"Siren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... troops, and, crossing the pass of Tarvis, entered Germany at Villach. "We are come," he said to the inhabitants, "not as enemies, but as friends, to end a terrible war imposed by England on a ministry bought with her gold." And the populace, listening to his siren voice, believed him. All this was accomplished before the end of March; and Charles, his army reduced to less than three fourths, was resting northward on the road to Vienna, beyond the river Mur, exhausted, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Whew-ee-ee-ee-ew-ew went the siren whistle. And all the men and all the women hurried toward the factory. For that meant it was time to begin work. Each man and each woman went to his particular machine. The steam was up; the belts were moving; the wheels were whirring; the piston rods were shooting ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... glidest through the storm-tost world, And bearest Blessings of peace and rest unto the weak, Giddy and faint within its vortex whirled; O! fairest, Sweetest Pilot of the wavering soul Through the wide-yawning gulfs and shoals of crime, Whence issue siren-spells that seek To sink the wayward in their noxious slime; Emblem of Purity! That like the star of Bethlehem dost lume The wise of heart through this life's deepest gloom To hope, and joy, and blessedness, Hail to thee! Thou art the Priestess of all ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... just as it is all over the world; she is depicted as being above the waist a most lovely young woman, whilst below she is like a fish with fins and spreading tail. Both mermen and mermaids were fond, it is said, of combing their long hair, and the siren-like song of the latter was thought to be so seductive as to entice men to destruction. It was believed that beautiful mermaids fell in love with comely young men and even induced them to enter their abodes in the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... little get hold of Chopin as, to use L. Enault's expression, of the scaly back of a siren. Only after reading his letters to the few confidants to whom he freely gave his whole self do we know how little of himself he gave to the generality of his friends, whom he pays off with affectionateness and playfulness, and who, perhaps, never ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... a sudden diversion from outside the mob. Down the road from the great house, shrieking a warning, came a flying motor car. Its siren sounded quick, angry blasts, and the mob, terrified, broke and scattered to get out of the way of the car. Fred, stupefied, didn't run. He had to jump quickly to one side to get out of the car's path. Then he saw that it ...
— The Boy Scouts In Russia • John Blaine
... could not be composed by the invocation of Dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases, without reference ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... circumstances, on an American ship, we would have tied down the siren, sung the doxology, and broken everything on the bar. As it was, the Americans instinctively flocked to the smoking-room and drank to the British navy. While this ceremony was going forward, from the promenade-deck we heard tumultuous shouts ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... That word "siren" put me back on track, and I realized that the animal belonged to the order Sirenia: marine creatures that legends have turned into mermaids, half woman, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... yet, there would very likely be some swearing when the soldiers got there. In the meantime he was wet through, both with rain and perspiration. The thought of a bath and dry clothes urged him like the voice of a siren calling; and he had shown the babu all the courtesy his ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... departure from this life. It is better to be rich than to be ambitious. It is better to have at hand what you want than to work for it, and then not get it. Phyllis was scarcely an arm's length away now. I whistled as I locked up my desk, and proceeded down stairs and sang a siren song into the waxen ears of ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath
... can reach you Frowning o'er that dog-eared page? Yonder rushing brook can teach you More than half your Classic Age. Banish Greeks and Siren shores, Let your thoughts run ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... was obviously being stolen. He roared out at the top of his voice, and stumped over to the wall where he threw the alarm switch. Immediately, a hundred arc lights flashed on, lighting the level brighter than the noon sun, and a tremendously loud siren started wailing its warning to ...
— The Stutterer • R.R. Merliss
... what perils still environ[181] The happiest mortals even after dinner! A day of gold from out an age of iron Is all that Life allows the luckiest sinner; Pleasure (whene'er she sings, at least) 's a Siren, That lures, to flay alive, the young beginner; Lambro's reception at his people's banquet Was such as fire ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... drop; and the Captain must sing her one of his songs, his dear songs, and teach it to her. And when he had sung an Irish melody in his rich quavering voice, fancying it was he who was fascinating the little siren, she put her little question about Arthur Pendennis and his novel, and having got an answer, cared for nothing more, but left the Captain at the piano about to sing her another song, and the dinner-tray on the passage, and the shirts on the chair, and ran downstairs quickening ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they not have a right to laugh at us? They might imagine that we were slaves, who, coming to rest at a place of resort of theirs, like sheep lie asleep at noon around the well. But if they see us discoursing, and like Odysseus sailing past them, deaf to their siren voices, they may perhaps, out of respect, give us of the gifts which they receive from the gods that they may impart them ...
— Phaedrus • Plato
... Valentine cried gaily. "In the wilds of South Kensington, in a tiny house, all Morris tapestry and Burne-Jones stained glass, dwells the latest siren who has been calling to our Ulysses. He is there, I suspect. Wait a moment, though. His telegram might tell us. Where was it ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... up too, boy, unless you want to become a graven image," commanded Manthis. His voice, which started at the ordinary pitch, went up like a siren at the end as the drug took effect. Dazedly Jack ...
— The End of Time • Wallace West
... you hide in the city's din And drown your ears with its siren songs, Some day steal in those thin, wild notes, And you leave ...
— England over Seas • Lloyd Roberts
... Thou sleepy-eyed Chinese—enticing siren, Pekoe! the Muse hath said in praise of thee, "That cheers but not inebriates"; and Byron Hath called thy sister "Queen of Tears", Bohea! And he, Anacreon of Rome's age of iron, Says, how untruly "Quis non potius te." While coffee, thou—bill-plastered gables say, Art like ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... have kept in safety the Latin schools, but not the free and home thoughts which found utterance in the language of the people, if the solemn beauty of the Italian Commedia had not seized on all minds. It would have been an evil thing for Italian, perhaps for European, literature if the siren tales of the Decameron had not been the first to occupy the ears with the charms of a ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... to which it is exposed, but itself performing its own peculiar and private life. This last, in the case of Strether, involves a gradual, long-drawn change, from the moment when he takes up the charge of rescuing his young friend from the siren of Paris, to the moment when he finds himself wishing that his young friend would refuse to be rescued. Such is the curve in the unexpected adventure of his imagination. It is given as nobody's ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... ships. The flashing lantern is superseded at night, flags and the semaphore by day, or, if these are retained, it is for services purely auxiliary. The hideous and bewildering shrieks of the steam-siren need no longer be heard in a fog, and the uncertain system of gun signals will soon become a thing of the past." The interest of the naval and military strategist in the Marconi apparatus extends far beyond its communication of intelligence. Any electrical ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... shrill, nerve-racking shriek of the fire whistle, four or five blocks away. In spite of himself, he was startled with its suddenness, and he stood tensed and waiting for the dismal hoots that would tell what ward the fire was in. One—two—three, croaked the siren like a giant hoot-owl calling in ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... the affair, nor ever spoke again of Malpas and the siren who presided there. And meanwhile the autumn faded into winter, and with the coming of stormy weather Sir Oliver and Rosamund had fewer opportunities of meeting. To Godolphin Court he would not go since she did not desire it; and himself he deemed it best to remain away since otherwise he must ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... for women of my type—what may be called the intellectual siren—the lover phase is inevitable. We are goaded not only by the imperious demands of womanhood and the hope of the perfect companion, but by curiosity, love of adventure, ennui; possibly some more obscure complex—vengeance on the husband who has wrecked our first illusions—on Life itself. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... him, and once, as he faced it with an unquailing eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon, in the form of a woman, assailed him with the temptation which beset St. Benedict among the rocks of Subiaco; but Brbeuf signed the cross, and the infernal siren melted into air. He saw the vision of a vast and gorgeous palace; and a miraculous voice assured him that such was to be the reward of those who dwelt in savage hovels for the cause of God. Angels appeared to him; and, more than once, St. Joseph and the Virgin were visibly present before his ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... stood up successfully for its natural development at a time when the clever but less largely informed Campion and others threatened it with fantastic changes. He probably did as much as Waller to introduce polish of line into our poetry. Turn to the famous "Ulysses and the Siren," and read. Can anyone tell me of English verses that run more smoothly off the tongue, or ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... It was silently and unanimously voted that Mrs. Osbourne was a good fellow, and soon she was enjoying all the benefits of the Siron Club. When a frivolous member suggested that it be called the Siren Club he was met with an oppressive stillness ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... her way through a fleet of small fishing-boats, as I could tell by the reduced speed, the hooting of the siren, and the constant and prolonged rattle of the steering rods. Soon she would bring up to the quay in Palma harbour. Why should I not get ashore there and work out the hard problem ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... his mother a long anonymous letter to warn her that he was "ruining himself with a married woman," and the good lady at once conjuring up the eternal bugbear of families, the vague pernicious creature, the siren, the monster, who dwells fantastically in depths of love, wrote to Lawyer Dubocage, his employer, who behaved perfectly in the affair. He kept him for three quarters of an hour trying to open his eyes, to warn ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... the boy urged, still standing in a safe place by the doorway. "It's hot enough to melt brass in here, an' the siren's been shoutin' for half an hour! That means land—the Philippines! Perhaps you think you're lookin' for Battery Park, in little old New York! Get up an' look out of the port, over the rollin' sea, to the land of the ...
— Boy Scouts in the Philippines - Or, The Key to the Treaty Box • G. Harvey Ralphson
... application, during which he in a manner tied himself to the mast, had laid the seeds of a lurking malady in his system, and produced a severe illness in the course of the summer. Town life was not favorable to the health either of body or mind. He could not resist the siren voice of temptation, which, now that he had become a notoriety, assailed him on every side. Accordingly we find him launching away in a career of social dissipation; dining and supping out; at clubs, at routs, at theaters; he is a guest with Johnson at ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... on the languid eye Life's autumn scenes grow dim; When evening's shadows veil the sky; And pleasure's siren hymn Grows fainter on the tuneless ear, Like echoes from another sphere, Or dreams of seraphim— It were not sad to cast away This dull and ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... honoured my poor house by your presence. Mesdames, so kind of you not to forget the most sincere of your servants. Sir, it is really too good of you to neglect your important studies on my account! Countess, your siren song is generally acknowledged to be the gem of ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Euclid could exercise a siren's charm upon nearly all sorts of men. But Edward Henry knew one sort of men upon whom she could not exercise it—namely, the sort of men who are born and bred in the Five Towns. His instinctive belief in the Five Towns as the sole ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... of sparrows, the jingle of bells, the hooting of a siren, or was it my neighbor singing "A rose I gave to you"? of course it was,—the rumble of a post-office van, and the cry of children's voices, rather peevish voices, poor mites! Never mind, ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... and composer, Pisani, with his sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned, growled, and laughed responsive to the feelings of its master; the description of Viola's and her father's triumph, when "The Siren," his masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples; Glyndon's adventure at the Carnival in Naples; the death of his sister; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris, closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and perhaps, above all, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... eyes, trying to drowse his consciousness, and exchanging it in his fitful snatches of sleep for oppressive dreams, in one of which Eileen figured as a Lorelei, combing her locks on a rock as she sang her siren song. ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... market, from around a corner came a big motor car with the roar of a siren. There was Baron Ungern in the yellow silk Mongolian coat with a blue girdle. He was going very fast but recognized me at once, stopping and getting out to invite me to go with him to his yurta. The Baron lived in a small, simply arranged yurta, set up in the courtyard of a Chinese ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... Alizon Device is comely to view, no doubt, but who shall say whence her beauty is derived? Hell may have arrayed her in its fatal charms. Sin is beautiful, but all-destructive. And the time will come when you may thank me for delivering you from the snares of this seductive siren." Richard ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... shriek of a siren from the other end of the village. "Another stinking devil," they said. "Get out of ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... him instead of the killers. The other car was traveling at top speed, swerving around the slower cars. Roger gained slowly. He fingered the spotlight, preparing to snap it in the driver's eyes. Taking a curve at 90, he crept up alongside the black car as he heard the siren of a patrol car behind him. Cursing, he edged over on the black car, snapped the spotlight full in ...
— Infinite Intruder • Alan Edward Nourse
... lives on earth. As they hurried on they urged themselves to diligence by cries of "In haste the mountains blessed Mary won!" "Caesar flew to Spain!" "Haste! Grace grows best in those who ardor feel!" As the poet meditated on their words, he lapsed into a dream in which he saw the Siren who drew brave mariners from their courses; and even as he listened to her melodious song, he beheld her exposed by a saint-like lady, Lucia, or Illuminating Grace. Day dawned, the Angel fanned the fourth ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... Gathering courage from this devout act, and abandoning his useless weapon, he tiptoed to the door that led to the larger apartment, and there found his worst anticipations realised. With her back against the closed outer door stood a Siren of the Rhine, and, as if to show how futile is the support of the Evil One in a crisis, her very lips were pallid with fear and her blue eyes were wide with apprehension, as they met those of the Count von Schonburg. Her hair, the colour of ripe ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his compassionate heart evoked the image of little Desiree Delobelle, ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... treated him like a dog, and he could not help seeing that she adored the Gentile artist—a knowledge which almost broke his heart. But it was some satisfaction for him to note that Lambert would have nothing to do with the siren, and that she could not charm him to her feet, sang she ever so tenderly. It was an unhappy trio at ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... The monarch o'er the siren hung, And beat the measure as she sung; And, pressing closer and more near, He whispered praises in her ear. In loud applause the courtiers vied, And ladies winked and spoke aside. The witching dame to Marmion threw A glance, where seemed to reign ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... stones. Yet, Pharisaical snob, he did most violently resent that she should be opposite his wife in The Sunday Picture.... Eve! Eve! A few short weeks ago, and you made a mock of women who let themselves get into The Daily Picture. And now you are there yourself! (But so, and often, was the siren Lady Massulam! A ticklish thing, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not the things which so nearly concern their ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... until they had reached Mrs. Morpher's, and he had deposited Mliss in her maternal charge. Waiving the invitation of Mrs. Morpher to refreshment and rest, and shading his eyes with his hand to keep out the blue-eyed Clytemnestra's siren glances, he excused himself, ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing. I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him down on the landing ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... was a lion, No, years ago, night was a python Weaving designs against space With undulations of his being— Night was a siren once. ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Marjorie Allen Seiffert
... her in other scenes as a duellist, for instance, because forsooth she can fence. As a child of the ocean, half fish, half woman, she is indeed convincing. Such mermaids as this have haunted sailors, and lured them on the rocks to their doom, from the day the siren sang till the hour the Lorelei sang no more. The scene with the baby mermaid, when she swims with the pretty creature on her back, is irresistible. Why are our managers so mechanical? Why do they flatten out at the moment the fancy of the tiniest reader of fairy-tales begins to be alive? ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... wounded soldier and walked out. I barely reached Miasnitskaya Street before an armored car full of working men and soldiers passed by at about fifty miles an hour. Half a dozen bad faces looked at me. I decided to continue calmly on my way, but I heard the car coming back very soon sounding its siren. It stopped near me. "Come in, cavalry man, there is a seat for one. They found somebody in ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... Girl, thou camest for other things! Thou lovedst his voice? Siren! what was the witchery of thine own? He deftly made up the packet, and placed it in the little hand. She paid for her small purchase, and with a farewell glance of her lustrous eyes, she left him. She passed slowly through the portal, and in a moment was lost in the crowd. ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was in a state of ecstasy. He hardly knew whether he trod on air or no. No siren of old Greek fable had ever lured mortal more under her spell than this strange foreign woman thing—Queen or Princess or what you will. Nothing else in the world was of any consequence to him—and it was all the more remarkable because ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... of Siren tears, Distill'd from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win! What wretched errors hath my heart committed, Whilst it hath thought itself so blessed never! How ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... see it again," said I, pouring out what remained of our bottle of claret; "the wine is capital, and so shall our toast be—'To your fireside, my good friend.' And now we shall go beg a Scots song without foreign graces from my little siren, Miss Katie." ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... names of the three Sirens were taken from the triple pleasure of the senses, wine, love, and music, which are the three most powerful means of seducing mankind; and hence so many exhortations to avoid the Sirens' fatal song; and probably it was hence that the Greeks obtained their etymology of Siren from a Greek word signifying a chain, as if there were no getting free from ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... than before. Give me rugged toils, fierce disputation, wrangling controversy, harassing research,—give me anything that calls forth the energies of the mind; but for Heaven's sake shield me from those calms, those tranquil slumberings, those enervating triflings, those siren blandishments, that I have for some time indulged in, which lull the mind into complete inaction, which benumb its powers, and cost it such painful and humiliating struggles to ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... House." It was a dirty, cheerless hole, in spite of the brilliance of many oil lamps, shining among the flimsy decorations. At the end of the tunnel-shaped room was a rude stage, festooned with gaudy, squalid hangings, beneath which a painted siren was singing a song which Simon did not listen to. The floor of the auditorium was filled with chairs and tables in disorderly array, the occupants of which seemed to be paying more attention to their liquor and their cards than to the cracked voice of the songstress. There was a rattling of glasses, ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... element was melancholy, sighed, "I've been north of Ireland, Pedro, and that was bad enough! The lookout saw a siren and the Infanta Isabella was dashed on the rocks and something ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... insect has a voice, or rather utters a sound which, so far as it resembles any other animal sound, at the beginning remotely suggests batrachian affinities. The locomotive-whistle part of the utterance, however, resembles nothing so much as a small steam siren; when first heard it seems impossible that it can be produced by ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... but not for long. Louder and clearer came the frequent long-drawn wails of the steam fog-horn, until finally it seemed evident they were almost exactly above the lightship that, as Tom knew, was anchored on the shoals to warn mariners of their danger by means of a far-reaching lamp and the powerful siren's ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... cellars, and realized that into such places those they loved best were being landed, through the allurements of the brilliantly lighted drug-store, the fascinating billiard table, or the enticing beer gardens, with their siren attractions. A crowded house at night, to hear the report of the day's work, betrayed the rapidly increasing ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in a while the nose of a steel-gray ship, small or large, poked through the mist, and her growling siren warned the smaller craft to ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... an exceedingly brief instant, there was the illusion of silence. The next moment the factory siren rose to a shrill shriek, with a full head of steam behind it—the ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... siren call had ceased, but there had been no lessening of speed by the racing dugouts. On the contrary, the last long mile had been covered in a final desperate spurt, the paddles swinging in swift unison to the accompaniment of a ferocious chant of one syllable: "Hough! Hough! Hough!" This ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... murmur swelled from the crowd and the red police roused from their lethargy. The mounting scream of a siren echoed in the vaulted recesses above and re-echoed from the surrounding ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... It languished on the night with an o'ermastering appeal, sweet inexpressibly and melting, the air unknown to one listener at least, but by him enviously confessed a very siren spell. He looked at Olivia, and saw that she intended ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... Now, in that silence suddenly I felt you! I knew that you cared. It was cruel to die so if you did love me! It brought the 'pang and spur'! I fought the drowsiness that was taking away my pain. I had begun to lean on it as a comfortable breast. I woke up and tore myself away from that siren sleep. It was my darling,—her love that saved me. Without that thought of you, I never would have stirred again. Where were you, what were you thinking that brought you ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... the East the ominous cry That tells a greedy foe draws nigh— The vulture, thirsting for the strife. Hear in the west the serpent's hiss Whose siren-fangs are set for this, To poison all your virtuous life. Near is the vulture's swoop; The serpent coils to stoop For the stroke; Then watch and pray Until the day— Your swords be sharpened for ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... vengeance, smote me sore, My Siren called me from no classic shore; It was no Girton trumpet that laid low The walls of ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... is assumed to be proper for gradation also; and a very flattering assumption it is, promising a perfectly homogeneous system of weights, measures, coins, and numbers, than which nothing can be more desirable; but, siren-like, it draws the mind away from a proper investigation of the subject, and the basic qualities of numbers, being unquestioned, remain unknown. When the natural order is adopted, and the base of gradation is ascertained by its adaptation to things, and the base of numeration by its agreement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... in a kind of loud whisper, are you caught too by the little siren?—My mother did well not to come up!—I question whether my father himself, after his first indignation, would not be turned round by her. Nobody but my brother can do any thing with ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... has given us but one idea of the mistress, the subtle, calculating siren who delights to prey on the souls of men. The journalism and the moral pamphleteering of the time seem to foster it with almost partisan zeal. It would seem that a censorship of life had been established ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... about Madame Catalani. Being at a large party in Vienna, where Goethe was present, she was much surprised at the great respect with which that illustrious man was treated. On inquiring his name, she was informed it was the celebrated Goethe. "Celebrated!" said the siren; "what music did he ever compose? Why, I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 583 - Volume 20, Number 583, Saturday, December 29, 1832 • Various
... great source to which you must have recourse for the knowledge of the things you should know. Now you will find that there is hardly a single page of those sacred writings in which there is not a malediction pronounced against the world, and a warning for you to avoid its siren charms. You will find in the gospel according to St. John its true character described by Jesus Christ Himself, who, being the Incarnate Wisdom, could not have any other than the most perfect idea of things according to their ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... And damn that roof! Or was it the floor? It certainly had been under the chin that time. Got to get up—and it didn't seem possible—didn't seem as if he could. Was that English holding him? Round was over? "Pardon me. Didn't hear the bell. They'd ought to have a siren!" ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... word stirred the girl's heart like a message and blessing from heaven, like the sweetest harmony of the siren's song, like the word of acquittal from a judge's lips when the verdict is life or death, and her lips were already parted to say 'Publius' in a tone no less deep and heartfelt-but, with all the force of her soul, she restrained herself, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... fair arms of the siren Summer Encircle the earth in their languorous fold. Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotions Surge through my veins as they surged of old? Canst thou bring back from a day long vanished The leaping pulse and the boundless aim? I will pay thee ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... sitteth in the high places of the city, and saith, Whoso is simple let him turn in hither.' And foolish men go after her, and—'know not that her guests are in the depth of hell.' Ah! my brother! beware of that siren voice that draws you away from all the sweet and simple and pure food which Wisdom spreads upon her table, to tempt the beast that is in you with the words, 'Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.' Beware of the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... magenta-hued liquid. "It has lost its luster, like a woman's eyes when she has passed the meridian. Good wine, like a woman, has its life. First, sweetly innocent, delicately palatable, its blush like a maiden of sixteen; then glowing with a riper development, more passionate in hue, a siren vintage; finally, thin, waning and watery, with only memories of the deeper, rosy-hued days. Now here, my good, but muddled friend, is your youthful maiden!" Holding toward the lamp a glass, clear ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... sing; or that it is a pain To know the dusk depths of the ponderous sea, The miles profound of solid green, and be With loath'd cold fishes, far from man—or what;— I know the sadness but the cause know not. Then they, thus ranged, gan make full plaintively A piteous Siren sweetness on the sea, Withouten instrument, or conch, or bell, Or stretch'd chords tuneable on turtle's shell; Only with utterance of sweet breath they sung An antique chaunt and in an unknown tongue. Now melting ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... Lydia, this is tedious; we shall never get through at this rate. Besides," with a mock-sentimental air, "you have not been here long enough to know the melancholy history,—to count the wrecks that are strewn along the coast, where the Siren resorts. Let me take up the list. Corning, who really loved me, (six,) and went to sea to cure the heart-ache. I heard of him in State Street a month ago,—with a blue shirt and leather belt, and chewing a piece of tobacco as large as his thumb. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... and fell likewise a kerchief white; But that no doubt was accident, for when She sought her couch she deemed her conduct quite Beyond the reach of scandalous commenter,— Washing her hands of either gallant wight, Knowing the moralist might compliment her,— Thus voicing Siren with the words ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... lips, the delicate nostrils and beautifully moulded chin. Angel or devil? queries the beholder. Sometimes he is constrained to think that the possessor of such a face has the mingled souls of saint and siren. The light undertone of melancholy which pervades gypsy beauty, gypsy music, gypsy manners, has an extremely remarkable fascination for all who perceive it. Even when it is almost buried beneath ignorance and animal craft, it is still to be found in the gypsy nature after diligent search. This ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... wished Jenny out of the way, and hinted as much, she never meant actual murder; while his, again, was the old Barnwell charge, that his better nature had been corrupted by the woman, and that he did it at her suggestion, and under the influence of her siren power. They thus got gradually into that state of feeling by which the runaway convicts from a penal settlement were actuated, when, toiling away through endless brakes and swamps where neither meat nor drink could be procured, they were so maddened by hunger, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... adventure occurred at the Opera in November, 1844. The Queen went, not in State, or even semi-state, but privately, to hear Auber's opera of "The Siren," when Mr. Bunn, the lessee, was found to have made known without authority her Majesty's intention. The result was a great house, but some inconvenience to the first lady in the land. The Queen was called for, but declined to come forward, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... now came the message: "S-W-A. All trading posts, mines and colonies are warned to prepare for possible attack. The Earth Government has just announced the receipt of an ultimatum from—" A raucous howl cut across the message and drowned it out. The siren blast howled on and on, mocking Jim's straining ears. "Well I'll be—Interference! Deliberate blanketing! The rats! The—" He blazed into a torrent of profanity whose imaginativeness was matched only ...
— The Great Dome on Mercury • Arthur Leo Zagat
... "You beautiful siren!" he said. "You are coaxing me. How you know how to use your charms and your powers, and what man ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... 'Careful; Emden near.' The work of destruction went smoothly. The wireless operators said: 'Thank God. It's been like being under arrest day and night lately.' Presently the Emden signaled us, 'Hurry up.' I packed up, but simultaneously the Emden's siren wailed. I hurried to the bridge and saw the flag 'Anna' go up. That meant 'Weigh anchor.' We ran like mad to our boat, but already the Emden's pennant was up, the battle flag was raised, and they began to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... all, man, don't blow your horn like that!" roared Windomshire at last, harassed and full of dread. Joe, in his abstraction, was sounding his siren ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... Del's siren tones, Frona's were purest silver as they rippled down-island through the trees. "Oyez! Oyez! Open water! Open water! And wait a ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... I have played the Infidel, If, as the fated Pitcher to the Well, Too oft to Love's empyrean Font I stray, To fall, at last, beneath some Siren's spell, ...
— The Rubaiyat of a Bachelor • Helen Rowland
... footfall of Pringle ceased. The house was silent; the city had become so. An occasional Madison Avenue car could be heard ringing along the cold rails, or rhythmically bounding down hill on a flat wheel. Once some distance away came the long, continuous complaint of the siren of a fire-engine and the bells and gongs of its comrades; and then a young man went past, whistling with the purest accuracy of time and tune the air to which he had ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... of them. He knew that he must become a prey, but was there any choice left to him as to which siren should have him? He had been quite aware in his more gallant days, before he had been knocked about on that Charybdis rock, that he might sip, and taste, and choose between the sweets. He had come to think lately that the younger young lady was the sweeter. Eight years ago indeed ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... enjoy an invention in the form of a machine that renders music when acted upon by air, and, at certain times, also by water. It is inspiring to listen to these Siren strains as the music city passes ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... nought within, They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Siren's hair would win Is ...
— Tudor and Stuart Love Songs • Various
... all right. She trains them front row eyes of hers on him, opens up with a few lines of lively chatter, and inside of half an hour she has him sittin' picturesque at her feet, callin' him Hermes of the Lobster Pots, and otherwise workin' the siren spell. ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... "I have not forgotten, as you, Rosarita, the day when I first saw you in the forest. The twilight was so sombre I could scarce make out your form, which appeared like the graceful shadow of some siren of the woods. Your voice I could hear, and there was something in it that charmed my soul—something that I had never heard till ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... a grown-up strand Fish-wife siren, full of lure, Snaring with devices sure Lads who murdered on the sand. But on most days just a child Dimpled as no grown-folk are, Cold of kiss as some north star, Violet from the valleys wild. Snared as innocence must be, Fleeing, prisoned, chained, half-dead— At the end ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay
... over to the window, her eyes wide with horror. "Billie, that's the signal to the life-savers. And there goes the siren," she groaned, clapping her hands over her ears as the moan of the siren rose wailingly into the ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... on to things unspeakable. It had clouded his brain, fired his blood to ugly resolve, blinded every finer instinct with its turbulent call, until the siren who beckons men onward through the marshland of passion had flung the gift at his feet in the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... firma when the Scheldt emptied itself into the Meuse? But, even leaving its origin out of the question, in what other country in the world do things happen as they happen in Zealand? In what other country do the fishermen catch in their nets a siren whose husband, after vain prayers to have her restored, in vengeance throws up a handful of sand, prophesying that it will bury the gates of the town—and lo his prophecy is fulfilled? In what other country do the souls of those lost at sea come as they come to Walcheren, ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... not where those siren lips learned their unworthy skill, Nor reck of how shame's black eclipse obscured her purer will. You think not whence fair thoughts like flowers gave room to passions low; You know not of her girlhood's hours; you do ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... One mad May-dawn, three hundred years ago, When out of the woods we came with hawthorn boughs And found the doors locked, as they seemed to-night. Three hundred years ago—nay, Time was dead! No need to scan the sign-board any more Where that white-breasted siren of the sea Curled her moon-silvered tail among such rocks As never in the merriest seaman's tale Broke the blue-bliss of fabulous lagoons Beyond ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... accents of their worship. "Ye sons of women, such as ye are now, such once were we. Through many scenes of trial, through heroic constancy, and ever-during patience, have we attained to this bright eminence. Large and mysterious are the paths of heaven, just and immaculate his ways. If ye listen to the siren voice of pleasure, if upon the neck of heedless youth you throw the reins, that base and earth-born clay which now you wear, shall assume despotic empire. And when you quit the present narrow scene, ye shall ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... was jerked from him as he was snapped back into his seat. Regardless of admonitory shouts from patrolmen, the French car sang its growing song, while truck-drivers bellowed curses and pedestrians fled from crossings at the scream of its siren. A cross-town car blocked them, and the brakes screeched in agony, while Doctor Suydam was well-nigh catapulted into the street; then they were under way again, with the car leaping from speed to speed. It was ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... Heaven, whom not the languid songs Of Luxury, the siren! nor the bribes Of sordid Wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils Of pageant Honour, can seduce to leave Those ever-blooming sweets which, from the store Of Nature, fair Imagination culls To charm th' enlivened soul! What though not all Of mortal offspring can attain the heights Of envied life, though ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... reductio ad absurdum. The subtlest poetic art of France should come in person to Coalchester, and after days should tell that Theophilus Londonderry, while still a young country minister, had bidden Paris sing her loveliest siren-song in the musty little lecture-hall of New Zion. It is thus power bends the bow of the world till the ends meet, and shoots the arrow of ...
— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne
... feeding, till he was well-nigh beside himself. Presently, out comes Moll from her state room, all glowing with exercise, flushed with pleasure, a rich colour in her cheek, and wild fire in her eyes, looking more witching than any siren. Swiftly she crosses the hall, and runs up the stairs to gain her chamber and reclothe herself, but half way up Dawson stops her, and clasping her about, cries hoarsely ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... us to endorse or condemn Olympia. We know that she gives the most delicious little suppers in the world, sings like a siren, smiles like an angel, and gets more and more fascinating as she grows older, as fruit ripens with age. No one ever thinks of asking her how old she is, or where she was born. It is enough that her beauty is in its summer, her voice perfect, and ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... scene before us Dalila is wholly and simply a siren, a seductress who plays upon the known love of Samson from motives which are not disclosed. As yet one may imagine her moved by a genuine passion. She turns her lustrous black eyes upon him as she hails him a double victor over his foes and her heart, and ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... by an outrageous uproar, the grisly scream of a siren and the cannonade of a powerful exhaust, as a great white touring-car swung round us from behind at a speed that sickened me to see, and, snorting thunder, passed us "as if we had been ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... you if I had been wounded under your eyes—that duel, for a quarrel at play, in which my second unfortunately killed that young Frenchman, the Viscount St. Remy. Apropos, do you know what has become of that dangerous siren St. Remy brought to Oppenfeld, and whose name was, I think, Cecily David? You will smile with pity, my friend, to see me wander thus among these vague remembrances of the past, instead of proceeding to the grave confessions which I have announced to you; it is because, in spite of myself, I recoil ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... of James I. and the siren or mermaid of Lady Frazer, who is said to have worked her own golden hair in the heart of a Tudor rose on a ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... wall—the side where the nursery was. It was a very strange sound, indeed—most odd, and unlike any other sounds the children had ever heard. At least, they had heard sounds as much like it as a toy engine's whistle is like a steam siren's. ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... in the twilight does sometimes appear A nymph, a goddess, or a fairy queen, And though no siren but a sprite this were Yet by her beauty seemed it she had been One of those sisters false which haunted near The Tyrrhene shores and kept those waters sheen, Like theirs her face, her voice was, and her sound, And ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... day, having chanced to glance out of the window and down the harbor in the direction of Cottage Point, and having clapped eyes on a sight that pinched and shook the very heart of her, she was changed in a twinkling into the Siren of ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... basely deserted Ignatius to catch on the back of a buggy that came along the river road, leaving his unhappy friend clad in one small shirt, vainly imploring him to return, Ignatius could not go home, for his mother would know that he had again yielded to the siren's voice; so it was to the Barner back door that he turned his guilty steps. Miss Barner was talking to a patient in the office when she heard a small voice at the kitchen door full ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... O siren of tresses peroxide, And heart that is hard as a flint, Blue orbs of complacency ox-eyed, That light at the mark of the mint, Ears only for jingle of joybells, A conscience as light as a cork— You are wedded to follies and foibles, My ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... chimed sweetly over the waters as we left her, bidding us a tender farewell, almost reproachful that we could leave her so soon. Siren-like, she would fain entice us to remain with her, but the old charm-power has departed with her past glory; and we echoed Hervey's beautiful lament as we watched her domes and minarets disappear slowly one by one ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... sea-child, in her coral bower, Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep; Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleep Brightens the hues of summer's first-born flower Pure as the tears repentant mourners weep O'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled,— Art thou, ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... do not think that this—this—shall we call it glamour, John?—this glamour, of the imagination and the senses, will overcome you in any detrimental way. I cannot picture you as the victim of a 'society' siren!" ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... — N. sea, ocean, main, deep, brine, salt water, waves, billows, high seas, offing, great waters, watery waste, vasty deep; wave, tide, &c (water in motion) 348. hydrography, hydrographer; Neptune, Poseidon, Thetis, Triton, Naiad, Nereid; sea nymph, Siren; trident, dolphin. Adj. oceanic; marine, maritime; pelagic, pelagian; seagoing; hydrographic; bathybic^, cotidal^. Adv. at ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... unromantic garment known as the business suit. The winding horn is become a goblet, and its notes are the tinkle of ice against glass. The baying of hounds has harshened to the squawk of the motor siren. The fresh-plowed field is a blue print, the forest maze a roll of plans and specifications. Each fence is a business barrier. Every ditch is of a competitor's making, dug craftily so that the clumsy-footed may come a cropper. All the ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... her thoughts; for while she herself, in the depths of her immature, unsoftened heart, was given altogether to man-like ambition and the desire of power, the eyes were by turns bold, inviting, fiery, melting, and artful, like the eyes of a rapacious siren. And artful, in a sense, she was. Chafing that she was not a man, and could not shine by action, she had, conceived a woman's part, of answerable domination; she sought to subjugate for by-ends, to rain influence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lady living in this place That wears the radiant name of Victory; And we that love would bid her wingless be, Like the Athenian image, lest her grace, Lifting a siren's-tinted pinions, trace Its glittering course across the Tyrrhene sea To some more favored Cyprian sanctuary, Leaving us lonely, longing for her face. O daughter of the gods, though lovelier lands, If such there ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... granted to the daughter of the merchant, he could not refuse to the daughter of the court tailor, more particularly when the latter, by her own gifts and talents, had opened the doors of the palace for herself; when by the power of her siren voice she had made the barriers tremble and fall which separated the tailor's daughter from the court circle. If the lovely Anna became a celebrated singer, if she succeeded in winning the applause of the king, she would be ennobled; and no one ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... customed fetters fall; The chains of drudgery release; Set limits fade; horizons cease For you who hear the call No trumpet note—no roll of drums, But quiet, sure and sweet— The self-same voice that summoned Drake, The whisper for whose siren sake They manned the Devon fleet, More lawless than the gray gull's wait, More boundless than the sea, More subtle than ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... barbaric period never died. They grew up, instead, and proved serviceable friends. Fishing and hunting are now the high-lights of vacation time. The crude call of the weird and the inexplicable has modulated into a siren note from the forgotten psychic continents which we Western peoples have only just discovered and begun to explore. As for the buried treasure craze—why, my life-work practically amounts to a daily search for hidden valuables in the cellars and attics, the chimney-pieces and desert ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... time to open the big gates without and light the candles within under their red shades glowing over the mass of roses still wet from the garden, before I heard the devilish wail of a siren beyond the wall; then a sudden flash of white light from two search-lights illumined the courtyard, and with a wrenching growl Madame Alice de Breville's automobile whined up to my door. The next instant the tip of a little patent-leather slipper, followed by the trimmest of silken ankles ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... home life. They did not dream that 'Frisco Kid ever looked up at them from the cockpit of the Dazzler and in turn envied them just those things which sometimes were the most distasteful to them and from which they suffered to repletion. Just as the romance of adventure sang its siren song in their ears and whispered vague messages of strange lands and lusty deeds, so the delicious mysteries of home enticed 'Frisco Kid's roving fancies, and his brightest day-dreams were of the thing's he knew not—brothers, sisters, a ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London
... natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and to listen to the song of the siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men engaged in the great and arduous struggle for 5 liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes see not, and having ears hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... listen.... During such singing the fire blazes up. The walls are rich in art. My rod is new and trig. There is work, but there is no worry.... I am rich, rich! I have the Singing Mouse. And so strange, so wondrous, so real are the things it sings; so bewitching is the song, so sweeter than that of any siren's; so broad and fine are the countries; so strong and true are the friendships; so brave and kind are the men I meet—so beautiful the whole world of the Singing Mouse, that when it is over, and in a chill I start up, ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... become intolerably hot. As is the way with the Siren city when June is half-way through, the asphalt pavements radiated heat; the air was heavy, laden with strange, unpleasing odours; and even the trees, which form such delicious oases of greenery in the older quarters of the town were powdered with ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the wide-spaced street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed endlessly.... ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... and thoughtless revels Fill up now each misspent night— 'Tis the reign of pride and folly, The Carnival is at its height. Every thought for siren pleasure, And its sinful, feverish mirth; Who can find one moment's leisure For aught else ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... if he was likely enough to beat her when they got home. But she hands up an ivory bowl for contributions amongst the young dandies on the roof of a neighbouring coach, who have been listening open-mouthed to the siren, and shillings and half-crowns, and a bit of gold from the one last out of the Bench, pour into it; and she moves off, to make way for three French glee-maidens with a monkey and a tambourine, and the swells return ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... What! that woman! The siren, the apparition, the lady in the visionary box, the light in the darkness! It was she! Yes; it ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... siren, studying ways of bewitchment, of endearment. She became a bewildering revelation to him, amazing him, delighting him. After he had begun to conclude that he knew her she became not one woman, but a score of women: demure, elfin, pensive, childlike, sedate, aloof, laughing—but always ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... Where self, for England's sake, was self-effaced, In silence reining-in his soul On the strait difficult line by wisdom traced, 'Twixt gulf and siren, avalanche and ravine, Guarding the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... sigh can soothe, And sweetest sounds may jar? Those winged words my thoughts had sent A thousand leagues afar. I listened to the thrilling strain, Unbidden tears would start, The sound fell lightly on the ear, But heavy on the heart. The low breath of the summer wind Seemed but the siren's voice, In vain I chid my coward fears, And struggled ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... sweetness laps my sense, The strong desire of more that in me yearns, Restrain my spirit in its parting hence. Thus at her will I live; thus winds and turns The yarn of life which to my lot is given, Earth's single siren, sent ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... before your eyes as a bit of the drapery that goes to the ball of life. But when dawn almost comes and the ball is over, you mustn't expect the paper roses to smell. This mystifies you a little, for you are a plain, downright siren. Your lovers' songs have been in simple measures. Well, the moral is this: take my love-letters as real (in their way) as the play, or rather, the opera; infinitely true for the moment, unreal for the hour, eternal as the dead passions of the ages. Further, it ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... calculations upon eastern distances, or eastern areas. For, even after he has passed the wilderness of Arizona and the California frontier, he discovers that the Eldorado of his dreams lies on the other side of a desert, two hundred miles in breadth, beyond whose desolate expanse the siren of the Sunset Sea still beckons him and whispers: "This is the final barrier; cross it, and I am yours." The transit is not difficult, however, in days like these; for the whole distance from Chicago to the ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... place for children? A little flourish of imagination, and we see them,—Silas, who beats the drum, and Columbia, who carries the flag, manifest leaders of the wild little company, mermen and mermaids all; and the music is fit for the Siren, and the beauty would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... sad over his defeat as a dramatist. "Is it not a pity," he asks, "that the sweet human voice which was given man to speak with, to sing with, to whisper tones of love in, to express compliance, to convey a favour, or to grant a suit—that voice, which in a Siddons or a Braham rouses us, in a siren Catalani charms and captivates us—that the musical expressive human voice should be converted into a rival of the noises of silly geese and irrational venomous snakes? I never shall forget the sounds on my night!" He urges that the venial mistake of the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... the noise sounded louder than ever. A splash of red appeared at the turn of the road, a siren whistle blew, and a well-known, crimson motor car rapidly approached her gate. Mrs. Thurston rubbed her eyes. It was the Stuart's automobile and no other. Sitting enthroned in it was that gentleman and his daughter. And, could it be possible? Barbara ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... died and Shalmaneser IV succeeded him on the throne in Nineveh, Hoshea gave ear to the siren voice of Egypt, ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... clothes and the individuality. But there's a simplicity about her, a directness, that comes from years of association with things I haven't had. Before I came here, I thought money could buy anything. But it can't. Mary Ballard couldn't be anything else. And I—I can be anything from a siren to a soubrette, but I can't be a lady—not the kind that you are—and ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... with a beaming countenance, convinced that he was the only man in the world to that shameless slut, as treacherous, but as lovely and as engaging as a siren. ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... But before they stated their objections and preferences, the Bikari people called to us in a loud voice to come ashore, threatening us with the vengeance of the great Wami if we did not halt. As the voices were anything but siren-like, we obstinately refused to accede to the request. Finding threats of no avail, they had recourse to stones, and, accordingly, flung them at us in a most hearty manner. As one came within a foot ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main,— The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... mist. Out of this murk, across this oily sweep, Might lost armadas grandly sail to shore; Jason might oar on Argo, or the stern Surge-wanderer from Ithaca's bleak isle Break on the sight, or Viking prows appear, And still not waken wonder. Aye, the sound Of siren singing might drift o'er the main, And yet not fall upon amazed ears! The soul is ripe for marvels. O great deep, Give up your host of stately presences, Adventurers and sea-heroes of old time, And let them pass before us down the day In proud ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... us to Reinhardt's studio in a German residence. A year has gone by since he wooed and won his bride; alas, he is already tired of her. The siren Maria countess of Matran, with whom he was enamoured years ago and whose portrait he has just finished, has ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... the appointed day came, and the start was made in John Pendleton's big new touring car with Jimmy at the wheel. A whir, a throbbing rumble, a chorus of good-bys, and they were off, with one long shriek of the siren ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... now intend to change my ways"— Thus Juan said—"No more for me A round on round of idle days 'Mid soul-debasing company. I've pleasure woo'd from year to year As by a siren onward lured, At last of roystering, once held dear, I'm as a man of ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... agony before the little dog scrambled to his feet and gave further employment to his voice in a frenzy of profanity. At the same time the subterranean diapason of a demoniac bass viol was heard; it rose to a wail, and rose and rose again till it screamed like a small siren. It was Gipsy's war-cry, and, at the sound of it, Duke became a frothing maniac. He made a convulsive frontal attack upon the hobgoblin—and ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... bumping his head against a wall like a hooded rook as he was. So giddy had he become at the sight of this creature, even more enticing than a siren rising from the water. He noticed the animals carved over the door and returned to the house of the archbishop with his head full of diabolical ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... he led me—for not a word was I capable of uttering; and just before we reached that artery of Chinatown, from down-river came the deep, sustained note of a steamer's siren, the warning of ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... seiren, a siren—the generic name of the Mud-eel or Siren lacertina). A genus of Dipnoous fishes, ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... cars, but she remembered that Francis' room looked out on a part of the garden and that the drive was not visible from the windows. Therefore, although it was possible that he might have heard the sound of a horn or siren, he would never actually have seen a car. Electric light was installed in his room. She had no idea when this had been done, but he must be ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... which plainly said it was about time, and reached over to press down the emergency key. He held it down. Eleven light-years away, if one had to depend upon impossibly slow three-dimensional space time, a siren which could be heard for ten miles in Eden's atmosphere ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton |
