaben, findin' comfort in de rod; She jes' "stole away to Jesus," she jes' sung huh way ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... of the tumult and din, was carried out, and placed on the grass terrace beside the master; where no sooner did she apprehend intuitively the neighbourhood of her proudly cherished nursling, than she left off her weak wailing, and began to croon over him as fondly and contentedly as when he lay an ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... a minute-" But Mrs. Wainwright began to croon: " Oh, if Marjory should hear of this! Oh, if she should hear of it! just let ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... but neglected facts, for there is no doubt that under the healthful and delicious spell of Rhythm a far steadier and greater amount of labor would be cheerfully and happily endured by the working classes. The continuous but rhythmed croon of the negro when at work, the yo-heave-o of the sailor straining at the cordage, the rowing songs of the oarsman, etc., etc., are all suggestive of what might be effected by judicious effort in this direction. But man, ever wiser than his Maker, neglects the intuitions of nature. Rendered conceited ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... anecdote, told by the College Porter, who had to collect the crowns. 'I am just come,' he said, 'from a poor student indeed. I went for the window croon; he cried, begged, and prayed not to pay it, saying, "he brought but a croon to keep him all the session, and he had spent sixpence of it; so I have got only four and sixpence."' His father, a labourer, who owned three cows, 'had sold one to dress his son for the University, and put the lamented croon ...
— Life of Johnson, Volume 6 (of 6) • James Boswell
... noo for a man, Francis. Ye hae set yersel to du his wull, and no yer ain: ye're a king; and for want o' a better croon, I croon ye ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... of sleep our barque shall sweep, Till it reaches that mystical Isle Which no man hath seen, but where all have been, And there we will pause awhile. I will croon you a song as we float along To that shore that is blessed of God, Then, ho! for that fair land, we're off for that rare land, That beautiful ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... inventiveness. He could see her dressing up with him on wet days, reciting King Henry to his Prince Hal, or Prospero to his Ariel, or simply giving free vent to her own exuberant Irish fun till both he and she would sink exhausted into each other's arms, and end the evening with a long croon, sitting curled up together in a big armchair in front of the fire. He could see himself as a child of many crazes, eager for poetry one week, for natural history the next, now spending all his spare time in strumming, now in drawing, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rooms afterward, calling to her men from the open door, consulting with Jennie, her arms about her neck, or stopping at intervals to croon over her child, she seemed to him to lose all identity with the woman on the dock. The spirit that enveloped her belonged rather to that of some royal dame of heroic times, than to that of a working woman of to-day. ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... long day leans to the twilight, When the Evening star climbs to the moon, With a heart that is silently breaking, I sit in the gloaming and croon. I croon a low song for my darling, My wee one, my baby, my own; Who, cradled in rosewood and velvet, Sleeps ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... mother and son, now lay side by side, on the hard rocks, beneath the flaming sky, close to the homicidal sea. And now she began to croon the very lullaby which in the past had diffused pure sleep ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... thee; but be glad for me,—whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and your hair ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the same fountain sweet and bitter yield? Shall what bore late the dust-mood, think and brood Till it bring forth the great believing mood? Or that which bore the grand mood, bald and peeled, Sit down to croon the shabby sensual song, To hug itself, and sink from wrong ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... the night comes softly the croon of a little screech owl—that cry almost as ancient as the hills. It belongs with the soil beneath our towns. It is the spirit of the past crying to us. So the dirge of the frog is the cry of the spirit of river ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... ecstasy of sweet devotion, O, then the glen was all in motion! The wild beasts of the forest came, Broke from their bughts and faulds the tame, And goved around, charm'd and amazed; Even the dull cattle croon'd and gazed, And murmur'd and look'd with anxious pain For something the mystery to explain. The buzzard came with the throstle-cock; The corby left her houf in the rock; The blackbird alang wi' the eagle flew; ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the office and retraced their steps across the mountain. They had gone about halfway home when they were interrupted by a curious sort of sound, something between a croon and a chant. It came nearer and nearer, and the next moment a grotesque figure showed clearly in the moonlight. This was no other than Paddy Wheel-about himself. He was a tall man, with a long shaggy beard, penthouse ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... was the reason why Dumoise went there. He halted at seven in the evening, and his bearer went down the hillside to the village to engage coolies for the next day's march. The sun had set, and the night-winds were beginning to croon among the rocks. Dumoise leaned on the railing of the veranda, waiting for his bearer to return. The man came back almost immediately after he had disappeared, and at such a rate that Dumoise fancied he must have crossed a bear. He was running as hard ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... luve, how aft we left The deavin', dinsome toun, To wander by the green burnside, And hear its waters croon? The simmer leaves hung owre our heads, The flowers burst round our feet, And in the gloamin o' the wood, The ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lattice: the misty moon Hardly a glimmer gave; The wind was like one that hums a tune, The first low gathering stave; The ocean lay in a sullen swoon, With a moveless, monotonous, murmured croon Like the moaning ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... Only I hope he wasn't lyin' about that there stuff. Anyways, even if he was, it's one of them things a man's got to do. An' I'll rest a whole lot easier in my six by two than what I would if I give Tex the long good-bye first." Unconsciously, the man began to croon the ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... he could not soften the sounds of that throat now to express the gentleness he felt. Nevertheless, Weedon Scott's ear and sympathy were fine enough to catch the new note all but drowned in the fierceness—the note that was the faintest hint of a croon of content and that none but he ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... came gradually out into the light, to be laughed and joked at. They made a tradition to fit over it—whenever that overpowering terror of the night attacked Anthony, she would put her arms about him and croon, soft ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... family name was Mittendorfer. He never spoke to his men except to roar at them like a raging lion, and he never addressed us except to coo as softly as the mourning dove. It was interesting to listen as his voice changed from a bellow to a croon, and back again a moment later to a bellow. With training he might have made an opera singer—he had such a vocal range and such perfect control over it. This Lieutenant Mittendorfer introduced himself to our attention by coming ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... out, if I pretend to be asleep, or experiment with the end of my nose, to see why it doesn't lift up like a door-knocker. Then he'll snuggle down in the crook of my arm, perfectly still except for the wriggling of his toes against my hip, and croon there with happiness and ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... a morn when we were thrang, The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making, And bannocks on the girdle baking, When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang. Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight, Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween; For a chap at the door in braid daylight Is no like ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... little child whose face I cannot see, The loneliness, the twilight, and the rain, Have brought your dearness very close to me. And though I rock with empty arms, I sing A lullaby that I have made to croon Into your drowsy shadow ear—a song About the star sheep ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... the throne wi' his sceptre an' his croon, The elements o' cauld are the courtiers staunin' roun'; He lifts his icy haun', an' he speaks wi' awe profound, He chills the balmy air, and he binds the yielding ground; He calms the raging winds when they moan and loudly rave, He stops the rinnin' stream, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... longer the wild hatred which made her pant with a desire to make him suffer, too, just as she had suffered that night through. The pain was just as great, but it was pity now—only pity and an unaccountable yearning to draw that bruised face down against her and croon ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... asters in the moonlight, the glimmer of the little spring, the soft croon of the brook, the wavering grace of the brackens all wove a white magic round John Meredith. He forgot congregational worries and spiritual problems; the years slipped away from him; he was a young divinity student again and the roses of ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... began to reach his ears a rich but slender strain of sound, a golden thread of melody. At first he thought that it was a 'cello or the lower notes of a violin, but presently he became aware that it was a woman singing in a half-voice without thought of what she sang—as women croon to a child, or over their work, or when they are idle and their ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... read poetry aloud. By example and suggestion help them keep their minds on the ideas, the pictures, the characters. Only by doing this can they really read so as to interpret a poem. No one can read with a lazy mind, or merely by imitation. Encourage them to croon or ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... positive, in a tight-fitting suit of sheet-lead; but why? I wondered why, and immediately received an extinguishing blow. My pillow was heavenly; I was constantly being cooled on it, and grew used to hear a croon no more musical than the unstopped reed above my head; a sound as of a breeze about a cavern's mouth, more soothing than a melody. Conjecture of my state, after hovering timidly in dread of relapses, settled and assured me I was lying baked, half-buried in an old river-bed; moss ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... is heard to croon To a little babe, this simple tune: "Heigho! for the father who toils to-day, He thinks of us, though he's far away; He soon will come with a happy tread, And stooping over your trundle bed, Your little worries he'll kiss away; Love comes to us at ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... sweet and sorrowful, she repeated the story which each had told her, running them into a continuous recitative. The old woman rose from the floor, and joining in the chant in a quavering croon, sprinkled salt at the thresholds of the doors and at the feet of every person, ending by throwing a large handful up the chimney. It fell back and sputtered and cracked in the fire. Seizing one of the cigar-boxes, ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Their Abbot was a holy man, a model of what a monk ought to be. But though perfectly cognisant of the delinquencies of his community, he was content to display to his subjects the edifying example of his own life, and to let it appear that he was aware of their doings and pained at them. He would croon softly as he went about the house old Hell's words: "Not so, my sons, not so: why do ye these kind of things, very wicked things?" But the monks took no notice of him. It happened in course of time that the Abbot went away for about ten days. What he did in that time, never transpired: ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... very quiet, unlighted, infinitely peaceful. In front of the negro cabin at the side of the house, Bruce could see Samson, his chair tilted against the cabin wall, his pipe in his mouth, his bare feet swinging contentedly. From inside the cabin came the low croon of Samson's fat black wife. Some hens clucked sleepily in the hen-house. With the moonlight disintegrated and softened by the trees, everything up toward the house breathed peace. Out here in the garden, however, where ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... or laughing are not looked upon with favor in our cow barn. On the other hand, continuous sounds, if at all melodious, seem to soothe the animals and increase the milk flow. Judson, who has proved to be our best herdsman, has a low croon in his mouth all the time. It can hardly be called a tune, though I believe he has faith in it, but it has a fetching way with the herd. I have never known him to be quick, sharp, or loud with the cows. When things go wrong, the crooning ceases. When it is resumed, all is well in the ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... come to earth, who knows whether that "waesome welcome" may not be a prophecy? The old nurse seemed almost to dread this, even while she uttered it, for with superstition from which not an "auld wife" in Scotland is altogether free, she changed the dolorous croon into a "Gude guide us!" and, pressing the babe to her aged breast, bestowed a hearty blessing upon her nursling of the second generation—the child of him who was at once her master ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... let a shot intil him," said Roy, dancing with excitement, "but it has no' been a verra good shot, for he's sittin' on a stane an' rubbin' the croon o' his hat. Have I no telled you till I'm tired tellin' you, that there was no' be no shootin' till there was no fear o' missin'? It is not good to have to shoot; but it iss a verra great deal waur to shoot an' miss. If that's Gavin Stevenson, the muckle nowt, I declare ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... watchful hawk on high In breathless ether lonely hangs; faint rings the parrot's cry. The stillness is idyllic. As the slow sun swings round One feels earth's pulses beating; hears them throbbing through the ground, The grass where drowsy insects hum, the eaves where pigeons croon; Ah, lovely is the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... own, which he generally contrived to vary each night, was the song, a loving croon of sleep and rest. The brotherhood of rest, one might name his theme for grown-up folk; as in the morning, we afterwards learnt, he is wont to sing them another little song of the brotherhood of work; the aim of his whole beautiful effort ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... he plant who plants a tree? He plants the friend of sun and sky; He plants the flag of breezes free; The shaft of beauty, towering high; He plants a home to heaven anigh For song and mother-croon of bird In hushed and happy twilight heard— The treble of heaven's harmony— These things he ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... eat the worms, until he wanted no more; and then he would hide the rest by poking them into cracks or covering them with chips, crooning the while over his secret joke. "There-there-tuck-it-there," was what his croon sounded like; but if the Brown-eyed Boy or the Blue-eyed Girl came near, he would flutter out his wings at his sides and lift his open beak, his teasing "Kah" seeming to say, "Honest, I haven't had a bite to eat ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... and so did a small open wood fire in the sitting-room. Many a night the two would croon together. The mother shrivelled and faded; Abbie herself being over thirty—not so fresh-looking as she had been—not so pretty—never had been very pretty. Her mother knew, too, how hard she had always struggled ...
— Abijah's Bubble - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... appellant, apple-pie order, baker's dozen, bamboozle, bay window, between whiles, bicker, blanch, to brain, burly, catcall, clodhopper, clutch, coddle, copious, cosy, counterfeit money, crazy (dilapidated), crone, crook, croon, cross-grained, cross-patch, cross purposes, cuddle, to cuff (to strike), cleft, din, earnest money, egg on, greenhorn, jack-of-all-trades, loophole, settled, ornate, to quail, ragamuffin, riff-raff, rigmarole, scant, seedy, out of sorts, stale, tardy, trash. How Halliwell ever ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... With a thin-worn fold Of withered gold Around her rolled, Hangs in the air the weary moon. She is old, old, old; And her bones all cold, And her tales all told, And her things all sold, And she has no breath to croon. ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... break off in the middle of your song, Major Short," Eleanor murmurs, seating herself beside him and taking up the guitar. "I wish you could teach me the accompaniment, for I do know a few notes vaguely, and though I have never learned to sing I can croon ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... Kai's busy feet, Were known to all the village-street. "What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet; "A loss indeed!" 10 O for the croon pathetic, sweet, Of Robin's reed ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... join those old thin voices with my new, And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh Cooped up in music 'twixt an oh and ah,— Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I Go singing rather, "Bella liberta," Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry "Se tu men bella ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... with long murmuring discourses, often stories about the scholars, but always conveying some point of religious instruction. It was a subject to which Maria was less impervious than to any other; she readily learned to croon over the simple hymns that Phoebe brought home, and when once a Scripture story had found entrance to her mind, would beg to have it marked in her Bible, and recur to ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... croon a many-versed psalm. I slept and waked, and slept again, and was waked by the light of a torch against my eyes. The torch was held by a much-betarred seaman, and by its light a gentleman of a very meagre aspect, with a weazen face and small ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... created and fixed for everybody who was to read him from then onwards the permanent picture of a field by the side of a small, full river, with a band of trees far off, and, above, the poplar leaves that are never still. It runs to a kind of happy croon, and has for a few moments restored very many who have read it to their own place; and ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... speaking of the illiterate clown of Stratford-on-Avon. Equally illiterate must have been the learned Dr. Crown, who, in the various books he published in the latter half of the seventeenth century, spelt his name, indifferently Cron, Croon, Croun, Crone, Croone, Croune. The modern spelling of any particular name Is a pure accident. Before the Elementary Education Act of 1870 a considerable proportion of English people did not spell their names at all. They trusted to the parson and ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... and in regard to which she was vastly curious, and at her request he and three of his mates blushingly sang for her some of the American negro melodies then so popular among them. She was delighted with them and soon began to hum and croon unconsciously, the velvet of her voice mingling most piquantly with their sweet throaty English singing. By little and little her tones swelled louder and more bell-like: theirs softened gradually, till the harmony, so simple, yet so inevitable, dwindled to the nearest echo and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... chords sounded on the heavier strings of a guitar, while above them, upon the lighter wires, rippled a slender, tinkling melody that wooed the slumberer to a delicious half-wakefulness, as dreamily, as tenderly, as the croon of rain on the roof soothes a child to sleep. Under the artist's cunning touch the instrument was both the accompaniment and the song; and Miss Betty, at first taking the music to be a wandering thread in the fabric of her own ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... fingers flew about the preparation of the beef tea. She forgot the man whom she had gone to meet. Her arms were tired and hungry to close around her mother. She wanted to whisper little childish words to her, to rock her to and fro on her breast, and croon little songs and kiss her, and pat ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... 'll be thy heame O' t' joists, or back o' t' door; Or, mebbe, thoo'l be bunched(1) aboot Wi' t' barns across o' t' floor. When t' rain an' t' wind coom peltin' through Thy crumpled, battered croon, I'll cut thee up for soles to wear I' my ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... bards on bonnie Doon! An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune! [bagpipes] Come, join the melancholious croon O' Robin's reed; His heart will never get aboon! ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... come from underneath the purple deep and not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon. ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... book or poem called Hudibras, without his consent; but I do not know whether Butler thus wrote his name. As late as in 1660, a Dr. Crovne was at such a loss to have his name pronounced rightly, that he tried six different ways of writing it, as appears by printed books; Cron, Croon, Crovn, Crone, Croone, and Crovne; all of which appear under his own hand, as he wrote it differently at different periods of his life. In the subscription book of the Royal Society he writes W. Croone, but in his will at the Commons he signs W. Crovne. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... of ships, and the bosun piped, The hoarse watch roared a tune, The taut sheets whined in the twanging wind, You heard the breakers croon. ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... others. In the year 1658 we find them assembling in Gresham College, in London, when were added to their number the Lord Brounker (their first president), Sir Robert Murray, John Evelyng, Esq., Sir George Ent, Dr. Croon, Henry Shingsby, Esq., and many others. And after the Restoration, his Majesty King Charles II. appeared so well pleased with the design, that he granted them a charter of incorporation, bearing date the 22nd of April, 15 Charles II., anno 1663, wherein he styled himself their founder, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... on our floor. Irma used often to croon negro religious songs, the kind parlor entertainers imitate. I loved to listen to her. It was not my clothes she was ironing. Hattie, down the line, mostly dwelt on "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam." ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... these wild birds, Not the sparrows only, But the shy, shy finches, Could become so tame, so fearless? Oh, it took time—and patience. One had to come every day, At the same hour, And sit very still, And softly, softly, Monotonously, monotonously, Croon, croon, croon, As I am crooning now. At first one cast one's seed At a distance— Then nearer, nearer, Till at last— Well, you ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... chairman spoke ower high aboot my abeelity," said Sandy; "but as far as lies in my pooer, I will never budge from my post, but stand firm." At this point, Sandy's fit slippit aff the edge o' the sofa, an' he cam' stoit doon an' gae Moses Certricht a daud i' the lug wi' the croon o' his heid, that sent Moses' heid ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... him 'an you. Jest make your apoalogies till 'im and tell 'im you had a drop too much, and your soary for misbehavin' yerself to wann sae much your shuperrior. Tell him that, Ma'colm, an' there's a half croon to ye." ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald |
