"Melodious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... petticoats and trousers, puckered against the bare plaster. Laurent at first only caught sight of the wan ensemble of stones and walls, spotted with dabs of russet and black formed by the clothes and corpses. A melodious sound of running water ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... love was changed to a great sadness. And because deep thoughts engender melancholy, it was counselled unto him by certain wise men that he should make his study of canzonets for the viol and soft delightful ditties. So made he the most beautiful canzonets and the most delightful and most melodious that at any time were heard." (Histoire des Dues et des Comtes de Champagne, by M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, t. iv. pp. 249, 280; Chroniques de Saint-Denis, in the Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de France, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... romantic-horrible. When Laon, chained to the top of a column, gnaws corpses, we feel that the author of Zastrozzi is still slightly ridiculous, magnificent though his writing has become. It is hard, again, not to smile at this world in which the melodious voices of young eleutherarchs have only to sound for the crouching slave to recover his manhood and for tyrants to tremble and turn pale. The poet knows, as he wrote in answer to a criticism, that his mission is "to apprehend minute and remote distinctions of feeling," and "to communicate the conceptions ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... manners could also be observed in passing from Burgundy and Lorraine, where society relished of German bluntness, into the pastoral country of Provence, where the influence of a fine climate and melodious language, joined to the pursuits of the romantic old monarch, with the universal taste for music and poetry, had introduced a civilization of manners, which approached to affectation. The shepherd literally marched abroad in the morning, piping his flocks forth to the pasture, with some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 373, Supplementary Number • Various
... agglomerations of huts of the shape of the covered markets in the Normandy villages—that is to say, oval or round, made of stakes driven into the ground, and the intervals filled up with herbs and the leaves of trees; and that the speech of these people is soft and melodious. He also speaks of the birds, beasts, fishes, and other curious animals unknown in Christendom, of which Master Nicole le Fevre, of Honfleur, who was a volunteer in the voyage, had taken exact draughts. And, last of all, we are ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... in the glories of the millennium. If Mr. Calhoun had never proclaimed his heresies; if Mr. Garrison had never published his paper; if Mr. Phillips, the Cassandra in masculine shape of our long prosperous Ilium, had never uttered his melodious prophecies; if the silver tones of Mr. Clay had still sounded in the senate-chamber to smooth the billows of contention; if the Olympian brow of Daniel Webster had been lifted from the dust to fix its awful frown on the darkening scowl of rebellion,—we ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... piety in the most generous soul. It suddenly struck the constable's wife that she had never, in fact, seen either of her lodgers exercising any human function. Though the younger man's voice was as sweet and melodious as the tones of a flute, she so rarely heard it that she was tempted to think his silence the result of a spell. As she recalled the strange beauty of that pink-and-white face, and saw in memory the fine hair and moist brilliancy of those eyes, she believed that they were ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... play" said Albert rubbing his face and looking with sad eyes at Mrs. Woodcock. Immediately Isobel seated herself at the piano and ran her fairy like fingers over the notes while Sylvia's melodious voice kept time to the music; and as the beautiful words of "See the conquering hero comes" rang out like a peal of thunder, Mr. ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... come and cut the sacred branch and give the signal for the expulsion of the Romans. The next scene introduces Pollione, the Roman proconsul, to whom Norma, in defiance of her faith and traditions, has bound herself in secret marriage, and by whom she has had two children. In a charmingly melodious scena ("Meco all' altar di Venere") he reveals his faithlessness and guilty love for Adalgisa, a young virgin of the temple, who has consented to abandon her religion and fly with him to Rome. In the fourth scene Norma ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... the interior church delighted me. There was no screen,—nothing between the vestibule and the altar to break the long vista; even the organ stood aside,—though it by-and-by made us aware of its presence by a melodious roar. Around the walls there were old engraved brasses, and a stone coffin, and an alabaster knight of Saint John, and an alabaster lady, each recumbent at full length, as large as life, and in perfect preservation, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... placidity, in the intervals of a curt exchange of French with the wife of the Hon. Melville, a ringleted English lady, or of Portuguese with the Countess; who likewise sipped chocolate and fingered dry toast, and was mournfully melodious. The Hon. Melville, as became a tall islander, carved beef, and ate of it, like a ruler of men. Beautiful to see was the compassionate sympathy of the Countess's face when Rose offered her plate for a portion of the world-subjugating viand, as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be a brooding goddess of the mountain tops, and became again the girl who had perversely taken the telephone away from him, the girl who had played mock billiards upon his beloved chart, the girl who said—she said it now, while he was thinking of her melodious way of ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... acceptable gift, as they had not broken their fast during the whole of the day. At this time, evening prayers were announced, by beating on drums, and blowing through hollowed elephants' teeth; the sound of which was melodious, and nearly resembled the human voice. On the following morning, Mr. Park sent his horse-pistols and holsters as a present to the king, and informed him that he wished to leave Kemmoo as soon as he could procure a guide. In about an hour the king returned thanks ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... slain body of their Edmund, where it lay cast forth in the village of Hoxne; seek out the severed head, and reverently reunite the same. They embalmed him with myrrh and sweet spices, with love, pity, and all high and awful thoughts; consecrating him with a very storm of melodious adoring admiration, and sun-dyed showers of tears;—joyfully, yet with awe (as all deep joy has something of the awful in it), commemorating his noble deeds and godlike walk and conversation while on Earth. Till, at length, the very Pope and ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... them with; and the fountain, which after disasters must choke, plays prettily enough over their nude loveliness; for it is now the first half of the eighteenth century, and Casa Landi is the uninvaded sanctuary of Illustrissimi and Illustrissime. The resplendent porter who admits our melodious Abbate Carlo, and the gay lackey who runs before his smiling face to open the door of the sala where the company is assembled, may have had nothing to speak of for breakfast, but they are full of zeal for the grandeur they serve, and would not know what the rights of man were if you told them. ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... jolly well put up with our melodious song, because he knew that there isn't really any law to prevent you singing ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... were the spirit of the man less gifted than it is, there is no question these, his lesser peculiarities, would never have been numbered among his points of excellence. His voice is neither strong nor melodious, his gestures are neither easy nor graceful; but, on the contrary, extremely rude and awkward; his pronunciation is not only broadly national, but broadly provincial, distorting almost every word he utters ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... colored people, calls to mind a petition offered for myself, when Field Superintendent, soon after my appointment. An old black woman in New Orleans was called upon to pray, after I had spoken to the people. She chanted her words in soft, melodious tones, keeping time with her body swaying back and forth, as she prayed. She prayed for the former superintendent, Dr. Roy. She thanked God for his patient, loving care of the people. She told the Lord how he went as a prophet of Israel, back and forth among them, ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... 'noble children' (Phaedr.), he rests from the labours of authorship. More than two thousand two hundred years have passed away since he returned to the place of Apollo and the Muses. Yet the echo of his words continues to be heard among men, because of all philosophers he has the most melodious voice. He is the inspired prophet or teacher who can never die, the only one in whom the outward form adequately represents the fair soul within; in whom the thoughts of all who went before him are reflected and of all who come after him are partly anticipated. ...
— Laws • Plato
... had caught the fire of the future statesman in his dark eye; perhaps she had heard the ring of sublimity in the melodious voice that afterward said "Honor thy father and thy mother." Perhaps she had seen the shrewdness of the future great diplomat in his maneuvers to have his baby way, and being a bright woman she set her wits to work to defy the king, defeat his law and elude the cruel vigilance of ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... the melodious tints of beauty thrown Athwart the hue of guilt and glare of pain, That humanize and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... appreciation of the merits of the property had been growing every minute. It was an exquisite autumn afternoon. From where they sat he could behold the line of shore on either side with its background of dark green woods. Below the wavelets lapped the shingle with melodious rhythm. As far as the eye could see lay the bosom of the ocean unruffled, and lustrous with the sheen of the dying day. Accustomed to prevail in buying his way, he could not resist saying, ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... well-doing in other places. In a skillful poet's versification the so-called bad or inferior lines are not inferior because he could not do them better, but because he feels that if all were equally weighty, there would be no real sense of weight anywhere; if all were equally melodious, the melody itself would be fatiguing; and he purposely introduces the laboring or discordant verse, that the full ring may be felt in his main sentence, and the finished sweetness in his chosen rhythm.[68] And ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin
... all present not to despise art, but to honour it as being (for this is what his speech amounts to) the heart's blood of national life. Preachments are not usually stimulating, but this one is mercifully brief, and is accompanied by fine, melodious strains. With its contrapuntal weaving it leads to the final chorus, and also it puts Sachs back again into the position from which the importance of Walther's song has thrust him: it is a last reminder that the opera is a glorification of song, and that the masters ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Perkins, the water in her eyes affecting her voice so that it became mellifluous instead of merely melodious. ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... subordinate members of the 'Pleiade' were no less devoted to sonnetteering than the original members. Of those in this second rank, Desportes was most popular in France as well as in England. Although many of Desportes's sonnets are graceful in thought and melodious in rhythm, most of them abound in overstrained conceits. Not only was Desportes a more slavish imitator of Petrarch than the members of the 'Pleiade,' but he encouraged numerous disciples to practise 'Petrarchism,' as the imitation of Petrarch was called, beyond ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the ocean, and give all the ocean to me. Dispossess me of no might nor tragedy nor melody. Let the whole ocean be mine. So, though Tennyson be not epic as Milton, nor dramatic as Browning, he is yet a mine of wealth untold. He is more melodious than Spenser (and what a praise!) Tennyson can not write the prose, but always the poetry of life. So interpreted, how perfect his execution becomes! His words distill like dews. Take unnumbered extracts from his poems, and they seem bits of melody, picked out from nature's book ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... had completed her toilet and now stood smiling in a most friendly fashion at the reflection in the long oval mirror. She addressed this reflection in melodious tones. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the nave; and when the thin bell died down, and the footsteps passed softly by, and the organ uttered its melodious voice as the white-robed procession moved slowly in, Howard could see that the girl was almost overcome by the scene. She looked at him once with a strange smile, a smile which he could not interpret; and as the service slowly proceeded—to Howard little more than a draught of sweet ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... does indeed! I haven't a doubt about that!" cried the Princess. "'Long, and loud, and shrill, and high,' he whistles over and over the sound, until it becomes maddening. Is that all of that melodious, entrancing production?" ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... he said. His voice was soft and melodious, and held the hint of a caress. "Did you read my ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... was staggering under the weight of his melodious instrument, had been expecting this command, and, without waiting for the midshipman to communicate the order, he commenced that short rub-a- dub air, that will at any time rouse a thousand men from ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... unpleasant sound, sometimes like two pieces of glass rubbed against each other, sometimes like the tittering laugh of ghosts, and I have heard it like the piercing cry of an animal. Gaslight is sobbing and whispering, grating and ticking, according to its intensity. By far the most melodious and pleasing sound is produced by an ordinary wax candle. It sounds just like an aeolian harp on which the chords of a solemn tune are struck. I have even tried a glow- worm and it sounded like a bee buzzing. ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... tone. And Sylvia laughed with the clear melodious note of happiness. All her old life was whirled away upon those notes of laughter. She leaned to her lover with a sigh of contentment, her hair softly touching his cheek; her eyes once more dropped to the still garden and the dark square house ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... that from eunuchism led to pederasty are very easy of explanation. Eunuchism induces an effeminate form, softer body, and prevents the growth of the beard; the voice is softer and more melodious; and their timidity renders them also more effeminate, obedient, and dependent. The peculiar commingling of the female form with that of the male furnished to the sculptors the models for those wonderfully well-made ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable "possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages—and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... gave me encouragement to stay there with them: but I declined it; though, had not my heart been fixed on England, I should have stayed, as I liked the place extremely, and there were some free black people here who were very happy, and we passed our time pleasantly together, with the melodious sound of the catguts, under the lime and lemon trees. At length Captain Phillips hired a sloop to carry him and some of the slaves that he could not sell to Georgia; and I agreed to go with him in this vessel, meaning now to take my farewell of that ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... and love-carols; but to his hand also are to be credited "Simple Stories for Little Gentlefolk," "Holiday Haunts, by Jingle Junior on the Jaunt," "Club Carols," "Uncle Bulger's Moral Tales," "Songs of the Streets," "Rambling Rondeaux," and "Paper-knife Poems." But it is his fluent, melodious, and unpretentious verse that has ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... to spring from his blood. Shakespeare's handling of the story shows both the virtues and the defects of a young writer. It is more diffuse, more wordy, than his later work, and written for the taste of another time than ours; but, on the other hand, it is full of vivid, picturesque language of melodious rhythm, and of charming ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... that of hundreds of famished wild beasts,—answered this gesture; mingled with acclamations,—and when 'The Song of Freedom' again burst out from the singers on the stage, the whole mass of people joined in the chorus with a kind of melodious madness. Shouts of 'Pequita! Pequita!' rang out on all sides,—then 'Valdor! Valdor!'— and then,—all suddenly,—a stentorian voice cried 'Sergius Thord!' At that word the house became a chaos. Men in the gallery, seized by ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... much rapture could be crowded into a few moments, as was mine while you were pouring forth the inexhaustible treasures of your mind upon my entranced ear? Spare me the sudden transition from mere esteem to such huge, melodious irresistible outpouring of affection. It takes away my strength; while the expression of my warm feelings can never so affect your sturdy, much tried, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not with envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest ...
— A Day with Keats • May (Clarissa Gillington) Byron
... and the last thing Maria listened to was Fly's melodious voice; and the last thing Fly looked at was Mrs. Brooks's nose moving ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May
... moment and were trying to talk in a low voice, but they quickly forgot themselves and were again filling the streets with their youthful laughter and melodious voices. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... wife, he should also have reverence for her, and that this element should be an integral part of his love. Christianity also teaches a reverence for children; and Wordsworth has but followed the spirit of his great master, Christ, when expressing this beautiful sentiment in his melodious numbers. Such ideas as these, however, are discords in Japanese social life of the old order. So also the Christian preaching of love to God, sounds outlandish to the men of Chinese mind in the middle or the pupil ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... that corner, in the yonder hous, 575 Herde I myn alderlevest lady dere So wommanly, with voys melodious, Singen so wel, so goodly, and so clere, That in my soule yet me thinketh I here The blisful soun; and, in that yonder place, 580 My lady first ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer
... had known some of the finest orators in Europe, listened in amazement to a voice the most musical he had ever heard. He looked in wonder on the repulsive features that seemed so much at variance with those melodious intonations. Tohomish pleaded for union and for the death of the rebel. It seemed for a moment as if his soft, persuasive accents would win the day, but it was only for a moment; the spell was broken the instant he ceased. Then Snoqualmie spoke. One by one, the great sachems of the Willamettes ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... for never was there a Monte Cristo who lavished wealth as O'Sullivan habitually did in anticipation, and would undoubtedly have done in fact had the opportunity been afforded him. He was gifted with a low, melodious, exquisitely modulated voice, and a most engaging and winning manner, and when he set out to picture the simple and easy methods whereby he proposed to make millions, it was next to impossible to resist him. He was like a beautiful, ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... from the tower, the whole company were assembled in the new dining-room, which was still under the hands of the carpenters, but had been brilliantly illuminated for the occasion. Mr. Bruce took his station, and old and young danced reels to his melodious accompaniment until they were weary, while Scott and the Dominie looked on with gladsome faces, and beat time now and then, the one with his staff, the other with his wooden leg. A tray with mulled wine and whiskey ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... that "In Memoriam" has certain lapses in all that meed of melodious tears; that there are trivialities which might deserve (here is an example) "to line a box," or to curl some maiden's locks, that there are weaknesses of thought, that the poet now speaks of himself as a linnet, singing "because it must," now dares to approach questions insoluble, and again ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... continued Ernest, gravely, "is retiring behind the forest of cedars that bounds the horizon; when the palms, the mangoes, and gum trees, mass their verdure in distinct and isolated groups; when nature is making herself heard in a thousand melodious voices; when the hum of the insect is ringing in my ears, and the breeze is gently murmuring through the foliage; when thousands of birds are fluttering from grove to grove, sometimes breaking with their wings the smooth surface of the river; when the fish, leaping out of their own element, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... degradation had not forgotten his Homer. 'That evening,' says Schliemann, 'he recited to us about a hundred lines of the poet, observing the rhythmic cadence of the verses. Although I did not understand a syllable, the melodious sound of the words made a deep impression upon me, and I wept bitter tears over my unhappy fate. Three times over did I get him to repeat to me those divine verses, rewarding his trouble with three glasses of whisky, which I bought with the few pence that made up my whole wealth. From ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... demanded a deep and melodious voice. It was that of Aaron Burr who spoke now, half in query, half in challenge. "Would Spain fight—and would Great Britain, if need were and the ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... Socrates?" asked Chaerephon. "It came from the beach under the cliff yonder, and seemed a long way off.—And how melodious it was! Was it a bird, I wonder. I thought all sea-birds ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... well-lined gloves while they ate. After all had eaten their hearty supper, and were now gathered near the fire, one of the Indians, who, like the rest of his country men in this party, was an earnest, devout Christian, struck up in a strong, melodious voice the Evening Hymn, translated ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... will we sit upon the rocks And see the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodious ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... flourish!" So he said and died. Hark! ere he's gone the minstrelsy begins: The symphonies ascend, a swelling tide, Melodious thunders fill the welkin wide— The grand old lawyers, chinning ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... sent a resonant voice out into the stillness. The songs he sang were hymns, and he made them into a sort of imperative lullaby. Waite let his lungs and soul fill with the breath of the night; he gave himself up to the exaltation of mastering those trembling brutes. Mounting, melodious, with even and powerful swing he let his full notes fall on the air in the confidence of power, and one by one the reassured cattle would lie down again, lowing in soft contentment, and so fall asleep with noses stretched out in mute attention, till their presence could hardly ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... feared, and that was—rats! Left on a heap of dry straw, he began to wonder if there were rats there. Presently he was sure he heard something move, but he was quickly reassured by the touch of soft, warm fur on his hand, and the sound of a melodious "pur-r." The friendly kitty, glad of a companion, curled herself by his side. What comfort she brought to the lonely little fellow! He lay down beside her, and saying his Our Father, and Now I Lay Me, was soon in a profound sleep, the purring little ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... words can come from man? what better melody can be heard? 'Son of man,' said God to the prophet, 'Lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song'; or, as a song of loves, 'of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument.' (Ezek. 33:32) The gospel is a most melodious note and sweet tune to any that are not prepossessed with slander, reproach, and enmity against the professors of it. Now, its melodious notes being so sweet, no marvel if it entangle some even of them that yet will ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... A low, melodious horn politely reminded Simeon Drowser, who stood gaping in the middle of the road, to withdraw to a safer gaping point. He retreated to the platform in front of the post office and consulted with Beriah Bungel, the village constable, about this ...
— Pee-wee Harris • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... without which I cannot live. Luigi has revealed to me the world of sentiments. I may, perhaps, have seen faces more beautiful than his, but none has ever charmed me thus; I may have heard voices—no, no, never any so melodious! Luigi loves me; he will be ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... youth, the self-sacrificing prime, the blind old age, the religious patriotism, the pious loyalty, the learning and love, and the isolated meditation, cheered by grand symphonies and hoarded wisdom, through and by which, concentrated into melodious expression, the life of a noble mind thus majestically expressed itself: but we can easily fancy cold and cultured Gibbon returning from the Continent, full of classic lore, disgusted with his failure in public life, not sympathetic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... the King; and the smiles of so many charming women inspired the throng of vain and voluptuous but highspirited gentlemen with more than common courage. In the brilliant crowd which surrounded the French Augustus appeared the French Virgil, the graceful, the tender, the melodious Racine. He had, in conformity with the prevailing fashion, become devout, had given up writing for the theatre; and, having determined to apply himself vigorously to the discharge of the duties which belonged to him as historiographer ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... by far the most interesting was that of a dog-fancier, from whose residence melodious howls, in the dog-dialect of every tribe deserving to be represented in so choice a company, were wafted up the stream, and met our ears before our eyes beheld the landing-stage of the establishment, where the dog-fancier and some of his dogs were lounging in the cool of the evening, ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... the sake of historical exactness, is a corruption of the old Indian name, O-sin-sing, or rather O-sin-song; that is to say, a place where any thing may be had for a song—a great recommendation for a market town. The modern and melodious alteration of the name to Sing-Sing is said to have been made in compliment to an eminent Methodist singing-master, who first introduced into the neighborhood the art of singing through the nose. ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... Melodious Arethusa, o'er my verse Shed thou once more the spirit of thy stream: Who denies verse to Gallus? So, when thou Glidest beneath the green and purple gleam Of Syracusan waters, mayst thou flow 5 Unmingled with the bitter Doric dew! Begin, and, whilst the goats are browsing now The soft leaves, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... ancient coin); farthing. arenal m. sandy place. argentado, -a silvery, silvered. argentino, -a silvery. rido, -a dry, dried up, barren. arma f. arms, weapon. armar arm, start. armona f. harmony, music, rhythm, concord, peace. armonioso, -a harmonious, melodious. aroma m. aroma, fragrance, scent, perfume. aromoso, -a aromatic, fragrant. arpa f. harp. arrancar tear out, pluck out, wring, wrest, tear away, take away. arrebatar bear away, catch, snatch up, attract, captivate, charm; —se grow furious, rush headlong, give way to passion. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... conscientious deliberation to the bitter end,—the lullaby generally had the desired effect. At such times the men would lie at full length under the trees in the soft summer twilight, smoking their pipes and drinking in the melodious utterances. An indistinct idea that this was pastoral happiness pervaded the camp. "This 'ere kind o' think," said the Cockney Simmons, meditatively reclining on his elbow, "is 'evingly." It reminded ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... life long will he remember those summer days, when her voice and the low plash of the far-off ocean waves wove themselves together into music as she read, and when the blue splendors of her lustrous eyes lent a new meaning to the poet's story as it flowed in melodious verses from her lips. Then came a day when the book was laid aside, and the impassioned utterances of poetry gave place to the more prosaic but not less fervent accents of a newly-awakened passion. Cold, silent and morose as Clement Rutherford ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... but I will wager my life, Eustace, that mine are not the only ears, which have been charmed with this melodious ditty,—that I am not the first damsel who has reigned, the goddess of an hour, in this same serenade! Confess the truth, my good friend, and I will give ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... have legions—but lady-poets we have but few. Possibly, they flourish more on the other side of the Atlantic. At any rate we have a good example of the American Muse in the latest volume by Mrs. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. This little book is full of grace, its versification is melodious, and has the genuine poetic ring about it, which is as rare as it is acceptable. It can scarcely fail to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... came too, and with them four young birds. For a week they were about the cottage every day, when they dispersed, and one beautiful bright morning the male bird, in his old place near my window, attempted to sing, beginning with that rich, melodious throbbing, which is usually called "jugging," and following with half-a-dozen beautiful notes. That was all. It was July, and I heard no more music from him or from any other of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the old melodious lays Which softly melt the ages through, The songs of Spenser's golden days, Arcadian Sidney's silvery phrase, Sprinkling our noon of time ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... few verses by heart, or repeat, to make sure I had not lost, something of what was already known; and, with the chapters thus gradually possessed from the first word to the last, I had to learn the whole body of the fine old Scottish paraphrases, which are good, melodious, and forceful verse; and to which, together with the Bible itself, I owe the first cultivation of my ear ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... garnies avec gout, vraiment artistiques"—to rooms fit only for peasants? Ces dames had just come from Paris; doubtless, they were not yet accustomed to provincial customs—aux moeurs provinciales. Then there were exchanged certain melodious acerbities, which proved that these ladies had entered the lists on previous occasions, and that each was well practised in the other's methods of warfare. Opportunely, Renard appeared on the scene; his announcement that we proposed still ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... as the longest they could show. But in fact Hawthorne appears to have ignored the good society of his native place almost completely; no echo of its conversation is to be found in his tales or his journals. Such an echo would possibly not have been especially melodious, and if we regret the shyness and stiffness, the reserve, the timidity, the suspicion, or whatever it was, that kept him from knowing what there was to be known, it is not because we have any very definite assurance that his gains would have been great. Still, since a beautiful writer ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... time for thinking. The cry of hounds became more distinct—nearer and nearer they came, fuller and more melodious; but, alas! it was no music to Sponge. Presently the cheering of hunters was heard—'FOR—rard! FOR—rard!' and anon the rate of a whip farther back. Another second, and hounds, horses, and men were in view, streaming away over the large ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... the average husband to an orang-utan trying to play the violin. "Love, as we instinctively feel, is the most melodious of harmonies. Woman is a delicious instrument of pleasure, but it is necessary to know its quivering strings, study the pose of it, its timid keyboard, the changing and capricious fingering. How many orangs—men, I mean, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... when any common bird Could make me sing in unison, a time When all the strings of boyish life were stirred To quick response or more melodious rhyme By every forest idyll;—do I change? Or rather doth some evil thing through thy ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... mysteriously touches the strings within the soul of a man, so that the soul speaks in its own way, each soul lifting its peculiar message. For me 'twas sweet to watch the tender shadows creep upon the western fire, to see the great gray rocks dissolve, to hear the sea's melodious whispering; but to him (it seemed) the sea spoke harshly and the night came with foreboding. In the silence and failing light of the hour, looking upon the stupendous works of the Lord, he would repeat the words of the prophet of ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... of Faith fails as a whole to maintain the high standard of the Christmas hymns. Although the language, as in all that Brorson wrote, is pure and melodious, the poetic flight and fresh sentiment of his earlier work is lacking to some extent in the latter part of the collection. One reason for this is thought to be that Brorson, on locating at Toender, had come ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... of this music, its melodious themes and thrilling harmonies, are utterly beyond my powers of description; the air and sky seemed filled and pulsating with prayer and praise, then resounding with grand crescendoes of triumphant shouts; each succeeding movement of the music carrying it higher ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... weeping aloud! and the infant, in Mrs. B.'s. arms, leant forward, and stretched his little arms, and stared, and smiled! It seemed a picture of heaven, where the different orders of the blessed, join different voices in one melodious hallelulia! and the babe like a young spirit just that moment arrived in heaven, startled at the seraphic songs, and seized at once with wonder ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... a most melodious sound Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, Such as att once might not on living ground, Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere: Right hard it was for wight which did it heare, To read what manner musicke that mote bee, For all that pleasing is to living eare Was there consorted in one harmonee— ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... across the chest and fitting him close to the body. As he came, with a half saunter, half swagger, along the street, I knew him again at once by his appearance; and, as he came nearer, I saw from his manner that he was intending to stop and speak to me, for he slightly raised his hat and in a soft, melodious voice with a colonial "twang" which was far from being disagreeable, and which, indeed, to my ear gave a certain additional interest to his remarks, he saluted ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Phoebus shone serenely bright, And fleecy clouds were streak'd with purple light; When tuneful Hylas, with melodious moan, Taught rocks to weep, and made the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... I destroy not the beauteous Form, but she looks pleased, and a sweet Smile sits in the charming Space which divides her Lips. One would swear that Voice and Speech were issuing out, and that ones Ears felt the melodious Sound. How often have I, deceived by a Lovers Credulity, hearkned if she had not something to whisper me? and when frustrated of my Hopes, how often have I taken my Revenge in Kisses from her Cheeks and Eyes, and softly wooed her to ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... white eye ring, narrow bar on wing, and outer tail feathers, and with the bases of the primaries rusty colored. It is a ground inhabiting bird, feeding upon insects and berries in shrubbery and thickets. Their song is said to be liquid, melodious and often long continued, equaling that of any other bird. They nest on the ground in hollows under banks or crevices about roots of trees or fallen stumps, making a large, loosely constructed pile of weeds and trash, hollowed and lined with rootlets. The three or four eggs, which are laid ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... sermons, according to his accustomed manner, he corrected sin, and sharply inveighed against the iniquity of the world and the corrupt abuses of the church. The people in great flocks and companies daily came to hear his voice, as the most melodious sound and tune of Orpheus' harp, insomuch, that oftentimes when he was preaching, the church would be so full, that none could enter further than the doors thereof. In his doctrine, he was earnest, in tongue eloquent, ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... delicate red fringe; and there are profuse clusters of a feathery blossom waving in the wind on taper stems. I see lots of these and much else in every direction, as I saunter or sit. For the last half hour a bird has persistently kept up a simple, sweet, melodious song, from the bushes. (I have a positive conviction that some of these birds sing, and others fly and flirt about ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... and goblin changes ring As left him doubtful whence the murmurs came, Now here, now there, as they were winged things— Such trick plays Echo upon hapless wight Chance-caught in lonely places where she dwells, Anon a laugh rang out, melodious, Like the merle's note when its ecstatic heart Is packed with summer-time; then all was still— So still the soul of silence seemed to grieve The loss of that sweet laughter. In his tracks The man stopped short, and listened. As he leaned And craned his neck, and ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... continue; for I do not so much relish reading aloud the succeeding stories of Mr. Dickens's annual budget, since he wrote them, as men go to war in these days, by substitute. And Polly read on, in her melodious voice, which is almost as pleasant to me as the Wasser-fluth of Schubert, which she often plays at twilight; and I looked into the fire, unconsciously constructing stories of my own out of the embers. And her voice still went on, in a sort of running accompaniment ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... glad news Of your judicious appointment, no hearts who did peruse, Such a long-desiderated slice of good luck were sorry at, To a most prolific and polacious Poet-Laureate! For no poeta nascitur who is fitter To greet Royal progeny with melodious twitter. Seated on the resplendent cloud of official Elysium, Far away, far away from fuliginous busy hum You are now perched with phenomenal velocity On vertiginous pinnacle of poetic pomposity! Yet deign to cock thy indulgent eye at the petition Of one consumed ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... bleats articulate monotony, And indicates that two and one are three, That grass is green, lakes damp, and mountains steep: And, Wordsworth, both are thine: at certain times, Forth from the heart of thy melodious rhymes The form and pressure of high thoughts will burst; At other times-good Lord! I'd rather be Quite unacquainted with the A, B, C, Than write such ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... "Exquisite beauty of melodious verse.... A remarkable poem, both in conception and execution. We sincerely wish for the author a complete literary success."—Literary ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... beneath the eyes of those clustered ladies. Instead of that, they had looked upon his shame; they had interchanged glances of amusement at each repetition of his defeat; had murmured comments in their melodious speech; had ended by losing all interest in him—as intuition apprised him was the ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... variety, some crimson in color, others green and lemon, others entirely green, and others again that were black and flesh-colored [these last were probably toucans]. And oh! the songs of other species of birds, so sweet and so melodious, as we heard them among the trees, that we often lingered, listening to their charming music. The trees, too, were so beautiful and smelled so sweetly that we almost imagined ourselves in a terrestrial paradise; yet none of those trees, or the fruit of them, were similar to anything ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... had higher collars than the other curates, and intoned in a wonderfully melodious voice in the cathedral. And quite a number of the young ladies of Exminster, including the Bishop's second daughter, had been setting their caps at him from the moment of his arrival, so that when, by the ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... verse has never existed and cannot exist of itself alone. Style is not the art of writing melodious words or the craft or cunning of finding a way round the split infinitive. It is the ability so to choose forms of expression as completely to convey to a reader all the twists and turns and outlines of ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... filled the autumn path with sensations of deep melancholy. But the painted legend of St. George overthrowing the dragon, which John had placed in commemoration of his victories over himself, in the central hall, glowed full of colour and story; and in the melodious moan of the organ, and in the resonant chord which closes the awful warning of the Dies Irae, he realized the soul of his friend. Castle, window, and friend were now one in his brain, and seized with dim, undefinable weariness of his companions, and ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... acquired a national reputation for oratory by a speech which he made in the National Democratic Convention of 1836, when he advocated the nomination of Colonel Richard M. Johnson in a speech of great beauty and power. His arguments were persuasive, the tones of his voice were melodious, and he insinuated himself and his cause into the hearts of his audience, rather than carried them by storm. Devoted to the South and its peculiar institution, he was welcomed in the State of Mississippi, and soon took a prominent position at ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... statues; and most sacred processions in honour of the blessed gods; and well-crowned sacrifices to the gods, and feasts, at all seasons; and with the approach of spring the Bacchic festivity, and the rousings of melodious choruses, and ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes
... pushed back his slouched hat, had unbuttoned his light overcoat, and was standing with his arms crooked over the railing. He looked out upon the sea. He felt the pulse beats of the engines, his ears were filled with the pliant, melodious chords of the Viennese waltz; the whole world had turned into a brilliant, lively, sparkling ballroom. He had suffered and caused others to suffer. Now he embraced all those through whom he had suffered and who had suffered through him, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... bards of centuries dim and sped, Yet glowing ever in your fadeless song, No dust shall heap its silence o'er ye dead, No cadent seas shall drown your chorus strong In more melodious waves. I've lingered long By your brave harps strung for eternity; But now runs my wild heart to meet the throng Who yet shall choir. O wondrous company, If graves may listen then, I then shall ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... sister, when she prays, Her early Heaven, her happy views; Nor thou with shadowed hint infuse A life that leads melodious days. Her faith through form is pure as thine, Her hands are quicker unto good; O sacred be the flesh and blood, To which she links a ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... ordinarily have been deemed expedient. His quarters reached, he stood for a moment gazing along the dark and silent row. Suddenly, soft and sweet on the clear night air he heard the notes of a guitar, then a tenor voice, well trained, rich and melodious. He well knew there was no officer in the garrison who could sing like that. Who was it? ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... particular star of the revolt."[372] He was not an impassioned orator. He spoke deliberately, and rarely with animation or with gesture; and his voice, high pitched and penetrating, was neither mellow nor melodious. But he was marvellously pleasing. His perennial wit kept his audiences expectant, and his compact, forceful utterances seemed to break the argument of an opponent as a hammer shatters a pane of glass. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... the wee bird singing, For its notes were wondrous clear; As if wedding bells were ringing, Melodious to the ear. And still it rang that wee bird's song; Just like the bells—dong-ding, ding-dong; While my heart beat so quick and strong— It felt that he was near! And he heard ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... career was a sort of curious contradiction between his physical and mental endowments. His very handsome and regular features of the Roman cast, and deep, melodious voice, were undoubtedly fine natural requisites for a tragic actor, and he succeeded my uncle in all his principal parts, if not with any thing like equal genius, with a dignity and decorum that were always ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... arch we see in a disordered evening sky; but he has reared no complete 'bow of God.' Moore's 'Lalla Rookh' is an elegant and laborious composition—not a shapely building; it is put together by skilful art, not formed by plastic power. Byron's poems are, for the most part, disjointed but melodious groans, like those of Ariel from the centre of the cloven pine; 'Childe Harold' is his soliloquy when sober—'Don Juan' his soliloquy when half-drunk; the 'Corsair' would have made a splendid episode in an epic—but the epic, where is it? and 'Cain,' his most creative work, though a distinct ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... impassioned souls; they fairly sparkle; each feature gleams with intelligence; each possesses a brilliancy of its own, especially in the light. Their captivating eyes attract or repel, speak or are silent; their gait is artlessly seductive; their voices unfold the melodious treasures of the most coquettishly sweet and tender tones. Praise of their beauty, based upon comparisons, flatters the most sensitive self-esteem. A movement of their eyebrows, the slightest play of the eye, the curling of the ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... set him free, to bid him mate with a woman worthy of him. Some glorious woman, Rosemary thought, with abundant beauty and radiant hair, with a low, deep voice that vibrated through the room like some stringed instrument and lingered, in melodious echoes, like music that has ceased. She saw her few days of joy as the one perfect thing she had ever had, the one gift she had prayed for and received. This much could never be taken away from her. She had had it and been blessed by it, and now the time had come ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Jurgenson (Moscow) and Bock (Berlin).] You showed me the first movement of it some years ago in Munich. I consider the modifications in the instrumentation and in the piano part successful. As much transparency as possible should be preserved in the melodious parts. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... alias "yarup." He is an old favorite of my boyhood, and his note to me means very much. He announces his arrival by a long, loud call, repeated from the dry branch of some tree, or a stake in the fence,—a thoroughly melodious April sound. I think how Solomon finished that beautiful description of spring, "And the voice of the turtle is heard in the land," and see that a description of spring in this farming country, to be equally characteristic, should ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... with fresh fascination. "Whilst I read the poets," said Emerson, "I think that nothing new can be said about morning and evening; but when I see the day break I am not reminded of the Homeric and Chaucerian pictures. I am cheered by the moist, warm, glittering, budding, melodious hour that breaks down the narrow walls of my soul, and extends its life and ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... cruel and abominable religion, were the gentlest and most peaceful I have ever known. They were beautiful to look upon, so finely made and shapely that I have never seen their like. Their language was exquisitely sweet and melodious, and though, except hymns, I do not care for poetry, yet I must admit that some of their compositions in verse were extremely pleasing, though they were ignorant of the art of rhyme. All about them was beautifully made, and they were ignorant of poverty. I never saw a beggar on ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... fly'st thou know'st not whom, and therefore fly'st! "O'er Delphos' lands, and Tenedos I sway, "And Claros, and the Pataraean realms.— "My sire is Jove. To me are all things known, "Or present, past, or future. Taught by me "Melodious sounds poetic numbers grace.— "Sure is my dart, but one more sure I feel "Lodg'd in this bosom; strange to love before.— "Medicine me hails inventor; through the world "My help is call'd for; unto me is known "The powers of plants and herbs:—ah! ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... celebrated "Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Killigrew," are mixed with the leaven of Cowley; others, like the "Threnodia Augustalis," are occasionally flat and heavy. All contain passages of brilliancy, and all are thrown into a versification, melodious amidst its irregularity. We listen for the completion of Dryden's stanza, as for the explication of a difficult passage in music; and wild and lost as the sound appears, the ear is proportionally gratified by the unexpected ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... preferred, because "Van Diemen's Land" is associated among all nations with the idea of bondage and guilt; and, finally, because while Tasmania is a melodious and simple sound, "Van Diemen" ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... nobleman a horseman, the Queen-Empress should not have made him Governor-General of India. Fillimore was full of prejudices. Gianacchi, however, found it impossible to treat him coldly. His smoothness of temperament stood in the way. Instead, he imparted the melodious information that the Gadfly had pecked badly twice at Tollygunge that morning, and smiled with pathetic philosophy. "Always let 'em use their noses," said Fillimore, and there seemed to be satire in it. Fillimore certainly had a ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... boy even in this reposeful attitude of study,—and Angela observed him for a minute or two, herself unseen. His face reminded her of one of Fra Angelico's seraphs,—the same broad brow, deep eyes and sensitive lips, which seemed to suggest the utterance of wondrous speech or melodious song,—the same golden hair swept back in rich clusters,—the same eager, inspired, yet controlled expression. A curious fluttering of her heart disturbed the girl as she looked—an indefinable dread—a kind ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... And beside these and others of our day, Who gave you once, or give you now renown, This for yourselves ye may yourselves purvey: For many, laying silk and sampler down, With the melodious Muses, to allay Their thirst at Aganippe's well, have gone, And still are going; who so fairly speed, That we more theirs than they our ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... you sleep?" were the questions impressed on his ear, in the same clear, soft, and melodious voice, which had addressed ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... polished numbers, if you mean melodious versification, this perhaps the general ear will not deny me. If you mean classical, chaste diction, free from tautologous repetitions of the same thoughts in different expressions; free from bad rhymes, unnecessary epithets, and incongruous ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... century to Bach so closely, I imagine that the economy of thematic material and the ingeniously spun fabric of this Ballade have made it my pet. I do not dwell upon the loveliness of the first theme in F minor, or of that melodious approach to it in the major. I am speaking now of the composition as a whole. Its themes are varied with consummate ease, and you wonder at the corners you so easily turn, bringing into view newer horizons; fresh and striking landscapes. ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... melodious measures With which I wont the winged words to tie, And make a tunefull diapase of pleasures, Now being let to runne at libertie 550 By those which have no skill to rule them right, Have now quite lost their ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... Practical wisdom, which had its field In doing justice between his subjects; shrewd observation of life, with wit to discern resemblances and to put wisdom into homely, short sayings; poetic sensibility and the gift of melodious speech; and, added to these manifold endowments, interest in, and rudimentary knowledge of, natural history and botany, make the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... in New England, bears marks of its Oriental origin. Pointing to the monument he said: "My voice shrinks from the task to mingle with the awful pathos of that majestic orator. Silent like the grave, and yet melodious like the song of immortality upon the lips of cherubim, . . . and thus it speaks: 'The day I commemorate is the rod with which the hand of the Lord has opened the well of liberty. Its waters will flow; every new drop of martyr blood will increase the tide; it will ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... insect throng, The prattling, sparkling rill, The birds, with their melodious song, Repeat thy ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... load upon the bench to take rest and smell the air, there came out upon him from the court-door a pleasant breeze and a delicious fragrance. He sat down on the edge of the bench, and at once heard from within the melodious sound of lutes and other stringed instruments, and mirth-exciting voices singing and reciting, together with the song of birds warbling and glorifying Almighty Allah in various tunes and tongues; turtles, mocking-birds, merles, nightingales, cushats and stone- ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... through a good hymnal—through Hymns Ancient and Modern, for instance, or the Church Hymnary—without feeling that therein is bound up the devotional life of the world. The spiritual outlook is cosmic. Our every mood of penitence, praise, and aspiration resounds in melodious and time-defying strains. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... of one who desires an inferior to be seated in his presence, and his voice was full and melodious. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... perfumed breeze and played sweet melodies, while here and there were clusters of fountain-lilies that shot sprays of crystal water high into the air. When the water fell back again and the drops struck against the broad leaves of the plants, they produced a melodious sound that was so delightful that Twinkle thought she could listen to ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... may chance to see this, how thoroughly opposite many of the reviews are, some extolling what others vilify; it just tends to keep a sensible man of his own opinion, unmoved by such seemingly unreasonable praise or censure. When Coleridge first published Christabel (intrinsically a most melodious and sweet performance) it was positively hooted by the critics; see in particular the Edinburgh Review. Coleridge left behind him a very much improved and enlarged version of the poem, which I did not see till years after I had written the sequel to ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... tuning key of his matchless genius he struck the chords of sorrow to their inmost tone and played on the heart strings of joy with the tender vibrations of an aeolian harp, trembling with melodious echoes among the wild flowers of ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... long suffered, promised them place, and power, and patronage, and personal consideration, if they would only act on the principles which he recommended, in the most flowing language and the most melodious voice in which the glories of ambition were ever yet chaunted. There was a buzz of admiration when the flattering music ceased; the Marquess smiled triumphantly, as if to say, "Didn't I tell you he ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... I have nothing Spanish about me.) And this melodious inattention of Lolita's Luis felt to be the ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... after our own manner, and by ourselves. The princess proposed that we should confine ourselves to the cool retreats near the fountain of the Elephant, made also more agreeable to us than any other place by the delightful hours we had sat there listening to the melodious accents of the great Longinus. To this proposal we quickly and gladly assented. Our garments being then made to correspond to the excessive heats of the season, soothed by the noise of the falling waters, and fanned by slaves who waved to and fro huge ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... unlock the great secrets of Nature's goddess. The other she knew not; it was a strange passion to her. It was wild, tumultuous, and then calm as a summer's eve—like a storm which bows down the lofty pines on Mount Coressus, and yet as gentle and melodious as the softest Ionian music which ever broke the stillness of the evening air. And as the maid stood there with her long tresses falling over her graceful form, visions rose before her, visions of the future stretching down the great highway leading into eternity, and a voice rang ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... in the house. D'Artagnan had heard the door shut and the shutters barred; the dogs became in their turn silent. At last a nightingale, lost in a thicket of shrubs, in the midst of its most melodious cadences had fluted low and lower into stillness and fallen asleep. Not a sound was heard in the castle, except of a footstep up and down, in the chamber above—as he supposed, the bedroom ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... view seems deeply probable. Things cohere, but the act of cohesion itself implies but few conditions, and leaves the rest of their qualifications indeterminate. As the first three notes of a tune comport many endings, all melodious, but the tune is not named till a particular ending has actually come,—so the parts actually known of the universe may comport many ideally possible complements. But as {271} the facts are not the complements, so the knowledge of the one is not the knowledge of the other in anything but the ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... charming she might be in the motor rides with the four, how pretty and piquant in the afternoon at the piano, how melodious in the evenings upon the steps, the full measure of ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... this the captain came into the waist with a Lutheran prayer-book, from which, with an impressive voice, he read some prayers. Then both the seamen and emigrants—men, women, and children—stood round and burst forth into a hymn most sweet and melodious; first it was sad in the extreme, and then it rose by degrees to tones of joy, as it pictured the spirit of the departed borne by angels into Abraham's bosom; while another prayer was being uttered, the body of my shipmate was launched into the deep. Thus four ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... sacred music, and attended divine service regularly in the church every Sunday. Mr Evans, who was a good musician, had taught them to sing in parts; and it has a wonderfully pleasing effect upon a stranger to hear these dingy sons and daughters of the wilderness raising their melodious voices in harmony in praise of the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... a step—when he felt himself gently pushed on by some other hands from behind him. He walked on, in great perplexity, till he entered a vestibule inlaid with porphyry and lapis-stone, where the most melodious voice he had ever ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... the other. Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch Upon the lute doth ravish human sense; Spenser to me, whose deep conceit is such As passing all conceit, needs no defence. Thou lov'st to hear the sweet melodious sound That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music, makes; And I in deep delight am chiefly drown'd Whenas himself to singing he betakes. One god is god of both, as poets feign; One knight loves both, ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... dwelling he so well celebrated; master, perhaps, of all the jewels of Erin that her suitors had given her. Yet their young love was not destined to meet the storms and frosts of the years; for Cael the gallant fell in battle, his melodious lips for ever stilled. Thus have these ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... of it, they met the serpent. Now before it tempted Eve and became accursed, the serpent had been the most beautiful of all the creatures. Its head was of all the colours of the most beautiful jewels; it had eyes like emeralds, and a melodious voice; it had slender and graceful legs, and it fed on perfumed flowers and delicious fruits. Now it was loathsome to look upon; it wriggled on its belly in the dust, and all creatures spurned and hated it. And when it saw Eve it was enraged to ...
— Old Testament Legends - being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal - books of the old testament • M. R. James
... like blossoms that bend to the breezes or showers, Now wantonly winding, they flash, now they falter, and, lingering, languish in radiant choir; Their jewel-girt arms and warm, wavering, lily-long fingers enchant through melodious hours, Eyes ravished with rapture, celestially panting, what passionate ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... "Idylls of the King," Tennyson has taken the stories as told by Malory, and has turned them into his own melodious verse; yet, while adhering to the substance of each tale, he has in minor matters taken such liberties as have been allowed to poets since the earliest times. Shakespeare, in his "Julius Caesar," makes a like use of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... ranging through a blue and cloudless sky, shed upon the trees a trembling lustre, and the waters of the fountains sparkled in the silver beam: A gentle breeze breathed the fragrance of Orange-blossoms along the Alleys; and the Nightingale poured forth her melodious murmur from the shelter of an artificial wilderness. Thither the Abbot ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... delicacy by the transparent shadow of the white handkerchief tied hoodwise over her fair hair, and her shrill sweet voice calling "Caller haddie!" all the way she went, in the melancholy monotone that resounds through the thoroughfares of Edinburgh—the only melodious street-cry (except the warning of the Venetian gondoliers) that ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... stirred, And wailest for thyself a tuneless lay, As piteous as the ceaseless tale Wherewith the brown melodious bird Doth ever Itys! Itys! wail, Deep-bowered in sorrow, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... declined to be repressed. "Ve pelief der game uf paseball can play us some. Der practice vos oudt uf us a whole lot, but all der same ve vill dood our pest to dood you up. Between der acts I vill gif you a melodious selection der flute on. Der flute brought me vid ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... sparkled softly, her head bent and rose softly. He felt that she was praying for him also,—and a wonderful emotion filled his soul. He felt happy, and somewhat conscience-stricken. The decorously-standing congregation, the familiar faces, the melodious chanting, the odour of the incense, the long, slanting rays of light from the windows, the very gloom of the walls and vaulted roof,—all spoke to his ear. He had not been in a church for a long time, he had not appealed to God for a long time: and even now, he did ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... into which he weaves such words as may be denotative of his thought; and all the while that he is striving to be definite and clear, he carries in his mind a subtle sense of the harmonic accompaniment of consonants, the melodious eloquence ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Madeline! My Madeline! Mark my melodious midnight moans; Much may my melting music ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... voice is like a fountain Leaping up in sunshine bright, And I never weary counting Its clear droppings, lone and single, 30 Or when in one full gush they mingle, Shooting in melodious light. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... which she had passed, and the people she had met, were new to her; and she lay awake and thought of them until at last the slow-moving stars left her wrapped in sleep—a sleep from which she was not aroused until William shook the foundations of the tavern with his melodious bell, informing everybody that the hour for breakfast ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris
... that I have had to do with have amply repaid any little kindness shown them with fidelity and affection, but especially has this been the case with Kanakas, The soft and melodious language spoken by them is easy to acquire, and is so pleasant to speak that it is well worth learning, to say nothing of the convenience to yourself, although the Kanaka speedily picks up the mutilated jargon which does duty ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen |
