"Songster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with him, you must flatter him at every word; and you will please him best by doing it grossly and to his face, for he is quite used to praise: he has long lived among those who look up to him as their patron, or gape at him as their principal wit, or glory in him as their chief songster, possibly as the chairman of their drinking club, and as their merry leader ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... Vireos and tanagers vied with each other in persistent singing. The vireo sang more constantly but the notes of the tanager were more wild and possessed greater resonance of tone. The call of a quail came clear and sweet from a distant wheat field and, like a glorious soloist, Ohio's finest songster, the woodthrush, was casting her "liquid ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... The saucy songster is an especial favorite with American poets. Bryant does not disdain to write a long poem that has ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... success on this occasion brought him so many calls for his services that he gave up everything and devoted himself to his tuneful art. "Your Mission" so gladly welcomed at Washington made him the first gospel songster, chanting round the world the divine message of the hymns. It was the singing by Philip Phillips that first impressed Ira D. Sankey with the amazing power of evangelical solo song, and helped him years later to resign his lucrative business as a revenue ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... see many birds; indeed the island does not boast of any large number, though the dodo once inhabited it, and perhaps still exists among some of the thick jungles in the interior, into which no human being has as yet penetrated. The only songster is called a martin. He is somewhat larger than a blackbird, and pied like a magpie. He is a lively, chattering fellow, very good-looking into the bargain, and, from his sociable qualities, a great favourite with everybody. There ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... of which his father's farm is cradled, the mountain which he used to climb to salt the sheep, the mountain which is the haunt of the hermit thrush. (His nieces and nephews at the old home always speak of this songster as ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... time when always, on waking in the morning, I had a song rising to my lips." At present, it seems, being a drunkard, he has no such song. Ay, dear Lamb, but note this, that the drunkard was fifty-six years old, the songster was twenty-three. Take twenty-three from fifty-six, and we have some reason to believe that thirty-three will remain; which period of thirty-three years is a pretty good reason for not singing in the morning, even if brandy has been ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... of song, the nightingale was floating on the sea of darkness. Drawn aimlessly by the pathos of the songster's lay, Carter wandered to the window to gaze out into the moonless midnight. Racking his quivering heart, his imagination dwelt on a pictured life with Trusia, emphasizing the sweet moments of ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... yellow bird, who seems almost equally privileged and insolent, inquires perpetually what you say. Besides these, swallows of various kinds, little wrens, {87d} almost exactly like our English ones, and night- hawking goat-suckers, few birds are seen. But, unseen, in the depths of every wood, a songster breaks out ever and anon in notes equal for purity and liveliness to those of our English thrush, and belies the vulgar calumny that tropic birds, lest they should grow too proud of their gay feathers, are denied the gift ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... the little songster poured out his joy in liquid cadences that rose and fell and sparkled out upon the morning air like dancing sunbeams turned to music—so light, so rippling, so joyously alive, that the girls' ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... Comedy"—a masterpiece of human genius, which raised him to the rank of Homer and Virgil. Petrarch followed in his steps, and, if not as profound or original as Dante, yet is unequalled as an "enthusiastic songster of ideal love." He also gave a great impulse to civilization by his labors in collecting and collating manuscripts. Boccaccio also lent his aid in the revival of literature, and wrote a series of witty, though objectionable stories, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... lives!—as if his air had more oxygen than ours, or his body less clay. How slight a wound kills him! how exquisite his sensations! how perfect his nervous system! and hence how large his brain! Why, look at the cerebral development of this tiny songster,—almost a third larger, in proportion to the size of its body, than that of Shakspeare even! Does it mean nothing? You may observe that a warbler has a much larger brain and a much finer cerebral organization throughout than a bird of prey, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... dainty little epicures puncture an indefinite number of berries, merely taking a sip from each. Then the wasps and bees come along and finish the clusters. The cardinal, cat-bird, and our unrivalled songster the wood-thrush, all help themselves in the same wasteful fashion. One can't shoot wood-thrushes. We should almost as soon think of killing off our Nilssons, Nevadas, and Carys. The only thing to do is to protect the clusters; and this can be accomplished in several ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... seen, was accustomed to go some distance from home, and I supposed that one of them, a drake, had got into that brambly thicket and could not make his way out. For half an hour I heard the calls without paying much attention, absorbed in watching the quaint little songster close to me and his curious gestures when emitting his sustained reeling sounds. In the end the persistent distressed calling of the drake lost in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, and I felt it as a relief when it finally ceased. Then, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... had disturbed one of the birds, and we had to wait some minutes before its song again broke out much further to the right. For some reason of his own Chandrapal had found this bird the best songster of the three; and, wishing to get as near as possible, he again led the way and gave us a sign to follow. We cautiously skirted the hedge, making our way towards a point on the opposite side of the field where there was a gate, and beyond this, in the next field, a shed ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... remarkable for the yellow or red colour of the under tail-covers, it is a noisy bird, and not wary until so taught by experience. I doubt its power of singing. The so called Bulbul, hazari dastar, the famous songster, is not a real bulbul, but ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... am unkind Tell me, where is fancy bred The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold The boy stood on the burning deck The breaking waves dashed high The bride cam' out o' the byre The deil cam' fiddlin' thro' the toun The feathered songster chanticleer The fountains mingle with the river The glories of our blood and state The harp that once through Tara's halls The King sits in Dunfermline town The laird o' Cockpen, he's proud an' he 's great The lawns were dry in Euston park The minstrel boy to ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... launderess, or laundress; minister, ministress; monitor, monitress; murderer, murderess; negro, negress; offender, offendress; ogre, ogress; porter, portress; progenitor, progenitress; protector, protectress; proprietor, proprietress; pythonist, pythoness; seamster, seamstress; solicitor, solicitress; songster, songstress; sorcerer, sorceress; suitor, suitress; tiger, tigress; traitor, traitress; ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... burden at every sixth word. The gallant Captain had executed but a small portion of his ditty, when the Holstein farmer rose quickly from his chair, and addressed the songster at the moment when he had ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... dreams, as do a few of our birds, but continuously. They make a business of it. The sedge-bird ceases at times as if from very weariness; but wake the bird up, says White, by throwing a stick or stone into the bushes, and away it goes again in full song. We have but one real nocturnal songster, and that is the mockingbird. One can see how this habit might increase among the birds of a long-settled country like England. With sounds and voices about them, why should they be silent, too? The danger of betraying ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... the songster" (chardonneret) "of the sacred grove," said Alexandre de Brebian, which was witticism number two. Finally, the president of the agricultural society put an end to the sedition by remarking judicially that ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Reynard, vixen, stag, deer, hart, buck, doe, roe; caribou, coyote, elk, moose, musk ox, sambar^. [birds] bird; poultry, fowl, cock, hen, chicken, chanticleer, partlet^, rooster, dunghill cock, barn door fowl; feathered tribes, feathered songster; singing bird, dicky bird; canary, warbler; finch; aberdevine^, cushat^, cygnet, ringdove^, siskin, swan, wood pigeon. [undesirable animals] vermin, varmint [U.S.], pest. Adj. animal, zoological equine, bovine, vaccine, canine, feline, fishy; piscatory^, piscatorial; molluscous^, vermicular; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the voice of birds, but the lark, who has been singing since midnight in the "blank height of the dark," suddenly hushes his carol and drops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed wreaths and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, glorious place, "bridal of earth and sky," decked well with bridal garlands, bridal perfumes, bridal songs,—What do those four ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster of ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... for the symbolic, which is not uncommon in rakes and scamps, he thoughtfully locked it up in a press, where were accumulated all sorts of obsolete rubbish—soiled packs of cards, disused tobacco pipes, broken powder flasks, his military sword, and a dusky bundle of the "Flash Songster," ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... all he could for love-sick boys and girls, yet they had never enough! Nearer and dearer to hearts like ours was the Ettrick Shepherd, then in his full tide of song and story; but nearer and dearer still than he, or any living songster, was our ill-fated fellow-craftsman Tannahill. Poor weaver chiel! what we owe to you!— your "Braes of Balquidder," and "Yon Burnside," and "Gloomy Winter," and the "Minstrel's" wailing ditty, and the ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... as merrily revenged. Besides he must give such commands as will both please and profit, putting such as are familiar and easy to the person, and when performed will be for his credit and reputation. A songster must be enjoined to sing, an orator to speak, a philosopher to solve a problem, and a poet to make a song; for every one very readily and willingly ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... no harm in taking a look. Yes; I'll see what sport is stirring," and away he slipped into the wood, still further and further, in search of the songster. ...
— Folk-lore and Legends: German • Anonymous
... Finnane haddock, and oaten meal of rarest bolting, indicated and offered to gratify the erratic taste of a Caledonian. Again, upon another, a Strasburg pie displayed its delicious brown, the members of the emerald songster of the fen lay whitely delicate, and accompanying absinthe revealed the knowledge of Gallic preferences. Upon the fourth, smoking and olent Rio, puddings of Indian, cakes composed of one third butter, one third flour, one third saleratus, and the crisping bean, surmounted by crimped ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... peculiar intensity of his nature, the fervid heart, the trembling sensibility, the headlong passion, all thrilling through an intellect strong and keen beyond (p. 204) that of other men. How mysterious to reflect that the same qualities on their emotional side made him the great songster of the world, and on their practical side drove him to ruin! The first word which Burns composed was a song in praise of his partner on the harvest-rig; the last utterance he breathed in verse was also a song—a faint remembrance ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... here entwine In lovely comradeship their am'rous arms; Here grasses spread their undecaying charms. And every wall is eloquent with vine; Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign, And as we stroll along their tree-lined way, The songster trills his rapture-breathing lay From where he finds inviolable shrine. And yet, within this beauty-haunted place War keeps his dreadful engines at command. With scarce a smile upon his frowning face, And ever ready, unrelaxing hand ... We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers, A tiger ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... heavenward, and in a spirit of utter abandonment, he carols his simple strain. And sitting thus amid the stark, silent trees, above the wet, cold earth, with the chill of winter still in the air, there is no fitter or sweeter songster in the whole round year. It is in keeping with the scene and the occasion. How round and genuine the notes are, and how eagerly our ears drink them in! The first utterance, and the spell of winter is thoroughly broken, and the remembrance ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... you licking your chops—whether, I say, such a one would dare to tell lies. But, Mr. Wolf, there is one reason why I shall be sorry to die. You may not have heard of it, but it is true nevertheless that I am a famous songster, and it will be indeed a pity that a gift so rare should be lost. Will you do me one last favour, and let me sing you a song before I die? I am sure it will delight you, and you will enjoy eating ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... and gay Lorand, was thinking that he had but one more day to live; and then—adieu to the perfumed fields, adieu to the songster's echo, adieu to the beautiful, love-lorn ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... all the due grimace By those who govern in the mood potential, Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face, Thought (what in state affairs is most essential), That they as easily might do the youngster, As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Donald Farfrae had discovered in a screened corner a new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper, and at the bottom of the cage a little ball of feathers—the dead body of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had come there, though that the poor little songster had been starved to death was evident. The sadness of the incident had made an impression on her. She had not been able to forget it for days, despite Farfrae's tender banter; and now when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... poems in my scrap-book testify that another songster, early in Field's Chicago life, enjoyed his friendship and inspired his pen along a line it was to travel many a tuneful metre. The first, with frequent erasures and interlineations, bears ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... Distant music reached them in response, and when the soft notes died away, the nightingale, with throat of pride, poured forth his melodious chants, and his most complicated, learned, and sweetest compositions to those who had met beneath the thick covert of the woods. Near the songster, in the dark background of the large trees, could be seen the glistening eyes of an owl, attracted by the harmony. In this way the fete of the whole court was a fete also for the mysterious inhabitants of the forest; for certainly the deer in ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... plague of frogs, but Pharaoh, who liked them fricasees, remarked, with truly oriental stoicism, that he could stand it as long as the frogs and the Jews could; so the programme was changed. The frog is a diligent songster, having a good voice but no ear. The libretto of his favorite opera, as written by Aristophanes, is brief, simple and effective—"brekekex-koax"; the music is apparently by that eminent composer, Richard ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... nobility or upon the boards of the theatre. Some first-rate songsters have been produced among them, whose merits have been acknowledged, not only by the Russian public, but by the most fastidious foreign critics. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid to a songster was paid by Catalani herself to one of these daughters of Roma. It is well known throughout Russia that the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a Moscow Gypsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before a splendid audience ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... somewhat lighter beneath; top of head and tail, black; reddish under the wings; arrives in May, leaves in October; nests in bushes; lives in gardens and woodside thickets; has a sharp cry not unlike the mewing of a cat, but is a gifted songster. ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... crescendo of the coach-whip bird would scarcely be classed as "sweet." "The tinkle of the bell-bird in the ranges may have gratified his ear; but the likelihood is that the birds which pleased him were the harmonious thrush and the mellow songster so opprobiously named the thickhead, for no better reason than that collectors experience a difficulty in skinning it.* (* Mr. Chas. L. Barrett, a well known Australian ornithologist, and one of the editors of the Emu, knows the Promontory well, ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... a haggard generation, whose eagerly-sought refinements had been after all little more than a theatrical make-believe—an age of wild people, of insane impulse, of homicidal mania. The sweet-souled songster had no more than others attained real calm in it. Even in youth nervous distress had been the chief facial characteristic. Triumphant, nevertheless, in his battle for Greek beauty—for the naturalisation of Greek beauty in the brown cloud-lands of ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... Mocking-Bird is familiar in his habits, frequenting gardens and orchards, and perching on the roofs of houses when singing, like the common Robin. Like the Robin, too, who sings at all hours excepting those of darkness, he is a persevering songster, and seems to be inspired by living in the vicinity of man. In his manners, however, he bears more resemblance to the Red Thrush, being distinguished by his vivacity, and the courage with which he repels the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... that is, all that was left of the vivacious, happy songster, as we once knew her. Her ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... from that tiny throat, Songster of night! Flows such a wealth of note, Full of delight; Trembling with resonance, Rapid and racy, Sinking in soft cadence, Gushing with ecstasy, Dying away, All in their turns; Plaintive and gay, Thrilling with tones ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... to make another experiment. The brilliant songster was pouring out his heart in that fine cry of strength and hope which he sends resounding over hill and vale. Suddenly hearing his own voice repeated to him in an echo sweet and pure as his own song, he fluttered his ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... What soul can be so sick, which by thy songs (Attir'd in sweetness) sweetly is not driven Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs, And lift a reverend eye and thought to heaven? Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise To airs of spheres—yes, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 341, Saturday, November 15, 1828. • Various
... blackbird and its rivalry of song were the reawakening of the woods in spring? Were man to disappear, annihilated by his own foolish errors, the festival of the life-bringing season would be no less worthily observed, celebrated by the fluting of the yellow-billed songster. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... in the selection, to admit no song that contained, in the slightest degree, any indelicate or improper allusions; and with great propriety it may claim the title of "The Parlour Song-Book, or Songster." The immortal ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... singing!" I listened, but not a sound reached my ear. Was it strange that I felt a momentary pang? Those that look out at the windows are darkened, and all the daughters of music are brought low. Was I never to see or hear the soaring songster at Heaven's gate,—unless,—unless,—if our mild humanized theology promises truly, I may perhaps hereafter listen to him singing far down beneath me? For in whatever world I may find myself, I hope ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... some time in vain for the birds to appear, we examined the nest before us, we found that it held two thrush eggs and one of the cowbird. The impertinence of this disreputable bird in thrusting her plebeian offspring upon the divine songster, to rear at the expense of her own lovely brood, was not to be tolerated. The dirty speckled egg looked strangely out of place among the gems that belonged to the nest, and I removed it, careful not to touch nest or eggs. So pertinacious is this parasite upon bird society ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... (Anthornis melanura). This bird is the sweetest songster of New Zealand, but is not distinguished by its plumage, which is a yellowish olive with a dark bluish shade on each side ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... song of this reptile so frightened us that we could sleep no longer; however, we soon became accustomed to its invisible music, for at short intervals we heard it all the night. Some time after the discovery of the den of this reptile songster, my sister, going to feed five or six pigeons which she had in a little hut, perceived a large serpent, who seemed to have a wing on each side of his mouth. She instantly called my father, who quickly ran to her with his gun, but the wings which the creature seemed to have, had already ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... hand, from behind a screen of scented basswood, came a sudden discordant sound, the rasping "meyow" of the cat-bird; a moment's silence followed and then arose a burst of delirious, bubbling melody, as though the naughty songster, hidden within his aromatic curtains, were laughing impudently at having deceived his hearers into thinking he was only a cat. A loon arose with a splash from the reedy shore of an island opposite and sailed away through the amber air; his wild, derisive laugh echoed back from the glimmering sunset ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... finishing the first verse the mocking bird descended to a lower branch. The feathery songster drew his head to one side and appeared to be completely enraptured at the wonderful voice of the young singer. When the last note died away upon the air, her fond brother sang ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... absurdities, The Tunning of Elinore Rummyng and Colin Clout. He likes rough metre, bad rhymes and squalid images: we suspect him of an inclination to be rude to his immediate predecessors. But his extreme modernness—"Life is a cliche—I would find a gesture of my own"—is, in the case of so lively a songster, an evidence of vitality. He promises a new volume, to be called Fairies and Fusiliers, and it will be looked forward to ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... is lovely and rich in the extreme. All the foliage is fresh washed and clean; young herbage is bursting through the ground; the air is deliciously cool, and the birds are singing joyfully: one, called Mzie, is a good songster, with a loud melodious voice. Large game abounds, but we do ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... songster of the tribe is the Vervain humming-bird, found in the West India Islands. Those on the Amazon are almost mute. Small as they are, they are brave little creatures, and several of the species ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... th' owd songster say, "Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by th' sides o' thine house, and thi childer like olive plants raand abaat ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... in a spirit of true philosophy and piety, to extract good from every thing, may save themselves from wretchedness even in this land of exile. While I am writing this paragraph, a bird in my room, (not the Caubul songster that I have already alluded to, but a fine little English linnet,) who is as much a foreigner here as I am, is pouring out his soul in a flood of song. His notes ring with joy. He pines not for his native meadows—he cares not for his wiry bars—he envies ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... the half devout, half defiant invocation of men who prayed with naked swords in their hands. But suddenly into the sonorous strains of Luther's Hymn broke the joyous trill of a linnet's song, and the bird alighting upon a neighboring poplar seemed challenging the unseen songster to a trial of skill. The stately hymn broke off in a little burst of laughter; and then accepting the challenge, the girl took up the linnet's strain in an unworded song, sweeter, richer, more full of joy, and love, and sunshine than his own, ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... sound that can most o'er our being prevail? 'Tis the sweet melting voice of the maid we love dear, When chanting the songs of her own native vale. More thrilling is this than the tone of the gale, Awakening the wind-harp's wild wandering lore; More sweet than the songster that sings in the dale, When the strains of the rest of the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the song of a little wren, a little wren who sang even as to-day in the days of my youth and joy, whose nest is built over the window that was so often a frame for that dearest-loved face. The song brought with it the recollection of all the little songster had outlived—the love, hope, and fear that had sprung up and grown and died, since I had first heard his warbling. And I broke into those quiet tears that are now my only expression of a grief too familiar to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... people of Katema a love for singing-birds. One pretty little songster, named "cabazo", a species of canary, is kept in very neatly made cages, having traps on the top to entice its still free companions. On asking why they kept them in confinement, "Because they sing sweetly," was ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... sport was equal to her personal charms. Up to this time I had, I suppose, not had time to fall in love with anyone in particular. This was probably due to the fact that I was imbued somewhat with the spirit which prompted a Spanish songster ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... kennel is more invariably present, no caged songster more incontestably anchored. If you need his services, you have but to seek his address between the hours mentioned. You may do so with the same assurance of finding him on duty that you would feel, if you left a jug of water out of doors over night in a blizzard, that the jug, as a ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... its tones have been put in regulation, might have supplied the bass of the lamented viol-de-gamba. Halbert, however, who had no temptation to give way to the charms of slumber, remained awake with his eyes fixed on the songster; not that he was better entertained with the words, or more ravished with the execution, than the rest of the company, but rather because he admired, or perhaps envied, the composure, which could thus spend the evening in interminable madrigals, when the next morning was to be devoted to deadly ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... One songster did offer some excuse for the poverty of his appearance, telling us his hard case, how that he was occupied in declaring his passion to a beauteous damsel, when she was "all over him in a minute," and, while he was making ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... blonde a brunette, as a general rule in matrimony. A tall man or woman, with rare exceptions, chooses a short companion for life. Dark eyes delight in those that are light, and vice-versa. Everywhere nature seeks diversity, not similitude. The gayest and brightest feathered songster craves companionship in modest and unobtrusive colors. Diversity is the law of life, as equality, or versimilitude, is that of death. Neither natural selection, nor sexual selection, runs counter to this law. If Mr. Darwin's theory were true, that likes ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... birds. It is not large or strong, or swift on the wing, and it seems to have none of those advantages which would help it to defend itself against enemies. It is not handsome, and it is not a sweet songster, so that man is not disposed to give it much protection. He is often prompted to destroy it, because of the injury which it does to his gardens ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... nearest to the red-eye's, differing from it mainly in tone and inflection rather than in form. In these two respects it suggests the solitary vireo, though it never reproduces the indescribably sweet cadence, the real "dying fall," of that most delightful songster. At the risk of a seeming contradiction, however, I must mention one curious circumstance. On going again to Franconia, a year afterwards, and, naturally, keeping my ears open for Vireo philadelphicus, I discovered that I was ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... birds were asked to dine; Not Jenny's friends alone, But every pretty songster That had Cock ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10] passes in an hour's time! ... I shall ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... his mistress dear; Now in vain you call his name, Vainly raise his rigid frame, Vainly warm him in your breast, Vainly kiss his golden crest, Smooth his ruffled plumage fine, Touch his trembling beak with wine. One more gasp—it is the end! Dead and mute our tiny friend! —Songster thou of many a year, Now thy mistress brings thee here, Says, it fits that I rehearse, Tribute due to thee, a verse, Meed for daily song of yore ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the same accent is audible, thinned a little by advancing years, and subdued from passion to tenderness, yet as genuine as at first. When at length the Earl began to suffer from the gout, his faithful family songster recorded that also in her amiable verse, and prayed that "the ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... poor songster!" Rusty said to his wife. "All he can sing is 'Cuckoo! cuckoo!' in that silly way of his. He has no trills and runs and ripples at all! And he can't even repeat his song ten times a minute, as I give mine. He has to wait ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey
... brought them in sight of the melancholy songster. Seated in a corner of the cave, with his massive head on his fore-paws, the picture of dejection, was the most enormous creature they had ever seen or dreamed about. He was rather like an elephant, but much ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... wren, an active songster now, From off the hazel-bough pipes shrill, Woodpeckers flock in multitudes With beauteous ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves
... find a treat."Imagine Pinocchio's surprise! He approached the little songster and looked up. Sure enough, there on a branch of a ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini
... along under the great cliffs in shadows made luminous by the brilliancy of the moon. A song the Major was fond of singing, Softly and Sweetly it Comes from Afar, almost involuntarily, sprang from us all, though our great songster, Jack, was not with us. Jack had an extensive repertory, an excellent voice, and a hearty, exuberant spirit. He would sing Write Me a Letter from Home, The Colleen Bawn, The Lone Starry Hours, Beautiful Isle of the Sea, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... The critical estimate of Mr. Hayne's works, favorable from the outset, accords him a place among the few American writers whose works are likely to have a permanent place in public favor. As has been appreciatively said, "He is a songster of the Southern groves, and having built a nest in the wild wood (referring to his country home at Copse Hill), he is content in the companionship of his mate and his young, warbling to nature and to nature's God. If his notes reach beyond his sylvan hall, and fall upon ears ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... The songster heard his short oration, And, warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And found ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... foot-lights, or the cremona moans out the sigh of night-winds through the forest, artificial townsfolk applaud. Yet a nesting-tree, a thousand leagues from city discords, gives forth better music with deeper meaning and higher message—albeit the songster sings only from love of song. The fretted folk of the great cities cannot understand the witching fascinations of a wild life in a wild, free, tameless land, where God's own hand ministers to eye and ear. To fare sumptuously, to dress with the faultless distinction that marks wealth, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... there hour after hour, listening to the wood-birds' song. Sometimes he would even find a reed and try to pipe a tune as sweet as did the birds, but that was all in vain, as the lad soon found. No tiny songster would linger to hearken to the shrill piping of his grassy reed, and the Prince himself was soon ready to ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... Cotter) That's a nice song to be singin' on a licensed premises, ma'am. 'Twould cause a riot if there was enough o' people about. No less than raidin' the police barracks would satisfy the likes o' that songster if he was left at large. (Opens door. Padna and Micus stagger on to the floor. They fall but get on their feet again) What are ye ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... General Chattesworth, who was frowning hard upon his dessert-plate, cried, 'Order, gentlemen,' in a stern, but very tremulous undertone. Lord Castlemallard, leaning upon his elbow, was staring with a grave and dreamy curiosity at the songster, and neither he nor his lordship heard the interruption, and on went the pleasant ditty; and as the musician regularly repeated the last two lines like a clerk in a piece of psalmody, the young wags, to save themselves from bursting ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was so brave a songster, and could sing such bewitching airs: I suggested whether his musical talents could not be turned to account. The thought struck him most favorably—"Gad, my boy, you have hit it, you have," and then he went on to mention, that in some places in England, it was customary for two or three ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... Officers, containing precise details as to the duties of all the various non-commissioned or lay Officers, whether engaged in work for old or young. Smaller handbooks of Orders and Regulations for Bands and Songster Brigades, and for almost every other class of agents were also issued from ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... A strange songster was that who, pretending to be captivated by every woman he saw, was, in reality, in love with nature alone—wild, beautiful, solitary nature—her mountains and cascades, her forests and streams, her birds, fishes, and wild animals. Go to, Ab Gwilym, with thy ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Loved wind-flower of the spring, You fill our hearts with gladness, For with your smile you bring The vitalizing sunshine, The fruitful April shower, The pipe of feathered songster, And ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... has been in the forests of Cayenne, but we are determined, as soon as a Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the distance measured."[175] But the most remarkable songster of the Amazonian forest is the Realejo, or organ-bird. Its notes are as musical as the flageolet. It is the only songster, says Bates, which makes any impression on the natives. Besides those are the Jacamars, peculiar to equatorial America, stupid, but of the most beautiful ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... us sleep, and give the Maker praise. I like the lad, who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed praise Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, "Served him right!—it's not at all surprising; The worm was ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... all set our caps at the same muse and tried to cut one another out. If I happened to write an ode to a blackbird—and I wrote four or five—every one else must write an ode to a blackbird too; until the luckless songster must have hated the sound ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... Companion of our lives to be, I'll seek the moral songster's meed, An earthly immortality; Most vain!—O let me, from the past Remembering what to man is given, Lay Virtue's broad foundations fast, Whose glorious turrets reach ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... note into his late querulous wintry strain; and the lark, springing up from the reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into the bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents of melody. As I watched the little songster mounting up higher and higher, until his body was a mere speck on the white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still filled with his music, it called to mind Shakespeare's exquisite little song ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... and Gentlemen, I shall commence by an attempt to give you an imitation of that popular and favourite songster, the Thrush—better known to some of you, I daresay, as the Throstle, or Mavis! (He gives the Thrush—which somehow doesn't "go.") I shall next endeavour to represent that celebrated and tuneful singing-bird—the Sky-lark. (He does it, but the Lark doesn't quite come off.) ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various
... nature, freely outpoured, seemed to make it a perfect paradise. Brilliantly-plumaged birds flitted here and there, their colours contrasting with the green foliage. Gauzy-winged insects buzzed to and fro. The notes of the nightingale, or some kindred songster, could be heard, singing an ecstatic soprano to the cooing bass of the dove and the rippling obbligato of babbling brooks—that filtered through golden-yellow sands into the lap of the mother of ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... more popular singer among the birds than the Mockingbird. But it should be remembered that a bird's song cannot be separated from the associations which it calls up in one's memory. So that the performance of an ordinary songster may be more pleasing to one than that of some finer one because of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... heard the note of the whippoorwill, the nocturnal songster that mourns unseen. It was succeeded by the sharp tones of a saw-whet and the distinct mew of a cat-bird. A wild pigeon began to coo softly in another direction and was answered by a thrush. The listener vaguely realized that all ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... puerile ambitions for birds in the hand, and a bird in the bush makes to his perception holy ground, where he takes the shoes from off his feet and watches and waits, feeling a delightful surprise in each piquant caprice of the little songster. He tells the story of his experiences and impressions simply and pleasantly, often utters a good thing without too much emphasis, and yet more often says true things, which is more difficult still. He is nowhere bookish, although he has read and can quote well if need be. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... silent, hideous agony which crushed for the moment belief and hope, a canary from the aviary beyond set up a trilling song. She listened for a second; it seemed to hurt her more. The poor bird was in captivity, as was her soul. And then, while the little songster went on, undismayed by its cage, a reaction set in. If the soft-feathered creature could sing there beyond the bars, what right had she to doubt God for one second? No—there should never be any disbelief. ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... it to his court. Strawinsky's nightingale, too, comes to the palace and sings, and all the ladies of the entourage fill their mouths with water in the hopes of better imitating the warbling of the songster. But then there enter envoys bearing the gift of the Emperor of Japan, a mechanical nightingale that amuses the court with its clockwork antics. Once more the emperor commands the woodland bird to sing. But ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... pu', wi' its locks o' siller grey, Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day, But the songster's nest within the bush I winna tak away; And a' to be a posie to ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... this ghostly habit, nobody knows. I make no account of the insinuation that he gave up music because it hindered his success in cherry-stealing. He likes cherries, it is true; and who can blame him? But he would need to work hard to steal more than does that indefatigable songster, the robin. I feel sure he has some better reason than this for his Quakerish conduct. But, however he came by his stillness, it is likely that by this time he plumes himself upon it. Silence is golden, he thinks, the supreme result of the highest ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... sweet songster with a shower of stones, panting and bleeding to the ground, they thought was the best sport in the world, and the woods rang and echoed with their whoops and cheers as each poor bird fell to the earth. A mere glimpse of one of the blue beauties as he hid among the leaves ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... a more unfortunate occurrence occurred. A real Bird Authority came to tea. As soon as the information leaked out, I sent up a hasty prayer for bird-silence until we had got him safely out of the place; but it was not granted. Our feathered songster in the plane-tree broke ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... kind are "The Pickwick Songster," "Sam Weller's Almanac," "Sam Weller's Song Book," "The Pickwick Pen," "Oh, what a boon and a blessing to men," etc.,—to say nothing of innumerable careless sheets, and trifles of all kinds and of every degree. Then we have adapted advertisements. The Proprietors of Beecham's ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... "Songster sweet, begin the lay, Ever sweet and ever gay! Bring the joy-inspiring wine, Ever fresh and ever fine! With a heart-alluring lass Gayly let the moments pass, Kisses stealing while you may, Ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... this sweet songster, denotes unexpected pleasures. For the young to dream of possessing a beautiful canary, denotes high class honors and a successful passage through the literary world, or a happy termination ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... could be discerned the even surface of the cane-brake, previously mentioned, now stretching away in the distance like the unruffled bosom of some beautiful lake. A light breeze slightly rustled the leaves of the trees, among whose branches an occasional songster piped forth his morning ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... themselves attractive—by melody and by bright plumage; and that most species excel in one or the other way; and that the acquisition of gay colours by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will cause it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the redstart. Unfortunately for the rule there are too many exceptions. Thus confining ourselves to a single family—that of the finches—in our own islands, the most modest coloured ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... each second was recording the eternity of my love for you. And as I lay a-listening and thinking, came one by the window singing 'John O'Bail', and I heard voices in the tap-room and the clatter of pewter flagons. On a settle outside the tap-room window, full in the sun, sat the songster and his companions, drinking new ale and singing 'John O'Bail'—a song I never chanced to hear before, and I shall not soon forget it for lack of schooling"—and she sang softly, sitting there, clasping her knees, and ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... is a delicate songster, and in soft sunny weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on chimney-tops: it is also a bold flier, ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy weather, which the other species seems much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed seaport towns, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Singing Sisters sang, but not in duet. The Lion Comique, whose loyal melodies were on every barrel-organ, argued Republicanism and flourished that day's copy of Reynolds's Newspaper, The Beauteous Bessie Bilhook—"the Queen of Serio-Comics" was scandalously autobiographic, and the old plantation songster—looking unreal with his washed face—was with difficulty dissuaded from displaying his ability to dance on the table without smashing anything. The climax was reserved for the demure one-legged gymnast, ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... is also somewhat at fault, we have proof in occasional outcries over the absence of these or those particular persons famous for inspiriting. It sticks and clogs. The improvising songster is missed, the convivial essayist, the humorous Dean, the travelled cynic, and he, the one of his day, the iridescent Irishman, whose remembered repartees are a feast, sharp and ringing, at divers tables descending from ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chavi, and the feminine gender deia, chavo; but, being a matter of fact kind of man—out of the region of romance, fantastical notions, enrapturing imagery, nicely coloured imagination, clever lying and cleverer deception, beautiful green fields, clear running rivulets, the singing of the wood songster, bullfinch, and wren, in the midst of woodbine, sweetbriar, and roses—with an eye to observe, a heart to feel, and a hand ready to help, I am led to contemplate, aye, and to find out if possible, the remedy, though my friends say it is impossible—just because it is impossible ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... the heart of Romeo Gonzaga. He sat disregarded at supper that evening, save by Valentina's ladies and the fool, who occasionally rallied him upon his glumness. Valentina herself turned her whole attention to the Count, and whilst Gonzaga—Gonzaga, the poet of burning fancy, the gay songster, the acknowledged wit, the mirror of courtliness—was silent and tongue-tied, this ruffling, upstart swashbuckler entertained them with a sprightliness that won him every heart—always excepting that ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... under some splendid oaks, to the oriole's song, and of seeing a little cluster of Eucalyptus trees, two surprises we had not looked for. The oriole, a well known and beautiful American bird, also a songster that may be compared to the nightingale, is indeed no stranger here, and, having once heard and seen him, you cannot mistake him for any other bird. His song is an invariable prognostic of rain, as we ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... hear it," replied Leveridge, dryly. "If I know anything about His Royal Highness you'll gain a fortune sooner by writing a ballad or two for this pretty songster. Make her famous as you made me with 'All in the Downs' and 'T'was when ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... strains. We must link all these strains together to enjoy the full pleasure which the song of this bird is capable of affording, though any single strain alone is sufficient to entitle the bird to considerable reputation as a songster. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... The tousled songster seized the photograph in righteous anger. "Sure!" he cried, waving it in the face of the tow-headed boy; "you don't think she takes after her mother, ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... hear? A lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into the blue expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes flashed with a fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet the music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At times bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches of her slender, agile fingers, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... this melody mingled with the moonlight of summer evenings, people generally were deluded into the supposition that an ethereal songster was on the wing, enrapturing them with harmonies of other spheres. But sutlers, it is well known, are men of little or no refinement, with ears for money rather than music. To their unappreciative and perverted senses the warble seemed simply a dolorous appeal for more whisky; and while ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... Oxford?—some small buzzing thing, Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,— (N.B. They call the insect Bob, I know, I heard a printer's devil call it so)— So fondly tells his admiration vast No one can call the chastened strains bombast, Though epitheted substantives immense Claim for each lofty sound ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of the Vireos in the greater part of its range and is a most persistent songster, frequenting groves, open woods or roadsides. Their eyes are brown, scarcely if any more red than those of any other species and I have yet to see one with red eyes outside of mounted museum specimens. They swing their nests from the forks of ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... Inheritor inheritress or inheritrix Instructor instructress Jew Jewess Lion lioness Marquis marchioness Mayor mayoress Patron patroness Peer peeress Poet poetess Priest priestess Prince princess Prior prioress Prophet prophetess Proprietor proprietress Protector protectress Shepherd shepherdess Songster songstress Sorcerer sorceress Suiter suitress Sultan sultaness or sultana Tiger tigress Testator testatrix Traitor traitress Tutor tutoress Tyrant tyranness Victor victress Viscount viscountess Votary votaress ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... "whip-poor-wills," and some other fowl which sing "when lilacs bloom in the garden yard," has neglected, we fear, the wild turkey, simply because the Muse has not given this bird melody, and made it, like the robin-redbreast, which goes so well with bread-crumbs, "an amiable songster." American genius neglects the turkey, and positively takes more interest in the migrations of the transatlantic sparrow. If the nobler fowl can cross the water as safely as the beef and mutton of everyday life, he will ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... breezeless air. As she came on the border of the lake, its waves lay dark and voiceless; only, at intervals, the surf, fretting along the pebbles made a low and dreary sound, or from the trees some lingering songster sent forth a shrill and momentary note, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... upturned roots, in the corners of rail fences, and in the young pear-trees and apple-trees in the orchard. The eggs are a greenish blue. The robin sings a full, clear song; indeed he is our best songster. We have so few singing-birds, that we prize those that do ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... Beranger with sufficient respect, and Monsieur Taxile Delord, though a joker by trade, would not hear of any fun on this subject. His genius had shaped itself exactly on Beranger's, and he resented as a personal affront every insult offered to the songster. Of a truth, Beranger's fate was a hard one, and all my attacks on him were not half so bad as this treatment he received at the hands of Monsieur Taxile Delord. Poor Beranger! So Monsieur Taxile Delord took up the quarrel on his account, and relieved ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... twitter came from a tiny scarlet-crowned songster, as if it were trying to advise and direct the hard-pressed boy. Its solemn, round eyes stared at him, reproving and admonishing him for his foolhardiness. Piang, on his knees, struggling with the ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... feathers begin To warn the songster of his fleeting; But never mind, I leave behind Songs all ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... the ship's bell sent its musical note echoing from bank to bank of the creek, and rousing the denizens of the forest around. A bird sang in the grove, tuning its lay to reproduce the notes of every songster that had warbled during the daytime. The scents from the masses of flowers, that clustered the banks and wound their tendrils round the giant trees, floated fragrantly on the night air. There was peace ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... the tempest-tossed crew of Columbus, when, after their long dubious voyage, the field birds came singing round the ship, though still far at sea, rejoicing them with the belief of the immediate proximity of land. A sharp return of winter almost silenced my little songster, and dashed the hilarity of the household; yet still he poured forth, now and then, a few plaintive notes, between the frosty pipings of the breeze, like gleams of sunshine ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... toward the cliff. She had some idea that it would be pleasant to go up to the church town, but just where the trees and underwood came near to the shingle a little bird singing on a May-thorn beguiled her to listen. Then the songster went on and on, as if it called her, and Denas followed its music; until, by and by, she came to where the shingle was but a narrow strip, and the verdure retreated, and the rocks grew larger and higher; and, anon, she ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... withdrawal of these little insect-killers. It is so natural to look for them amid such luxuriant vegetation that they become conspicuous by their absence. Now and again, however, the ears are gratefully saluted by the trilling and sustained notes of some hidden songster, whose music is entirely in tune with the surrounding loveliness, but truly delightful song-birds have ever been rare in the low latitudes, where there is more of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... true of a considerable number of his successors, such as Dunbar, and Maitland of Lethington, who were learned men, and wrote with a learned air, even when writing for the people. The Reformation, as surely as it threw down every carved stone, shut up the mouth of every profane songster. Wedderburne's "Haly Ballats" may have been spared for a time by the iconoclasts, because they had helped to build up their own temple; but they could not survive long,—they were cast in a profane mould, they ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
