"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one fable that touches very near the quick of life: the fable of the monk who passed into the woods, heard a bird break into song, hearkened for a trill or two, and found himself on his return a stranger at his convent gates; for he had been absent fifty years, and of all his comrades there survived but one to recognise him. It is not only in the woods that this enchanter carols, though perhaps he is ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opposite a wood whose trees blackened the slow dawn. Then, without a word, they ran across the road, and, in a few minutes, were lost in the thick underbrush of the little forest. It was past four o'clock and the dawn began to trill over the rim of night; the east burst into stinging sun rays, while the moving air awoke the birds and sent scurrying around the smooth green park a cloud of golden ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... the canaries suddenly broke into a rich trill of song, as if to add his personal expression ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... up the real music lessons, and taught him how to whistle and how to warble and trill. "Good Cheer! Good Cheer!" intoned the king. "Coo Cher! Coo Cher!" imitated the Cardinal. These songs were only studied repetitions, but there was a depth and volume in his voice that gave promise of future greatness, when age should have developed ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a first cousin which lives in the trees and loves its tree home so much, like the sensible little fellow it is, that it sings 'Tr-e-e-e, tr-e-e-e,' as fast as it can trill all summer long. But it is very harmful to the tree, because when egg-laying time comes it cuts a long slit in the trees in which to lay its eggs. Just a minute!" The old man shifted the position of ...
— Little Busybodies - The Life of Crickets, Ants, Bees, Beetles, and Other Busybodies • Jeanette Augustus Marks and Julia Moody
... suddenly broken by the sharp trill of the telephone. Slavin arose lethargically from the ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... started on that thrilling adventure into the forest, which had ended with his carrying her in his arms, she had gone to the piano and had played for him. Now her fingers touched softly the same notes. A little humming trill came in her throat, and it seemed to David that she was deliberately recalling his thoughts to the things that had happened before the coming of St. Pierre. He had not lighted the lamp over the piano, and for a flash her dark eyes smiled at him out of ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... the less, from Song's excess, Sings the blackbird late and early: Nor the bobolink's trill the less Laughs for very happiness, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... was over. A second, and the revel was on. The earth was not silent now. There was no warning trill of prairie owl. As dropped the figures from above there broke forth the Sioux war-cry: long drawn out, demoniac, indescribable. Blood curdling, more savage infinitely than the cry of any wild beast, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... the records, and rotten The meshes of memory's net; When the grace that forgives has forgotten The things that are good to forget; When the trill of my juvenile trumpet Is dead and its echoes are dead; Then the laurel shall lie on the crumpet And ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... so-to-speak "class-merits"—of the poems in general are very high indeed: and when the best of the other lyrics—aubades, debats, and what not—are joined to them, they supply the materials of an anthology of hardly surpassed interest, as well for the bubbling music of their refrains and the trill of their metre, as for the fresh mirth and joy of living in their matter. The "German paste in our composition," as another Arnold had it, and not only that, may make us prefer the German examples; but it must never be forgotten that but for these it is at least not improbable ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... the text, "Thou, God, seest me."' When wasn't I tempted to do wrong? and I had for a long time the uncomfortable feeling that two great eyes were always staring at me. But this isn't sleigh-riding chit-chat," and she broke into a merry little trill from a favorite opera. ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed, And spied a bird upon a nest: Two eyes she had beseeching me Meekly and brave, and her brown breast Throbbed hot and quick above her heart; And then she opened her dagger bill,— 'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe At break of day; 'twas not a trill, As falters through the quiet even; But one sharp solitary note, One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy, One passionate note of victory; Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked, Smiling the smile the fool smiles best, At the mother bird in the secret ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume II. • Walter de la Mare
... watering pot, watering cart; hydrant, syringe; garden hose, lawn spray; bhisti[obs3], mussuk[obs3]. V. flow, run; meander; gush, pour, spout, roll, jet, well, issue; drop, drip, dribble, plash, spirtle[obs3], trill, trickle, distill, percolate; stream, overflow, inundate, deluge, flow over, splash, swash; guggle[obs3], murmur, babble, bubble, purl, gurgle, sputter, spurt, spray, regurgitate; ooze, flow out ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... lips at the thought, and right on top of it came the low trill of a bird. It was Goldy the Oriole, who ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... measure. Now and then his piping grew faint, and was interrupted by gasps for breath, whereupon Roseen, still vigorously footing it, would take up the tune after a fashion of her own, her voice imitating as nearly as might be the sound of a fiddle. Overhead a lark was soaring, and his trill, wafted down to them, mingled with their quaint human music; far away over that brown and purple stretch of bog the plovers were circling, their faint melancholy call sounding every now and then. The sun would soon ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off—and they are nearly ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... played beside the little rill That flows to larger river; We heard the mating mocking-birds trill, The robins piped upon the hill, And Cupid strung his little bow and filled his little quiver: Then she, we played, was little Jill, And I ...
— The Loom of Life • Cotton Noe
... at sea Cunning fingers fashioned me. There on palace walls I hung While that Consuelo sung; But I heard, though I listened well, Never a note, never a trill, Never a beat of the chiming bell. There I hung and looked, and there In my gray face, faces fair Shone from under shining hair. Well I saw the poising head, But the lips moved and nothing said; And when lights were in the hall, ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... calm eve on wood and wold Shone down with softest ray, Beneath the sycamore's red leaf The mavis trill'd her lay, Murmur'd the Tweed afar, as if ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... attend, and hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty: Strange things I'll tell, which ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... Trill-ll! It was not a cheer, but a subdued, breathless gasp that rose from the two camps of fans as the opposing lines rushed at each other. Dick could not help a slight groan, for Adams, of Cobber, reached the pigskin first. ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... Animation of spring clothed the landscape on all sides in its greatest beauty; and our northern forest the voyagers found upon their return was not less charming than "tropic shade" of foreign climes. And the robin sang even a sweeter trill than ever before heard by the crew, for they listened to it now in the ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... open window came the clear trill of a canary singing blithely in its cage. Within the tidy, homely little room a pale-faced girl and a youth of slender frame listened intently while the bird sang its song. The girl was the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces they ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... idly at the piano and played a few bars softly to himself—a beautiful, airy sort of melody, as it shaped itself vaguely in his head at the moment, with a little of the new wine of first love running like a trill through the midst of its fast-flowing quavers and dainty undulations. 'That will do,' he said to himself approvingly. 'That will do very well; that's little Miss Butterfly. Here she flits, flits, flits, flickers, sip, sip, sip, ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in the gloom. And a ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... I never knew how much snap and go there was to it until I heard Miss Hampton trill it out. Why, she just tosses up that perky chin of hers and turns loose the catchy melody until you felt the warm waves splashin' and saw the moonlight dancin' across the bay! I don't know where or what this ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford
... voices of the singers ceased abruptly. There was a moment's hushed silence. Then, from the shadow of the trees came a woman's voice, clear, strong, flexible, flooding the night with the bird-like trill of the mountain yodel. The sound rose and fell, and swelled and soared. A silence. Then, in a great burst of melody the chorus of voices within the pavilion answered the call. Again a silence. Again the wonder of the woman's voice flooded the ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... in spite of herself, burst into a trill of laughter which was so merry and contagious that the grave stranger beside him looked up at her with an interested and amused smile as though seeing her ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... nod from Ledscha confirmed this conjecture, and she added hesitatingly: "'Only far from the haunts of men,' he said, 'when the light had vanished, did we hear the nightingale trill in the dark thickets. Those are his own words, and though it angers you, Grandmother, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in gleeful joy, In songbirds trill, in flowerlets coy, Shall we, also, voices raise, Sing ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... frightened barking cry of a deer comes to you from across the river. The insects are awake all night, and the little workman bird sits on a tree close by you and drives coffin nails without number. With the dawn, the tree beetles again raise their chorus; the birds sing and trill more sweetly than in the evening; the monkeys bark afresh as they leap through the branches; and the leaves of the forest glisten in the undried dew. Then, as the sun mounts, and the dew dries, the sounds of the jungle ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... which quoth Gharib, "How is it with my wives Fakhr Taj[FN53] and Mahdiyah?" Al-Damigh answered, "They are both well and in good case." Then the eunuch went in and acquainted the women of the Harim with Gharib's coming, whereat they rejoiced and raised the trill of joy and gave him the reward for good news. Presently in came King Gharib, and they rose and saluting him, conversed with him, till Al- Damigh entered, when Gharib related to them all that had befallen him in the land of the Jinn, whereat they all marvelled. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... more or less conscious that a pair of dark blue eyes were regarding them, and they thought they heard a trill of laughter, but it might have been one of the maids. They need not have felt embarrassed for there was the grace in their movements that goes with strength ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... thee, if we fast or dine, We yet shall loosen, line by line, Old ballads, and the blither trill Of our-time singers—for there will Be with us all the Muses nine When we ...
— Songs of Friendship • James Whitcomb Riley
... revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt and treachery in those around them. Nor have ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... I minded not how the hours went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... quarrels disturbed his serene soul. But as spring began to stir his blood he changed a little; he grew somewhat belligerent, refused to let any one alight in his chosen places, and even drove others away from his side of the room. Now, too, he added to his already melting song an indescribable trill, something so spiritual, so charged with the wildness of the woods, that no words—even of a poet—can do it justice. Now, too, he began to turn longing glances out of the window, and evidently his heart was no longer with us. So, on the first perfect day in May he was taken to a secluded ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... all the lights went out, for the fire-flies fled in every direction; but in the darkness Twinkle thought she could still hear the drone of the big bass fiddle and the flute-like trill of the ladybugs. ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... on his errand of mercy through the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the staircase: 'Now, Judah, what are you ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... rarely left her own part of the palace until the evening. But when the sun was low, she loved to linger among the roses in the garden, till the bright shield of the moon was high in the east, or till the faint stars burned in their full splendour, and the nightingales began to call and trill their melancholy song from end to end of ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... walked over to the Hilton House with her. When she had gone in Betty seized Mary's hand and pulled her around the corner of the house. "Let's trill up to Eleanor," she said. "I don't think ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... physical hesitancy had resulted in Barbee's gaining a lead of a dozen steps. Hence when a white figure flitted out from the shadows to the boy's side, Longstreet was not near enough to hear the whispered words; the soft trill of a laugh he caught, to be sure, and immediately recognized as Mrs. Murray's. Then she had drawn away from Barbee, called good night and passed on to the hotel, so close to Longstreet that her skirts brushed him. Barbee stood still watching her ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... in the direction of Upton Wood, thoroughly enjoying their walk. Occasionally, they stopped to gather a few wild flowers, or listen to the joyous trill of a bird. They were at the edge of the wood, when Grace suddenly ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the cypress tree and perched on the gate top, looked up at Cleek with bright, sharp eyes, flung out a wee little trill, and was ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... his food he gave a spiteful chuckle; when pleased to see an old friend he seemed to say: "How do you do?" with a plaintive cooing. In battle his scream was wild and commanding, a succession of five or six notes with a startling trill that was inspiring to the soldiers. Strangers could not approach or touch him with safety, though members of the regiment who treated him with kindness were cordially recognized by him. Old Abe had ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... in her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... gods have heard, the gods have heard my prayer; Yes, Lyce! you are growing old, and still You struggle to look fair; You drink, and dance, and trill Your songs to youthful love, in accents weak With wine, and age, and passion. Youthful Love! He dwells in Chia's cheek, And hears her harp-strings move. Rude boy, he flies like lightning o'er the heath Past withered trees like you; you're wrinkled now; The white has left your teeth, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... opening flowers, refreshing odours fling, Cheerful he sits, and forms the banquet scene, In regal splendour on the crowded green; And as around he greets his valiant bands, Showers golden presents from his bounteous hands;[28] Voluptuous damsels trill the sportive lay, Whose sparkling glances beam celestial day; Fill'd with delight the heroes closer join, And quaff till ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... looks Of hoary marquises and stripling dukes: Let high-born lechers eye the lively Presle Twirl her light limbs that spurn the needless veil; Let Angiolini bare her breast of snow, Wave the white arm and point the pliant toe; Collini trill her love-inspiring song, Strain her fair neck ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... forest's changeful tongue That talketh all the day with me: I trill in every bobolink's song, And every brooklet bears along My ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... the grove, little birds live at ease, I wish not to wander from you; I'll still dwell beneath the deep roar of your trees, For I know that my Joe will be true. The trill of the robin, the coo of the dove, Are charms that I'll never forego; But resting through life on the bosom of love, Will ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... like these my Muse would fain withdraw: To Taff's still Valley be my footsteps led, Where happy Unions 'neath the shield of Law Heave bricks bisected at the Blackleg's head: In those calm shades my desultory oat Of Taxed Land Values shall contented trill, Of Man ennobled by a Single Vote,— In short, I'll sing of anything you will, Except of thee alone, O ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... never be married!" ejaculated Mellicent, in a tone of such horrified dismay as evoked a shriek of merriment from the listeners—Peggy's merry trill sounding clear above the rest. It was just delicious to be well again, to sit among her companions and have one of the old hearty laughs over Mellicent's quaint speeches. At that moment she was one of the happiest girls ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... songs," said the Doctor. "One is a kind of chirp or trill like an insect's note—'trr-r-r-r-r.' They give this usually when they first wake up in the morning. The other is a pretty little melody, but is less ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... braw fellows, who can push their own way in the world and fend for themselves. Not like—" he glanced over to the group on the grass, and stopped. Yet at that moment a hearty trill of thoroughly childish laughter seemed to rebuke the regrets of ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... whether Fate ordain The Camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright; Or if the graces of that fair domain, Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite; If trumpets sound the clang that Warriors love, Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove, In flowing bowls drown every vain regret, Enjoy the PRESENT, and ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... follow in hope of mercy." And I said, "It is a Sahibs' war. Let them wait the Sahibs' mercy." So they lay still, the four men and the idiot, and the fat woman under the thorn-tree, and the house burned furiously. Then began the known sound of cartouches in the roof—one or two at first; then a trill, and last of all one loud noise and the thatch blew here and there, and the captives would have crawled aside on account of the heat that was withering the thorn-trees, and on account of wood and bricks flying at random. But I said, "Abide! Abide! Ye be Sahibs, and this is a Sahibs' war, O Sahibs. ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... love awakened by a morning in spring, by the blue infinity of the sky, by the eternal loneliness and sublimity of the sea. Or, in some moment of susceptibility, the smiles of dear home faces, the tender trill of a voice, a surge of solemn music, may have power over the young heart to change its entire future. And again, it is some vivid experience of temptation and suffering that shapes the great hereafter. For the Divinity that maketh and loveth ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... (hayricks are so romantic, and I always adored cows—in pictures), is dreadfully quiet, and I freely confess that I generally prefer a man to a hop-pole (though I do wear a wig), and the voice of a man to the babble of brooks, or the trill of a skylark,—though I protest, I wouldn't be without them (I mean the larks) for the world,—they make me long ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... began to look at the singer anxiously, for the muse was somewhat slow; and she patted her knee and groaned; at last she gave a little start and smiled. Ole! Ole! The inspiration had come. She gave a moan, which lengthened into the characteristic trill, and then began the couplet, beating time with her hands. Such an one ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... inmates of the same room are allowed to descend together, so that you gain no social advantage), when just over my head, from a window on the first story, there broke out a burst of merriment, and a half-intelligible trill of baby-language; then a little round pink face, under a cloud of fair hair, peered out at me through the bars. The utter incongruity of the whole picture struck me so absurdly, that, I believe, I did indulge in ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... into an abyss in one mass of despairing humanity; weeping men and laughing women, wrestlers and ball players, dancing couples and grape pickers. The pause appealed to her as a man who climbs naked from a deep subterranean shaft, carrying a burning torch in his hand; the trill seemed like a bird that ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... again. A blackbird in the garden of the Square was uttering a long, low, chuckling trill. She ran to the window and peeped out. The bird was on a plane-tree, and, with throat uplifted, was letting through his yellow beak that delicious piece of self-expression. All things he seemed to praise—the sky, the sun, the trees, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... blithely from this melancholy contemplation and call for a lamp and his bottle. While I was about this business (our maid-servant would not handle the bottle lest she be damned for it), my uncle would stump the floor, making gallant efforts to whistle and trill: by this exhorting himself to a cheerful mood, so that when I had moved his great chair to the table, with the lamp near and turned high, and had placed a stool for his wooden leg, and had set his bottle and glass ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... hour of silence. Not a trill sounded from among the softly moving leaves, not a chirp, not a twitter. The stillness seemed almost oppressive. The one brilliant spot of colour in the landscape was a large scarlet macaw, asleep on his stand under ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... morning about Easter-day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, I suspect, as an artistic flourish, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... after a busy day. No, indeed! He would not stay in box or basket, or anywhere but cradled close in my neck. There he wished to remain, twittering happily, giving now and then a sweet, little, tremulous trill, indicative of content, warmth, and drowsiness; if I dared to move ever so little, showing by a sharp scratch from his claws that he preferred absolute quiet. One night, when all worn out, I rose and put him in a ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... sturdily. 2. Hues, colors. Ca'lyx, the outer covering of a flower. 4. Ho-ri'zon, the line where the sky and earth seem to meet. 5. War'ble, a trill of the voice. Spears, shoots ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Cassy strung the words to a mazourka. Her voice twisted, swung, danced into a trill that was captured by echoes that carried it diminishingly down the stairway of the mansion where ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... not understand The magic touches of a hand That seemed, beneath her strange control, To smooth the plumage of the soul And calm it, till, with folded wings, It half forgot its flutterings, And, nestled in her palm, did seem To trill a song that called ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... wind, A few light kisses, a few embraces, a reaching around of arms, The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag, The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along the fields and hill-sides, The feeling of health, the full-noon trill, the song of me rising from ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... morning sunshine was streaming in through the open windows, and she was alone. She came back to full remembrance slowly, as one toiling along a difficult road. Her brain felt very tired. She lay vaguely listening to the gay trill of a robin on the terrace below, dreading the moment when the dull ache at her heart ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... majestic calm of the blue heavens, and around us sweet-scented trees and bushes rustled softly. The moon was rising, and the delicate tracery of the shadows, thrown by the tall, green plane trees, crept over the stones. Somewhere near a bird sang; its note was clear and bold. Its silvery trill seemed to melt into the air that was full of the soft, caressing splash of the waves. The silence that followed was broken by the nervous chirp of ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... now they seemed wide-awake. Keen eyes saw every moving thing, from the bees in the bluebells to the slow fishing-boats far out at sea; sharp ears that were cocked like a collie's heard every chirp and trill and rustle, and a nose that understood everything was holding up every vagrant breeze and searching it for its message. For the cubs were coming out for the first time to play in the big world, and no wild mother ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... young fellow, whom we shall call Cri-Cri, like other frisky and gay young people, carried the day quite over the head of the solemn old philosopher under the calla-leaves. At night, when all was still, he would trill a joyous little note in his throat, while old Unke would answer only with a cracked guttural more singular than agreeable; and to all outward appearance the two were as good friends as their ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... would blow her horn until the echoes answered merrily, merrily; now she would trill her songs, until the wild birds answered ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... Tiburcio sat down upon the threshold of the cabin and began to smoke, waiting for the pigeons. The grasshoppers were shrilling; all the birds who had their nests in the tree nearby retired and, as it was still light, they lingered in the branches to trill ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... of purpose worthy of all imitation, he had given all his mind, and thought, to the composition of a song with a new theme. He had applied himself to it most industriously all day long, and now, as the sun began to set, he had at last corked it all out,—every note, every quaver, and trill; and, perched upon a look-out branch, he kept his bold, bright eye turned toward a certain rustic seat hard by, uttering a melodious note or two, every now and then, from ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... too; Trill on, ye two, the song of future years, Move, Palgrave, move, with bosom rent anew, An audience multitudinous to tears; Scratch on with quill unwearied and no fears, The world shall fling thee thy resplendent bays, For Popular Opinion safely steers His barque upon the river of ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... the swift trill of rifle-cracks rang out on the soft evening silence. As swiftly as they could press finger on trigger, the three comrades emptied their magazines completely into the fringe of forest three hundred yards away. This ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... innumerable birds warbled or twittered their astonishment that he could fly with such heedless rapidity through that beautiful country, and make for the dismal town in such magnificent weather. One aspiring lark overhead seemed to repeat, with persistent intensity, its trill of self gratulation that it had not been born a man. Even the cattle appeared to regard the youth as a sort of ornithological curiosity, for the sentiment, "Well, you are a goose!" was clearly written on their mild faces ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... birds sing in the meadows and fill all the air with sweetness, They sing only in the present, and they sing because they must; They are wanton in their pureness, and in all their fine completeness, They trill out their lives forgotten to ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... her cigarette away, and ran her fingers through his hair, then made a gesture, almost as if pushing something away, Peter thought, and laughed her old ringing trill of laughter. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... still such a degree of uniformity, so that, as we have said, every species may be recognized by its notes? Why does every red-eyed vireo sing in one way, and every white-eyed vireo in another? Who teaches the young chipper to trill, and the young linnet to warble? In short, how do birds come by their music? Is it all a matter of instinct, inherited habit, or do they learn it? The answer appears to be that birds sing as children talk, by simple imitation. Nobody imagines that the infant is born ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... Shakespeare Land! Summer in the heart of England—summer in wooded Warwickshire,—a summer brilliant, warm, radiant with flowers, melodious with the songs of the heaven—aspiring larks, and the sweet, low trill of the forest-hidden nightingales. Wonderful and divine it is to hear the wild chorus of nightingales that sing beside Como in the hot languorous nights of an Italian July—wonderful to hear them maddening themselves with love and music, and almost splitting their slender throats with the ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... and drinks his sack the orchestra takes part in a trill given out by piccolo, and gradually taken by one instrument after the other, until the whole orchestra is in a hearty laugh and shaking with string, brass, and wood wind glee. Then enters Dame Quickly, mischief-maker, and sets the ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... of roses in a still As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early East, Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets: Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... inspire my rhyme: Each in your voice perfection seem,— Rare, rich, melodious. We might deem Some angel wandered from its sphere, So sweet your notes strike on the ear. In song or ballad, still we find Some beauties new to charm the mind. Trill on, sweet sisters from a golden shore; Emma and Anna, sing for us once more; Raise high your voices blending in accord: So shall your fame be ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... as times goes on, the parties will grow more and more alike—the strong becoming more docile and the weaker one more robust. Take time, love each other, court and be courted, and only the best results trill come ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... This was a common ancient practice; the very words "thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; and Juv. ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... of lustre tremble through the grove, And sacred airs of minstrelsy divine Are harp'd around, and flutt'ring pinions move. Ah, hark! a voice, to which the vocal rill, The lark's extatic harmony is rude; Distant it swells with many a holy trill, Now breaks wide ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... the awning above the tea-table, and his wife, as he drew near, could be seen bending above a kettle that was just about to boil. So vividly did the whole scene suggest the painted bliss of a stage setting, that it would have been hardly surprising to see her step forward among the flowers and trill out her ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... the whispering voice of Spring, The thrush's trill, the cat-bird's cry, Like some poor bird with prisoned wing That sits and sings, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a song-sparrow above our heads gave one liquid trill, so inexpressibly sudden and delicious, that it seemed to set to music every atom of freshness and fragrance that Nature held; then the spell was broken, and the whole shore and lake were vocal with song. Joining ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... edge of the ditch was in bloom. All the weeds that grew in among the stones were brown and shiny. The beech-woods in the distance seemed to swell and grow thicker with every second. The skies were high—and a clear blue. The cottage door stood ajar, and the lark's trill could be heard in the room. The hens and geese pattered about in the yard, and the cows, who felt the spring air away in their stalls, lowed their approval every now ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... make each highest one a triumph of expression purely, and not a physical marvel. The gradual growth and sostenuto of her tones; the light and shade, the rhythmic undulation and balance of her passages; the bird-like ecstacy of her trill; the faultless precision and fluency of her chromatic scales; above all, the sure reservation of such volume of voice as to crown each protracted climax with glory, not needing a new effort to raise ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... her native ballads Mr. Cameron, on his part, had a good stock of Scottish songs, and would trill them out in a fine baritone voice, the audience joining with enthusiasm in the choruses of such favorites as "Bonny Dundee," "Charlie is my Darling," and "Over ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... knew, its cadences and trill; It stilled the tumult and the overthrow When Athens trembled to the people's will; I knew ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... real songs, sustain'd quite awhile, in the mid-day brilliance and warmth. (There! that is a true carol, coming out boldly and repeatedly, as if the singer meant it.) Then as the noon strengthens, the reedy trill of the robin—to my ear the most cheering of bird-notes. At intervals, like bars and breaks (out of the low murmur that in any scene, however quiet, is never entirely absent to a delicate ear,) the occasional crunch and cracking ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... caught by a clarionet, [1] And a wild heart, throbbing in the reed, Should thrill its joy and trill its fret, And utter its heart ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... dived through half the world and came up breathless! No, no—I cannot believe it. We folk, so matter-of-fact and so comical. It was of Hansel and Gretel we had been reading hand-in-hand, till we fell asleep in the twilight and fancied this thing.' And then she will trill like a bird at the thought of how solemn Herr Grabenstock, of the Hotel du Mont Blanc, would have stared and edged apart, had we truly recounted to him that which had befallen us between the rising and the setting ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... make the tone as that of one voice, and perhaps lead you to doubt if all are singing, until convinced by the movement of their mouths. The tone will seem pretty light and thin, but will be sweet as the trill of ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... unrestful couch I lie, Bathed with the dews of night, unvisited By dreams—ah me!—for in the place of sleep Stands Fear as my familiar, and repels The soft repose that would mine eyelids seal. And if at whiles, for the lost balm of sleep, I medicine my soul with melody Of trill or song—anon to tears I turn, Wailing the woe that broods upon this home, Not now by honour ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... Time-trenched on cheek and brow, Whom I once heard as a maid From Keinton Mandeville Of matchless scope and skill Sing, with smile and swell and trill, ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... called, when the window had been opened wider in response to her trill, "there isn't any committee meeting this afternoon. Don't you want to go with me to see Anne Carter? Let's start early and take a walk first. It's such a lovely ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... A sudden trill sounded down the street behind her. Turning her head, Grace saw Arline Thayer bearing down upon her. "I thought I'd never make you hear me," panted the little girl. "Ruth is going home with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... rustle of a bird as it flew from the thinning branches, the soft sigh of a faint breeze as it whispered its message of decay to the trees, the gentle trill of a robin at intervals, were the only sounds that fell upon the ear as Lady Pembroke and Sir Fulke Greville spoke of him who ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... the more people of the right sort know a secret, the better it will be kept." Gwen had to release her lips from two paternal fingers to say this. She followed it up by using them—she was near enough—to run a trill of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... does she call that?" And then the vain little bird whistled and sputtered and cizzled away till he was quite out of breath, when his wife laughed at him so merrily, but told him that she liked his whistle better than the finest trill the skylark ever made; and so then Specklems said that after all he thought the crow might be right, but, at all events, the Specklems could do something better than cry "Caw-waw" when ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... was bare to greedy spoil Of hungry eyes which n'ote therewith be fill'd. And yet through languor of her late sweet toil Few drops more clear than nectar forth distill'd, That like pure Orient perles adown it trill'd; And her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight Moisten'd their fiery beams, with which she thrill'd Frail hearts, yet quenched not; like starry light, Which sparkling on the silent waves ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... mind the weather, so long as we're together," sang Patty with a little trill, as she danced about the room. Then she seated herself at the old, square piano, and began to sing snatches of ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells
... nightingale and thrush, Pipe not from the bough or bush; Come to me with thy lustrous eye, Azure-melting westerly, The raptures of thy face unfold, And welcome in thy robes of gold! Tho' the nightingale broods—'sweet-chuck-sweet' - And the ouzel flutes so chill, Tho' the throstle gives but one shrilly trill To the nightingale's 'sweet-sweet.' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Shadow, with that wonderful power of accurate mimicry which is so strong in all natural human beings, began to trill out at once, with a very good Parisian accent, a few lines from a well-known song in "La Fille de ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... shed their voices along with their tails," he grumbled, with an ear to the frogs in the marsh. "They ain't quite so bad when they get big enough to trill, but that everlasting yipping makes me lonesome. I'm a good mind to toss up this tenpenny nail and salt codfish business and get back ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... tha e'er should chonce to see That faithless swain, Whose falsehood has caused all mi misery, Strike up thy strain, An if his heart yet answers to thy trill Fly back to me, an we ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... the aw and ore sounds either the R must be trilled as it still is in the north, or some vestige of it must be indicated, and such indication would be a lengthening of the o (aw) sound by the vestigial voicing of the lost trill, such as is indicated in the word o'er, and might be roughly shown to the eye by such a spelling as shawer for shore [thus shaw would be [s][o]: and shore would be [s][o]:[e]] and such distinction is still made by our more careful Southern ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... performance by one of their number. Once it was a deep musical whistle, much like the too-loo-loo of the blue jay (who is the crow's cousin, for all his bright colors), but deeper and fuller, and without the trill that always marks the blue jay's whistle. Once, in some big woods in Maine, it was a hoarse bark, utterly unlike a bird call, which made me slip heavy shells into my gun and creep forward, expecting some strange beast that I ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... rose from his bed, and at that very moment a thousand little birds, who lived in his room, began to twitter and trill. "Awake so early, little ones!" whispered the lawyer. He never ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... hot, and the cheep and trill of the gophers and the chatter of the kingbirds alone broke the silence. A cloud of butterflies were fluttering about a pool near; a couple of big flies buzzed ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... a nasty old man," said Carlotta. "Women cry because they feel very unhappy. Men are never unhappy, and that is the reason that men don't cry. My mamma used to cry all the time at Alexandretta; but Hamdi!—" she broke into an adorable trill of a chuckle, "You would as soon see a goose going with boots and stockings, like the Puss in the shoes—the fairy tale—as Hamdi ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... entertain us, nor to distract the pining lover[1]—it must have some personal purpose of its own. But, sadly enough, that purpose never seems to get fulfilled. Yet it is not down-hearted, and its Coo-oo! Coo-oo! keeps going, with now and then an ultra-fervent trill. What ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... a lonely bird singing in the wilderness! A lonely bird that sings with glee! Sunny and sweet, and light and clear, its airy notes float through the sky, and trill with innocent revelry. ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... collegian was expected home. The roses were blossoming and the pinks were sweet, in the old-fashioned flower garden in front of the house; and the smell of the hay came from the fields where mowers were busy, and the trill of a bob-o'-link sounded in the meadow. It was evening when Pitt made his way from his father's house over to the colonel's; and he found Esther sitting in the verandah, with all this sweetness about her. The house was old and country fashioned; the verandah ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred dreamily in the tempered moonlight; and the ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... whisper and birds will trill, And all things display their charms, And, when he's journeyed as far as he will, He'll ride ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various
... the streets of a crowded capital. The Londoner knows its charm when he feels his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural,—perhaps because the contrast of their repose ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Ben Aboo had sat in the alcove with lips whitening under their crimson patches of paint, beating her fan restlessly on the empty air, and breathing rapid and audible breath. And now, at this last word of Israel, though so sadly spoken, and so solemn in its note of suffering, she broke into a trill of laughter, and said lightly, "Ah! I thought your love of the poor was young. Not yet cut its teeth, poor thing! A babe in swaddling clothes, eh? When was ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... you trill. I saw you just as I started up the walk. I hear Phil has quite strong support. It would be great if she'd win after all the fuss the Sans have made ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... His solitary idea is an old silver trill copied from the bubbling spring. [He imitates in grotesque fashion the singing of the ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand |
