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Doleful   Listen
adjective
Doleful  adj.  Full of dole or grief; expressing or exciting sorrow; sorrowful; sad; dismal. "With screwed face and doleful whine." "Regions of sorrow, doleful shades."
Synonyms: Piteous; rueful; sorrowful; woeful; melancholy; sad gloomy; dismal; dolorous; woe-begone.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Doleful" Quotes from Famous Books



... "with little sleep by the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love." On the morrow they sailed; "and truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting; to see what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound among them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other's hearts; that sundry of the Dutch strangers, that stood on the quay as spectators, could not refrain from tears. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... Look now,—see him look at it. It would be very like him. He's fond of such doleful things. He has a way of haunting the Church-yard. Aaron sees him ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... doleful mockery lieth under these joyful tidings of thine; since thou hast already partly told me to my sad bewilderment what the life of man shall be in those days. Yet will I now for a little set all that aside to consider thy strange tale as ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris

... still I Procris lov'd: "Still in my bosom Procris reign'd, and still "Procris, my tongue repeated. Oft I urg'd "The sacred couch, the new-felt joys, the rites "So recent, and the plighted faith just given, "To her deserted: when the goddess flam'd, "Exclaiming;—Ingrate! cease thy doleful plaints, "Enjoy thy Procris,—if I right foresee "Thou'lt rue that wish'd enjoyment:—Angry thus "She fled me. Slow returning, much I mus'd, "The goddess' words recalling: fear me thrill'd, "Lest Procris had her nuptial ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... happy, in spite of Kate's doleful prophecies. Certainly they looked happy enough to-day," declared Cyril, patting a yawn as he rose to his feet. "I fancy Will and Aunt Hannah are lonesome, ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter

... Ellis, with a doleful expression. "Tell me, Bracebridge, did you ever see a bear attempt to practise the Terpsichorean art. I should be very like the monster if I were to try it. But it is not that—there is something I cannot tell you about which makes me so unhappy, that I never expect ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... They taste a final woe, and then they rest. Theirs is yon House that holds the parish poor, Whose walls of mud scarce bear the broken door; There, where the putrid vapours, flagging, play, And the dull wheel hums doleful through the day;- There children dwell who know no parents' care; Parents, who know no children's love, dwell there! Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed; Dejected widows with unheeded tears, And crippled age with ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe

... doleful you look!' she cried gaily. 'How can you look so dreadfully doleful on such a bright day? Now tell me every simple, ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... a ditch, the master has hurt himself against a stake; he has dislocated and twisted his ankle, broken his head by falling on a stone, while his Gorgon shot far away from his buckler. His mighty braggadocio plume rolled on the ground; at this sight he uttered these doleful words, "Radiant star, I gaze on thee for the last time; my eyes close to all light, I die." Having said this, he falls into the water, gets out again, meets some runaways and pursues the robbers with his spear at their backsides.[261] ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... being enacted under the shade-tree, another amusement, in connection with the fiesta of San Marcos, was in progress in front of the church. The musicians with the long horns made doleful music; a dozen gayly-costumed dancers took part. They wore dark trousers slitted up the sides; bright kerchiefs, with the point hanging down in front, were tied about the waists; crowns of plumes were on the heads; red vests and kerchiefs, crossed ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... the house communicated by a back door; so that with a hop, skip, and jump from the threshold, across a flat tombstone, the two children [Endnote: 4] were in the daily habit of using the dismal cemetery as their playground. In their graver moods they spelled out the names and learned by heart doleful verses on the headstones; and in their merrier ones (which were much the more frequent) they chased butterflies and gathered dandelions, played hide-and-seek among the slate and marble, and tumbled laughing over ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... but the sight of one made me tremble. So many people shared in this feeling that the poplars were all cut down and elms planted in their stead. The Johnstown academy and churches were large square buildings, painted white, surrounded by these same sombre poplars, each edifice having a doleful bell which seemed to be ever tolling for school, funerals, church, or prayer meetings. Next to the worms, those clanging bells filled me with the utmost dread; they seemed like so many warnings of an eternal future. Visions of the Inferno were strongly impressed on my childish imagination. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... it is true what they say: a stork can seldom open his bill without complaining. But what made the thing he said sound even more doleful was that it was difficult for him to speak out. He stood for a long time and only clattered with his bill; afterward he spoke in a hoarse and feeble voice. He complained about everything: the nest—which was situated at the very top of the roof-tree at Glimminge castle—had ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... he raised his nose in the air and gave vent to a long, melancholy howl. He watched the wagon out of sight, and even followed for a hundred yards or so, raising his voice from time to time in the most doleful howlings. ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton

... to you so quietly that I don't interrupt you—even when you talk absurd nonsense. How can one look doleful and disagreeable if honest, highly constituted men indulge in conversation with each other for a few hours after hard work? I delight in this harmless enjoyment, in which people forget all the cares of the day. Here ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... The frogs, down by the whispering water's edge, joined their chorus to the night music; and on every side, keeping at a respectful distance from the smoke of the fire, the mosquitoes "all in a wailful choir" uttered their little, thin, doleful tunes. And always, far up in the dark pinetops, like bells in a cathedral tower, rang out the clear, enchanting, metallic notes; the long liquid carol ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... predictions of the doleful lady seemed likely to be verified; for David Means continued to "fail up." Always a slight man, he was now mere skin and bone, and his cheerful smile grew pathetic to see. He was a distant cousin of Anne Peace's, and had ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

... rocking-chairs, their footstools, slippers, cushions, and all those little official comforts of which they nave been so cruelly deprived. That man must, indeed, be hard-hearted who would refuse to sympathise with their sorrows, or to uplift his voice in the doleful Whig ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari. Vol. 1, July 31, 1841 • Various

... the aspect presented by the latter, their wild and haggard countenances and wasted frames, - so wasted by hunger and disease, that their old companions found it difficult to recognize them. Montenegro accounted for his delay by incessant head winds and bad weather; and he himself had also a doleful tale to tell of the distress to which he and his crew had been reduced by hunger, on their passage to the Isle of Pearls. - It is minute incidents like these with which we have been occupied, that enable one to comprehend the extremity of suffering to which the Spanish adventurer ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott

... in the east, gray with threatening rain, cut off any warmth there might have been in the rising sun and sharpened the raw wind to a knifelike edge. The man on the truck was too engrossed with the thoughts that shook his plump shoulders in regularly recurring, silent chuckles, and a ludicrously doleful effort to shut off with upturned collar the draft from the back of his neck, to hear the boy's approaching footsteps. He started guiltily to his feet in the very middle of a spasmodic upheaval, to stand and stare questioningly at the big figure whose fingers had plucked tentatively ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans

... the thorough fright which he and his friend the Czar felt during the saddest days of 1813. Alexander told a Prussian clergyman, named Egbert, in 1818, that, during one of their flights before Napoleon,—probably on that doleful day when they had to retreat from Dresden, amid wind and rain, and before the French reverse at Kulm had put a good face on the affairs of the Alliance,—Frederick William III. said to him: "Things cannot go on so! we are in the direction ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... of Athelstane in a doleful panegyric; another, in a Saxon genealogical poem, rehearsed the uncouth and harsh names of his noble ancestry. Jesters and jugglers were not awanting, nor was the occasion of the assembly supposed to render the exercise ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... gates behind him. He entered upon a period of suffering—a period of labor and toil and sorrow such as he had never before known, and such as the animals certainly have never known. And in that distressful state, in that doleful valley of his long pilgrimage, he still ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

... grinding of a key in the lock, the shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. Then the door opened, and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure—the Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk with him—Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in all the dismal and terrorizing doings of the capture and the trial and sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned a little pale, for it seemed ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... unhappy to be born to love, without hope of enjoying him whom I love? This doleful thought oppresses me so much, that I should die, were I not persuaded that you love me: but this sweet comfort balances my despair, and preserves my life. Tell me that you love me always; I will keep your letter carefully, and read it a thousand times a day; I will endure my afflictions ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... powers, The earth, the fair earth, again is ours! At my stern approach, pale Autumn flings down In the dust her broken and faded crown; At my glance the terrified mourner flies, And the earth is filled with her doleful cries. Awake!—for the season of flowers is o'er,— My white banner unfurl on each northern shore! Ye have slumbered long in my icy chain— Ye are free to travel the land and main. Spirits of frost! quit your ...
— Enthusiasm and Other Poems • Susanna Moodie

... gives him his Part, that was, to act the Ghost. He puts on a Dress, and wraps himself up in a Shrowd, and carrying a live Coal in a Shell, it appear'd through his Shrowd as if something were burning. About Night he goes to the Place where this Play was acted, there were heard most doleful Moans. Faunus lets fly all his Exorcisms. At Length the Ghost appears a good Way off in the Bushes, every now and then shewing the Fire, and making a rueful Groaning. While Faunus was adjuring ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... derided of strangers, deserted by her sons, roped in as a prize-ring where selfish men struggle ignobly for sordid gains The children of the land fled from it sick with despair. Its deserted houses were full of all doleful things. Cormorants and the daughters of the owl lodged in the ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham

... distant. Not a living thing was to be seen; even the chickens had disappeared. The whole scene was very desolate,—the smoking ruins, the deserted cabin, a cloudy sky. Soon the child remembered her playfellow, Ponto, and began to call him. A doleful whine answered her, seeming to proceed from under one of the negro cabins. Nelly stooped to look, but could only see two glowing eyes, and hear the knocking of the dog's tail upon the ground. Ponto had been so badly frightened ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... astonished Catharine, who, in spite of hunger, could not help regretting the death of the mother bird. Girls and women rarely sympathize with men and boys in their field sports, and Hector laughed at his sister's doleful looks as he handed ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill

... the savage several paces distant violently on the ground, and blackening and scorching his face and hair in a terrible manner. The other Indians instantly prostrated themselves on their faces, and uttered the most doleful lamentations. Thus they remained a few minutes, evidently impressed with the belief that the Great Spirit had interfered to prevent the destruction of the prisoners. Hastily gathering up their arms, they fled precipitately in the direction of their distant home, ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... I, "do all you can to cure him, and I will pay you handsomely, but next time don't look so doleful when you have anything to tell me. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... county, and the brightest jewel in my crown,—that 's what you are!' (He got that idea out of a duet he sings with Almiry Berry.) Now I'd like to know whether that ain't pleasanter than 't is to have a man do all the shed 'n' barn work up smart, and then set round the stove looking as doleful as a last year's bird's nest? Take my advice, Miss Hollis: get a good provider if you can, but anyhow try to find you a husband that'll keep on courting a little now and then, when he ain't too busy; it smooths ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... of Christian, and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... communities — that is, the good ones were taken by the owners of the bad, and the proprietors of the bad ones were fain to make the best of the exchange. Next morning our khidmutgar came up with a most doleful countenance and presented to our notice a pair of certainly most ill-favoured slippers, which a fellow true-believer had INADVERTENTLY substituted for a pair of later date. The lost ones had, in fact, ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... gave them. Their skeletons rattled in every breeze, so that the terrified birds never dared to venture into the garden. All the flowers were supported by human bones instead of sticks, and human skulls in the flower-pots grinned horribly. It was really a doleful garden for a princess. "Do you see all this?" said the old king; "your fate will be the same as those who are here, therefore do not attempt it. You really make me very unhappy,—I take these things ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... the world the poor service of being born into it in the year 1847, in a house not now to be identified in the straggling High Street of West Bromwich, which in those days was a rather doleful hybrid of a place—neither town nor country. It is a compact business-like town now, and its spreading industries have defaced the lovely fringe of country which ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... the storm lulled slightly, but it was still rough. Those of the moving picture company who ventured up on deck went below again with white, scared faces at the sight of the wreckage of the mainmast. For it did look doleful. ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Sea - or, A Pictured Shipwreck That Became Real • Laura Lee Hope

... I am," replied Flaxie, with a doleful look around the corners of her mouth. "This house isn't heated by steam like my house where I live, and I'm drefful easy to freeze!" And her teeth ...
— The Twin Cousins • Sophie May

... which the bulbuls of the poplar groves have taught him. No, he cares not for books. And so, he uncorks the bottle, hands it to Shakib his senior, then takes a nip himself, and, thrumming his lute strings, trolls a few doleful pieces of Arabic song. "In these," he would say to Shakib, pointing to the bottle and the lute, "is real poetry, and not in that book with which you would kill me." And Shakib, in stingless sarcasm, would insist that the music in Al-Mutanabbi's lines is just a little more musical than ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... lost its energy, Or the unbodied spirits of my fathers, Beneath the night's dark wings, pass to and fro, In doleful agitation hovering round me. Methought my father, with a mournful look, Beheld me. Sudden from unconscious pause I wak'd, and but his ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary

... fists to ascertain its strength, believed that I could cross the sound to the other village without rolling over. One kind-hearted oysterman offered to carry myself and boat to Portsmouth, but as the day was calm, I rowed away on the five-mile stretch amid doleful prognostications, such as: "That feller will make a coffin for hisself out of that yere gimcrack of an egg-shell. It's all a man's life is wurth to go ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... luckless day! What words of fear Are these that smite upon my ear With such a doleful sound! What torments rack my heart and head! Would I were dead! would I were dead, And buried in ...
— The Golden Legend • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... promptly, having so little to do in this doleful weather, and came for orders. Mr. Fairfax asked for some coffee, and waited in silence while the man brought a little tray with cups and saucers and a great copper coffee-pot, out of which he poured the black ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... I did while he ate his breakfast and went on to speak of his car almost as lovingly as a man speaks of the new girl he met for the first time yesterday. Just as we were leaving the hotel and he was getting back to his doleful manner a bit, I put in my word and I could see that ...
— The Man Who Drove the Car • Max Pemberton

... speak at once and Jed began to whistle a doleful melody. Then the former declared, with emphasis: "I think SOME dogs are ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln

... contemptible. He concluded by assuring me that I had been very ill advised to come there, and that the best course I could pursue was to take the first ship home again. As I was not yet inclined to follow this doleful piece of advice, we continued our enquiries. In a short time I was shaking hands with the jeweller to whom my letter of introduction was addressed; and before another hour had elapsed, acting under his instructions, ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... pronounced on the side of free divorce than in other States, since in Washington, Oregon, and Montana one divorce to every five marriages is reported, in Colorado and Indiana one to every six, and in Oklahoma, California, and Maine one to every seven marriages. We need not accept the doleful suggestion of Professor Willcox that if we go on this way, "by 1950 one-fourth of all marriages will be terminated by divorce, and by 1990 one-half so terminated," for it is not necessary or likely that we shall "go on" in this particular. Already, movements toward ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... during these days; he only looked, and his doleful gestures, his lugubrious grimaces, were comic. He stood to lose nothing, except possible profits for Helen. She was paying him full rental, but he claimed that his house was being ruined. "It will ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland

... her opinion and her logic for what they are worth, the clergy preach doleful sermons about her losing her beautiful home character, about her innocence being gone, about their idea of her glorious exaltation as wife and mother being destroyed. Then they grow florid and exclaim that "man is after all subject to her, that he is born for ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... have a song to sing, O! [SHE] Sing me your song, O! [HE] It is sung to the knell Of a churchyard bell, And a doleful dirge, ding dong, O! It's a song of a popinjay, bravely born, Who turned up his noble nose with scorn At the humble merrymaid, peerly proud, Who loved that lord, and who laughed aloud At the moan of the merryman, moping mum, Whose soul was sad, whose glance ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... twinkling, "has been with us five-and-twenty years. I had better do as she tells me." He threw a doleful glance at the unappetizing tea in Sara's cup. "I positively dare not order you fresh tea—in the circumstances. Jane would probably retaliate with an ultimatum involving a rigid choice between tea and the preparation of your room, accompanied by a ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... The clock ticked loud and warningly. There was a sighing of the wind about the windows, as if it sought admittance to reason and remonstrate with her. A cricket sang his monotonous song on the hearth. In the wainscot of the room a deathwatch ticked its doleful omen. The dog in the courtyard howled plaintively as the hour of midnight sounded upon the Convent bell, close by. The bell had scarcely ceased ere she was startled by a slight creaking like the opening of a door, followed by a whispering and the rustle of a woman's garments, as of one approaching ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... for gracious sake, be lively drunk, not deadly doleful.—Cheer up, Percy!' I clapped him on the shoulder, —almost knocking him off his seat on to the floor. 'I am now going to show you that little experiment of which I ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... rapt he stands, "HATH GIVEN THEM INTO OUR HANDS!" 'Tis the ninth month and second day, A wild, wet night, historians say. Quit you like men, and bravely stand; Death's wrestle now is close at hand; Heed not the hoarse sea's doleful moan, As on the cliffs its waves are thrown. Think not of life nor kindred dear— Who goes to war should nothing fear But God, whose eye-lids never sleep— His Israel He will safely keep. Oh, pray! but ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant

... banker, "at your old tricks, aren't you? In the cemetery and perfectly happy, I suppose. No 'Hark from the tombs, a doleful sound' in years, eh?... Hum! You don't look very happy this time, though." Then, with a comprehensive glance at the surroundings, he shrugged and added, ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... love of Heaven, my Lord," said Hippolita, "disclose the cause of this transport! What mean these doleful sounds, this alarming exclamation on my name? What woes has heaven still in store for the wretched Hippolita? Yet silent! By every pitying angel, I adjure thee, noble Prince," continued she, falling at his feet, "to disclose the purport of what lies at thy heart. I see thou feelest for ...
— The Castle of Otranto • Horace Walpole

... doleful complaint that there were no stage-coaches nowadays. And he asked in an injured tone what had become of all those old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on either side, that used to be drawn by a plough-horse, and driven by a farmer's wife and daughter, peddling whortle-berries and blackberries ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... service moved along after the singing of a doleful hymn, the sobbing and wailing increased. The preacher eulogized the departed, praising his many good deeds while on earth, and urged his hearers on to added hysteria with, "Sing Brother Tom's favorite hymn, Oh, ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... was kept in a large box, so that it might be placed in the house during the winter. The boys expected it would bear fruit next year. One day John burst into the room where Thomas, Samuel, and his father were sitting, and exclaimed with a doleful voice: ...
— The Summer Holidays - A Story for Children • Amerel

... guid purpose, in respect there were only his honour's body servants who had swords and pistols, and the depredators were twelve Highlanders, completely armed after the manner of their country.—Having delivered this doleful annunciation, he assumed a posture of silent dejection, shaking his head slowly with the motion of a pendulum when it is ceasing to vibrate, and then remained stationary, his body stooping at a more acute angle than usual, and the latter part ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... musical phrases. Its observance now put even Sissy in good humor, so that when the time came for the Recluse to make his appearance, she left the piano, and stalking miserably about with the preliminary cough with which the unfortunate Professor Trask was afflicted, she sang her doleful recitative. ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... at that place we could but account his judgment good, and wish him good speed and that he might come home from that famous Italian school a luminary of learning. When, at his departing, I saw that Ann was in no better heart than I was, but looked right doleful, I thought it was by reason of the sickness which for some while past had now and again fallen on her good father. Kunz likewise had quitted school, and he could not complain that learning weighed too heavily on his light heart and merry spirit. He was now serving his apprenticeship ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... Mary gave up all hope as soon as she saw it. There was not room even for one pansy. The windows looked out on chimneys and roofs and other backyards, with lines of wet clothes flapping in the sun. Not a tree was to be seen. Any one might be excused for thinking it doleful; and Mary, having made up her mind beforehand to dislike it, found it ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... Witherington needs must I wail As one in doleful dumps, For when his legs were smitten off, ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... cold, the nights are long, The north-wind sings a doleful song; Then hush again upon my breast; All merry things are now at rest, Save thee, my ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... threshold of the hut was watching Poeri go away, thought she heard a faint sigh. She listened; some dogs were baying to the moon, an owl uttered its doleful hoot, and the crocodiles moaned between the reeds of the river, imitating the cry of a child in distress. The young Israelite was about to re-enter the hut when a more distinct moan, which could not be attributed to the vague sounds of night, and which certainly came from a human ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... then?—It cannot be— Too many tears for lovers have been shed, 90 Too many sighs give we to them in fee, Too much of pity after they are dead, Too many doleful stories do we see, Whose matter in bright gold were best be read; Except in such a page where Theseus' spouse Over the pathless waves towards ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... Margaret, that long ere this shall meet thy beloved eyes, Denys, my most dear friend, will have sought thee out, and told thee the manner of our unlooked for and most tearful parting. Therefore I will e'en begin at that most doleful day. What befell him after, poor faithful soul, fain, fain would I hear, but may not. But I pray for him day and night next after thee, dearest. Friend more stanch and loving had not David in Jonathan, than I in him. Be good to him, for poor ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... theatre, at which Washington witnessed for the first time a dramatic representation, a species of amusement of which he afterwards became fond. It was in the present instance the doleful tragedy of George Barnwell. "The character of Barnwell, and several others," notes he in his journal, "were said to be well performed. There was music adapted and regularly conducted." A ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving

... Larry, hurrying off toward the baggage car. In a few minutes Mr. Wakeham appeared with the doleful news that the trunk was not in the car and must ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... the Academicians, "Sons of Canvas;" sometimes "Tagrags and bobtails of the sacred brush." He afterwards wrote a doleful elergy, "The Sorrows of Peter," and seems not to have thought himself sufficiently patronized, alluding to ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... disposition towards merriment at his cousin's expense entertained by the squire, it vanished instantly at the sight of the captain's doleful visage and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ago he turned up at the place with a doleful story. Said that he had been trading among the Zulus; he was what we call a 'smouse' out here, and got into a row with them, I don't know how. The end of it was that they burned his waggon, looted his trade-goods and oxen, and ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... made a sound of approval, which sounded like a groan of pain. Those were the ships for him. He pointed out in doleful tones that you couldn't say to labour-saving appliances: "Jump lively now, my hearties." No labour-saving appliance would go aloft on a dirty night with the sands ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with the drum and horn. A man has forced his way close by the stage,—a man with a confounded cracked hurdy-gurdy. Whine! whine! creaks the hurdy-gurdy. "Stop that! stop that mu-zeek!" ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... through these winter months of the year 1787! The very Oeil-de-Boeuf is doleful, uncertain; with a general feeling among the Suppressed, that it were better to be in Turkey. The Wolf-hounds are suppressed, the Bear-hounds, Duke de Coigny, Duke de Polignac: in the Trianon little-heaven, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... imbue me still With some reminder, when the night is chill, Of thy dear presence, as, in winter-time, The maiden moon, that tenderly doth climb The lofty heavens, hath yet a beam to spare For doleful wretches in their dungeon-lair; E'en thus endow me in my chamber dim With some reminder of thy ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... much. The Afghan war cost twenty-one millions sterling. Who dares then to say that Britain cannot provide a million sterling to rescue, not one or two captives, but a million, whose lot is quite as doleful as that of the prisoners of savage kings, but who are to be found, not in the land of the Soudan, or in the swamps of Ashantee, or in the Mountains of the Moon, but here at our very doors? Don't talk to me about the impossibility ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... is still preserved in the North of England. 399 Frende[gh], fellen in fere, famed to-geder. Friends, fallen in company, embraced (fathomed) together. The verb fame in Early English also signifies to grope. 400 dry[gh], suffer; delful, doleful. 404 freten, devoured; wa[gh]e[gh], waves. 406 hurkled, rested. This word is still preserved in the local dialects of the North of England, with the sense of "to cower," "squat." 407 mourkne, rotten. 409 here, company. 411 a[gh]t-sum, in care, sorrowful. 413 hurlande gote[gh], ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... and one, my little Anslem, cried: "Thou lookest so! Father what ails thee?" Yet I shed no tear, nor answer'd all that day Nor the next night, until another sun Came out upon the world. When a faint beam Had to our doleful prison made its way, And in four countenances I descry'd The image of my own, on either hand Through agony I bit, and they who thought I did it through desire of feeding, rose O' th' sudden, and cried, 'Father, we should grieve Far less, if thou wouldst eat of us: thou ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... many words that since he was already autocrat of all the Chinese, he had only to endorse the principle of Japanese guidance in his administration to find that his Throne would be as good as publicly and solidly established. Being saturated with the doleful diplomacy of Korea, and seeing in these proposals a mere trap, Yuan Shih-kai, as we have shown, had drawn back in apparent alarm. Nevertheless the words spoken had sunk in deep, for the simple and excellent reason that ever since the coup d'etat of the 4th November, 1913, the necessity of "consolidating" ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale

... Doleful were the accounts received from time to time of Louis Mortimer's life with his tutor at Dashwood Rectory; and, if implicit credence might be yielded to them, it would be supposed that no poor mortal was ever ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... raised a doleful cry. "I wish Bill Smithers had trod on my hand, insteader me treddin' on his'n." The sore joints of the regiment creaked as it painfully floundered into position ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane

... and by others, to that of fate. Karma demands the full future fruition of every act done in the body; and many re-births, with intervals of keener suffering and bliss in numerous hells and heavens, are the countless steps in the doleful fugue of emancipation—a process which is enough to appall any but the patient, stolid soul of a Hindu. And yet this weary detail of a very long and sisyphean effort to shake off this mortal coil and to enter into ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... its course for a space, to fill some empty reservoir, His love comes back to its original direction. How abundant the power and mercy, to which such a work as that just done was but a parenthesis! The doleful music and the shrill shrieks of Eastern mourning, which met them as they entered Jairus's house, disturbed the sanctity of the hour, and were in strong contrast with the majestic calmness of Jesus. Not amid venal lamentations and excited cries will He ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... thou with the most doleful tears called me forth leaning on the support of a blind foot[50] to the light, a bed-ridden man from his darksome chamber, gray-headed, an obscure phantom of air—a dead body ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... final abandonment of Melville Island, in 1829, the live animals, stores, plants, etc., were transferred to Raffles Bay, but although such doleful accounts of the island had been sent down, Captain Lawes, who visited it only a few months before the removal, gives a favourable report of its healthiness, and of the success attending the growth of vegetables and tropical fruits. The same dismal reports ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart—such ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... having lifted up his eyes and looked about; for he had watched her closely until now; 'is your brother himself; no doubt, just come down. As he seems to be loitering in this direction, it may be as well, perhaps, to walk towards him, and throw ourselves in his way. He has been very silent and doleful of late. Perhaps, his brotherly conscience is touched - if there are such things as consciences. Though, upon my honour, I hear of them much too often ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... begging, fairs and donation parties, they have helped to plant religious temples on every hill-top and valley, and in the streets of all our cities, so that the doleful church bell is forever ringing in our ears. The Levites have not been an unqualified blessing, ever fanning the flames of religious persecution they have been the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the petitioner worries me with his clamours, and hurries me too much to prevent my finishing cautiously, even if I have so begun my task. One vexes me past endurance by his interruptions and innuendoes; another torments me with the doleful tale of his miseries; others surround me with the mad shouts of their seditious contentions[193]. In such circumstances how can you expect elegance of language, when we have scarcely opportunity to put words together in any fashion? Even at night indescribable cares are ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... Mulatto boy, a German tailor and his wife, (the smallest couple I ever beheld,) and a Jew. We were all on the deck; but in a short time I observed marks of dismay. The lady retired to the cabin in some confusion, and many of the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick, and the giddiness soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... hills, more than twenty miles away. When they were near the city gate they met a funeral procession coming out. They were going to the burying ground on a hillside not far away. There were hired mourners, as is the custom in that country, who made many doleful noises, and behind them came a weeping woman—the mother of the young man who ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury

... number of their prisoners. The brutes were half-drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as 'O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzenstrompet, Mein Kanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket,' 'Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter.' and the like; their wild whoops and jodels making doleful discord with the groans of us captives within the waggons. Many a time afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or in the barrack-room, or round the fires as we lay out ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... your kind offices, Maria Nikolaevna and Piotr Vassilitch,' she said in a doleful sing-song to my mother and father. 'I've no help for it! There were days, but they are over. Here I am, an excellency, and a poor honour it is ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev

... of the Comedie to its home was an event, but an event that was kept quiet. Our departure from Paris had been very lively and gay, and quite a public function. Our return was clandestine for many of the members, and for me among the number. It was a doleful return for those who had not been appreciated, whilst those who had ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt

... they have known it. They are, therefore, no firmer in their unbelief than in their faith. They live in an ebbing and flowing tide, which unceasingly carries them from one to the other. [Footnote: Montesq., i. 251. Letter lxxv.] Making a large allowance for satire, we have yet an interesting and doleful picture of a small but important part of the French nation. And it is noticeable that the Persian Letters precede by thirteen years Voltaire's "Philosophical," ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... then, throw aside your doleful looks. If you show yourself to others in your present state, people will take you for a ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... gnawing his shoulders. Then suddenly he ceased weeping and gnawing and gnashing his teeth, and fell into a sombre reverie, inclining his tear-stained face to one side in the attitude of one listening. And so he remained for a long time, doleful, determined, from every one ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev

... Docket karteto, bileto. Doctor Doktoro. Doctor (med.) kuracisto. Doctrine dogmaro. Document dokumento. Doff demeti. Dog hundo. Dogged obstina. Doghouse hundodometo. Dog kennel hundejo. Dogma dogmo. Dole disdoni. Doleful funebra. Doll pupo. Dollar dolaro. Dolphin delfeno. Dolt malsagxulo. Domain bieno. Dome kupolo. Domestic hejma. Domestic servisto—ino. Domicile logxejo. Dominant potenca. Domination potenco. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... option but to obey, but the awesome tune had carried its doleful message. The mournful notes had reached the ears of the wounded lad in the canoe. Its message was plain to him. Walter was a captive, or in great danger. And now began a contest between will-power and pain and weakness from which many ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... would thus be huddled up. All of a sudden, at the beginning of June, De Ruyter led out his fleet, and with a fair wind behind him stood for the Thames. All is fair in war. England was caught napping. The doleful history reads like that of a sudden piratical onslaught, and reveals the fatal inefficiency of the administration. Sheerness was practically defenceless. "There were a Company or two of very good soldiers there under excellent officers, but the fortifications were so weak and unfinished, ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... are the clarinet, the violoncello and the trombone, wild minstrelsy as of the doleful creatures in Ezekiel, discordant, but infinitely pathetic. Gone is that scarebabe stentor, that bellowing bull of Bashan the village blacksmith, gone is the melodious carpenter, gone the brawny shepherd with the red hair, who roared more lustily than all, until they came to the ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... the former had an unfortunate taste for philosophical discussion, and was postponing his return to Rome (he was good enough to say) from day to day in order to enjoy these long mornings in Cicero's conversation. Such are the doleful complaints in two or three of the letters to Atticus; but, like all such complaints, they were probably only half in earnest: popularity, even at a watering-place, was not very unpleasant, and the writer doubtless knew ...
— Cicero - Ancient Classics for English Readers • Rev. W. Lucas Collins

... banished doleful and pessimistic verse, and has dwelt on hope, courage, cheerfulness and helpfulness. The book should serve, too, as an introduction to the greater poems, informing taste for them and appreciation of them, against the time when the boy or girl, grown into youth ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay

... sang most doleful strains, and the bending branches of the trees sighed sadly over them. Lorrimer was filled with an anxious tribulation, as he remembered the story of the villany that, two nights before, near the spot where they now walked, and perhaps at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... him to an ancient aik, Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years; His locks were bleached white with time, His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears! And as he touch'd his trembling harp, And as he tun'd his doleful sang, The winds, lamenting thro' their caves, To Echo bore ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns

... from the public gaze, the girl crowded back into a corner of the cab, as though trying to efface herself. Her eyes closed almost automatically; the curve of laughing lips became a doleful droop; a crinkle appeared between the arched brows; waves of burning crimson flooded her face ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance

... please," and Patty assumed a doleful expression, drew down the corners of her mouth, and wrung ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells

... distinct breeds of terriers toward rats. Across the room, just within reach of the flickering ruddy firelight from the hearth, the American guest, Miss Madden, was seated at the piano, playing some low and rather doleful music. Thorpe bent his head, and assumed an air of attention, but in truth he listened to neither the Honourable Balder nor the piano. His thoughts were concentrated jealously upon his own position in this novel setting. He said to himself that it was ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... chateau the visitor found himself in a broad and lofty hall, containing a grand old staircase, with a richly carved, wooden balustrade—a good deal broken and defaced now, like everything else in this doleful Castle Misery. The walls had been elaborately frescoed, representing colossal figures of Hercules supporting brackets upon which rested the heavily ornamented cornice. Springing from it fantastic ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... spectacle to convulse the soberest person. Perched unsteadily on the gnarled stump, with his muddy legs drawn up, his dismal face splashed with mud, and the whole lower half of his body as black as if he had been dipped in an inkstand, he presented such a comically doleful object that Ben danced about, laughing like a naughty will-o'-the-wisp who, having led a traveler astray, then ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various

... the body to be pulled out of the mud. So some of the Indians "took hold of him by his stockings, and some by his small breeches (being otherwise naked) and drew him through the mud to the upland; and a doleful, great, naked, dirty beast he looked like," according ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... eternal happiness! I am not afraid of death, but I must put my house in order, for bullets respect no man, and they have never yet been taught that an emperor is not to be approached without ceremony. One might strike me on the head and send me to my eternal rest. Why, what a doleful face you wear, Quarin! 'L'Empereur est mort!—Vive l'Empereur!' I shall bequeath to you a noble young emperor and a beautiful arid charming empress. Is not that better than a surly old fellow like myself? Francis is my pride, and his sweet Elizabeth is like a daughter to me. I must then make ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... time Rowdy had been circling the spot where the cabin had stood, occasionally sending up a doleful howl. ...
— Boy Scouts in Southern Waters • G. Harvey Ralphson

... this tall young Spaniard, with his impatient eyes and haughty intelligent face, and it is possible that the lady in Mexico had added to his burden by doleful prayers to return. He took a letter from his pocket, read it half through, then walked rapidly over to the mission, seeking interest in the work of the Indians. Under the keen merciless supervision of the padres,—the cleverest body ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... water caused Don Camillo to pause. On looking out he saw a dense body of boats sweeping towards the town as if they were all impelled by a single set of oars. A thousand voices were speaking at once, and occasionally a general and doleful cry proclaimed that the floating multitude, which came on, was moved by a common feeling. The singularity of the spectacle, and the fact that his own gondola lay directly in the route of the fleet, ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... were queerer still. Though he tried to make them rollicking and merry, he succeeded only in giving a number of doleful whines. ...
— The Tale of Bobby Bobolink - Tuck-me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... dirge in Norman French; the words, of which the following is an imitation, were united to a tune as doleful as they ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... here on earth deserves Half of the thought we waste about it, And thinking but destroys the nerves, When we could do so well without it: If folks would let the world go round, And pay their tithes, and eat their dinners, Such doleful looks would not be found, To frighten us poor laughing sinners. Never sigh when you can sing, But laugh, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... toys she loved, and the doll Beautiful hath come down all battered and grim,—yet, oh! so very precious to me, from those distant years; yonder fareth the Queen of Sheba in her service as handmaiden unto me and mine,—gaunt and doleful-eyed, yet stanch and sturdy as of old. The garden lieth under the Christmas snow,—the garden where ghosts of trees wave their arms and moan over the graves of flowers; the once gracious arbor is crippled now with the infirmities ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field

... good suggestion for worriers? Write down everything which you think is going to turn out badly, and then put the list aside. You will be surprised to see what a small percentage of the doleful things ever come ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... of greatness and glory filled her heart, and the additional respect that was universally paid her, contributed not a little to increase them. The queen was given over by her physicians: the few Portuguese women that had not been sent back to their own country filled the court with doleful cries; and the good nature of the king was much affected with the situation in which he saw a princess, whom, though he did not love her, yet he greatly esteemed. She loved him tenderly, and thinking that it was the last time she should ever speak ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... nor less authenticated than any other well established history, testimony as to the existence of one species of Elemental of much the same order as the werwolf is recorded by Isaiah. In chapter xiii., verse 21, we read: "And their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there." Satyrs! we repeat; are not satyrs every whit as grotesque and outrageous as werwolves? Why, then, should those who, regarding the Scriptures as infallible, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell

... ambitious. His companions fearing his good fortune might make him feel a "little too high minded," sought to tease him. The evening before their return, after eating nuts and apples, they agreed to have a little singing. They struck up "Hark, from the Tombs a Doleful Sound," to the tune, Bangor. They sang it slowly and solemnly, now and then casting at him glances from their mischievous eyes. He sat a silent listener, while their song, sung in fun, made an earnest impression of which ...
— A Story of One Short Life, 1783 to 1818 - [Samuel John Mills] • Elisabeth G. Stryker

... told with late and early tears, My grievous injuries in doleful song; Not that I hope from thee less cruel nights; And therefore am I urged to pray for death, Which hence would take me but to crown with joy, Where lives she whom I sing in ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... sham rack Of metre that mourns you sincerely; E'en that hard nut o' natur, the great Alligator, Has eyes that look red, and blink queerly. Mere "crocodile's tears," some may snigger; but jeers Must disgust at a moment so doleful. For JAMRACH the brave, who has gone to his grave, All our ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand

... 3d of September, a Frenchwoman, at the risk of being torn in pieces by the furious Muscovites, ventured to leave her hiding-place. She wandered a long time through extensive quarters, the solitude of which astonished her, when a distant and doleful sound thrilled her with terror. It was like the funeral dirge of this vast city; fixed in motionless suspense, she beheld an immense multitude of persons of both sexes in deep affliction, carrying their ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... himself for this moment, and yet he trembled. "I am deeply grieved, monsieur," he replied, with a doleful smile; "it was this matter that kept me out so much later than usual this evening. I hoped to have obtained the money from a banker, who has always accommodated me before—M. Prosper Bertomy, you know him: he married ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau

... they reached the shores of the Beresina and found fuel and fire and victuals, countless wagons and tents, a whole improvised town, in short. The whole village of Studzianka had been removed piecemeal from the heights of the plain, and the very perils and miseries of this dangerous and doleful habitation smiled invitingly to the wayfarers, who beheld no prospect beyond it but the awful Russian deserts. A huge hospice, in short, was erected for twenty hours of existence. Only one thought—the thought ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac

... singing doleful hymns of praise under trees. Apparently they were not especially elated. They believed that Sir George White was a prisoner, and that we were flying in rout from Ladysmith. They said that they had Rhodes shut up in Kimberley, and would hang him when they caught him. That on their side—and ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a mass of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large space down to the edge of the forest brook near which he reclined, he would have remained invisible ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... when was not something happening to some of us?) and we were shut up in a sick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful face of Aunt Esther,—not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-room nurses, but with a never-failing flow of wit and story that could beguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions. I remember how a fit of the quinsy—most tedious of all sicknesses to an active child—was gilded and glorified into quite a fete by my having Aunt Esther all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... "take hold of my arm; no one shall molest you. We will look for your brother, and try to recover your things;" and on we went together: I, weeping, I may truly say, for my life, stopped at every step, while he related my doleful story to all whose curiosity was excited ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... Ezra Ray, with disconsolate gaping face over his shoulder, retreated with awkward lopes across the field, the cow-bell accompanying his steps with doleful notes. ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... level ground, and, supported between Lucilla and the guide, whom the mischance had converted from a comedy clown to a delicately considerate assistant, she set out for the inn where the car had been left. The progress lasted for two doleful hours, every step worse than the last, and, much exhausted, she at length sank upon the sofa in the little ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Texas Folk Songs, Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1950. A miscellany of British ballads, American ballads, "songs of doleful love," etc. collected in Texas mostly from country people of Anglo-American stock. Musical scores for all ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... were delights to Nannie. Both girls had an absorbingly good time, and when the last day of the last week finally arrived, and Mr. Robert Ferguson appeared to escort them home, they were both of them distinctly doleful. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... here is: "This was a custom generally received, and which passed from the Hebrews to the Greeks, Romans, and Asiatics. There were weepers by profession, of both sexes, who sung doleful tunes round the dead." Harmer Volume ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell

... answers, I said to them, "Turn your faces, and direct your eyes to the midst of the forest, where the cavern is in which you have been;" and they turned themselves, and saw that great serpent around the cavern in spiral foldings, breathing poison, and also the doleful birds in the branches over the serpents. I then asked them, "What do you see?" But being much terrified, they did not answer; and I said, "Do you see the dreadful sight? Know then that this is a representative of adultery in the baseness ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg

... followed him, along a line of stake-and-rider fence, with the woods on one side and the bright moonlight flooding a field of young cotton on the other. Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs, now the doleful call of the chuck-will's-widow; and once Mary's blood turned, for an instant, to ice, at the unearthly shriek of the hoot-owl just above her head. At length they found themselves in a dim, narrow ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... then without pain should undergo a glorious change making him a perfect peer of the angels, and be translated to their lofty abode in his own presence; but, when he sinned, God gave him over to manifold suffering, and on the destruction of his body adjudged his naked soul to descend to a doleful imprisonment below the grave. The immortality meant for man was a timely ascent to heaven in a paradisal clothing, without dying. The doom brought on him by sin was the alteration of that desirable change of bodies and ascension to the supernal splendors, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... very act o' business. She were an' old lady in a pair-'oss phaeton wi' plenty o' sparklers an' nice white hair: a rosy old creetur, comfortably plump and round—'specially in front. 'O Mr. 'ighwayman!' says she, weepin' doleful as she tipped me 'er purse an' the shiners, ''ow could ye do it?' 'Ma'm,' I says, wipin' my eyes wi' my pistol—and—'ma'm, I don't know—but do it I must!' An' I rode away quite down-'earted." Here he turned to regard me with his ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... us the best part of the way," said Ford, when at last they took their seats; "but we'll have a doleful little ride on a small railway, early ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard

... What brings thee here? Those words, my father's life, Like spells by witches breathed to raise the dead, Filled my heart's circle with a crowd of phantoms, Doleful and strange, which groan to be released. Thy news! thy news! Oh! speak them in one word, And let me know ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various

... she weeps Troy's painted woes: For sorrow, like a heavy-hanging bell, Once set on ringing, with his own weight goes; Then little strength rings out the doleful knell: So Lucrece set a-work sad tales doth tell To pencill'd pensiveness and colour'd sorrow; She lends them words, and she ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... now? Where were the busy gossips? A wild-cat sprang over the briar-laced walls, and made off into the forest. An owl flew sluggishly up from the crumbling cupola, and hovered around our heads, uttering its doleful "woo-hoo-a," that rendered the desolation of the scene more impressive. As we rode through the ruin, a dead stillness surrounded us, broken only by the hooting of the night-bird, and the "cranch-cranch" ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... having spoken, he stretched out with his friendly arms, nor caught him;[729] for the spirit went gibbering[730] beneath the earth, like smoke. Then Achilles sprang up astonished, and clapped together his hands, and spoke this doleful speech: ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer

... could be reckoned in money's-worth. But after the attendant has hurried you from end to end of the edifice, repeating a guide-book by rote, and exorcising each successive hall of its poetic glamour and witchcraft by the mere tone in which he talks about it, you will make the doleful discovery that Warwick Castle has ceased to be a dream. It is better, methinks, to linger on the bridge, gazing at Caesar's Tower and Guy's Tower in the dim English sunshine above, and in the placid Avon below, and still keep ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne



Words linked to "Doleful" :   dolefulness, sad



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