"Chant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... describing (Ann. Rep., June, 1890, p. 47) the movements and actions of the Kiwai (Fly river mouth) natives prior to a canoe attack by them upon him, says: "The canoes darted hither and thither, as if performing a circus dance or a Highland reel, and all these movements were accompanied by the chant of a paean that sounded as if composed to imitate the cooing—soft, plaintive, and melodious—of the pigeons of their native forests"; and he refers to the performance as a "canoe choral dance." It was, of course, not ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... "A Maori death-chant unmistakable," Pool exclaimed, "sung by an Hawaiian with a tattooed tongue! Repeat it once again, and I shall say ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... gazing down upon the far-off troubles of the world. Peter would peer from behind the curtains and see the Chief Magistrian emerging from behind the seven mystic veils, lifting his rolling voice and in a kind of chant expounding life to his flock of adoring society ladies. He would point to the picture and explain those golden, Olympian days when the Eleutherinian cult had originated. The world had changed much since then, and for the worse; those who had power must take ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... is that?" said Dorcas Jane, as a new sound came from the direction of the river, a long chant stretching itself like a snake across the prairie, and as they listened there were words that lifted and fell with an odd ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... staying on and on, and would always stay, because those enchantresses that whisper in the evening breezes of the mountains and the desert, that put forth caressing hands in the balmy air that bathes the hills and canyons in the early morning, whose wooing voices sing in the music of birds and chant in the cries of wild things at night, had taken captive their wills, and they could not go ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... still. But age has crept Through every coil, while Walt each night has kept The tryst alone. Hark! with what windy might The boughs chant o'er her grave their burial-rite! And the moon hangs low in ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... arose in strength and shook a golden dew of stars from the tresses of her streaming clouds, till the wonderful deep heavens sparkled with a myriad gemmy points. The west wind going on his way sung his wild chant amongst the cordage, and rushed among the sails as with a rush of wings. The ship leant over like a maiden shrinking from a kiss, then, shivering, fled away, leaping from billow to billow as they rose and tossed their white arms about her, fain ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... no other answer, than by increasing their speed in the circle, and occasionally raising the threatening expressions of their chant, into louder and more intelligible strains. Suddenly, one of the oldest, and the most ferocious of them all, broke out of the ring, and skirred away in the direction of her victims, like a rapacious bird, that having wheeled on poised wings, ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the ecstatic whisper of fairest summer days that the bee-keeper loves so well, the festival song of labour that rises and falls around the hive in the crystal of the hour, and might almost be the chant of the eager flowers, hymn of their gladness and echo of their soft fragrance, the voice of the white carnations, the marjoram, and the thyme. They have, however, a whole gamut of sounds that we can distinguish, ranging ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... who had gone in person to superintend the releasing of Platterbaff. Despite the earliness of the hour a small crowd had gathered in the street outside, and the horrible menacing Trelawney refrain of the "Fifteen Hundred Voting Men" came in a steady, monotonous chant. ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... at her with a certain intelligence in his eyes, and then struck a few wild, startling chords. They proved to be the basis of a sea-chant. Denas heard them with a quick movement of her head and an involuntary though slight movement of the hands, as she cried out in ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... hammer and higher drop by more blows per minute. When we reached Shanghai we saw the pile driver being worked from above. Fourteen Chinese men stood upon a raised staging, each with a separate cord passing direct from the hand to the weight below. A concerted, half-musical chant, modulated to relieve monotony, kept all hands together. What did the operation of this machine cost? Thirteen cents, gold, per man per day, which covered fuel and lubricant, both automatically served. Two additional men managed the piles, ...
— Farmers of Forty Centuries - or, Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan • F. H. King
... into those silent mansions where the dead have their habitation, and they laid him by the side of his departed wife as he had desired. The last hymns sounded so ghostly down in the vault there as the wailing chant ascended up through the earth, even those who wept made haste to depart from thence and get into the light of day once more. And the heavy iron door clanged thunderously on its hinges ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... Oh, isn't this glorious. I love the wind. I love it, I love it." Judy's cry became almost a chant as she led the way across the little bridge and through the fast-darkening bit of woodland. The wind fluttered her white garments around her, her long hair streamed out behind, and her flying feet seemed ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey
... is bewitchit," continued the King; "and wha sae likely to do it as the glamouring hizzie that has ensnared him? She has ill bluid in her veins, and can chant deevil's cantrips as weel as the mither, or ony ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... was in swimming, he swam with all his strength, whimpering in a sort of chant his eager love for Skipper who indubitably must be aboard the white yacht half a mile away. His little song of love, fraught with keenness of anxiety, came to the ears of a man and woman lounging in deck-chairs under the awning; and it was the quick-eyed woman who first saw the golden head of ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... sitting on his bedstead, his face in his hand. From time to time he uttered soft regular sounds; he was wailing a dirge, that is, swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes shut, and shaking his head as drivers or bargemen do when they chant their melancholy songs. Antipka could not bear it, and he came away from the crack. When Gerasim came out of the garret next day, no particular change could be observed in him. He only seemed, as it were, more morose, and took not the slightest notice of Tatiana or ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... the farther side of it, a great number of Indians gathered around a fire, the bright glare of which made them visible through the thick darkness; while from the midst of them proceeded a loud, measured chant which would have killed Paganini outright, broken occasionally by a burst of sharp yells. I gathered the robe around me, for the night was cold, and walked down to the spot. The dark throng of Indians was so dense that they almost intercepted the light of ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... limited powers of comprehending Torpenhow"s special correspondence had waked the devil of unrest in Dick. He could hear, through the boy's nasal chant, the camels grunting in the squares behind the soldiers outside Suakin; could hear the men swearing and chaffing across the cooking pots, and could smell the acrid wood-smoke as it drifted over camp before ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... proclaiming through the summer night some joyous, ever-ascending message. Lydia felt her pulses loud at her temples. Almost a faintness of pleasure came over her. There was something ineffably sweet about the disembodied voices sending their triumphant chant up ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... congregation. The Close was crowded to see them come. Lines of theological students were drawn up there, fresh-faced boys in round collars and long black coats, who, as the main body of the Modernist clergy approached, began defiantly to chant the Creed. Meynell, with the old yet stately Bishop leaning on his arm, passed them with a friendly, quiet look. He caught sight for a moment of the tall form of Fenton, standing at their rear—the long face ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... star and bird twined with the chant of my soul, There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... dusk is past, Sheer joy of living fills the world! Rare hour, too sweet to last! The roses fling their petals wide, their fragrance fills the air; It mingles with the orange buds which blossom everywhere; The birds chant loud their matins; all the earth seems newly born. Ah, happy is the quinta in the warm and ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... is so that his hot hypnotic eye commands With steady ray; and the earth obedient brings enchantment forth. All night long in the humid dark the high-voiced hyla-bands Chant of it in chill strain from ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... strain, and all the hollow air Seemed mourning for the dead; for, on that day, The little people of the snow had come, From mountain-peak, and cloud, and icy hall, To Eva's burial. As the murmur died, The funeral train renewed the solemn chant. ...
— The Little People of the Snow • William Cullen Bryant
... et supreme! elle a, rien qu'eri marchant, Change le cri terrestre en pur et joyeux chant, Rajeuni les races fletries, Etabli l'ordre vrai, montre le chemin sur, Dieu juste! et fait entrer dans l'homme tant d'azur Qu'elle a ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... thenceforth from his loss To leanness doom'd. Attentively I turn'd, List'ning the thunder, that first issued forth; And "We praise thee, O God," methought I heard In accents blended with sweet melody. The strains came o'er mine ear, e'en as the sound Of choral voices, that in solemn chant With organ mingle, and, now high and clear, Come ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... they shall be taught for this purpose the proper manner of administering the sacraments, the methods of apostolic catechism and preaching, moral theology, the ceremonies of the Church, the Gregorian chant, and other things belonging to the duties of a good ecclesiastic; and besides, in order that there may be formed in the said seminary and among its clergy a chapter composed of ecclesiastics belonging thereto and chosen from among us and the bishops of the ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... me too they'd better be left to themselves. We drew out again from under the bluffs, and caught the breeze, and stood away. The shouting and the chant kept on, and the fire shone after us like a red ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton
... nine o'clock in the morning. I would have leave to do what my heart night prompt in the great hours of adoration. Reading the Scriptures with a word of comment, sometimes, or t word uttered as the spirit moved, without reading; or instead, a matin hymn or old Gregorian chant, solemn seasons, free breathings of veneration and joy; sometimes he reading of a prayer of the Episcopal Church, or of he venerable olden time, always a bringing down A the great sentiment of devotion into young life, to De its guidance ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... was deep, nearly a chant. "All here is of evil: Trolldom and Helvede it is, Ja! And that she djaevelsk of beauty—what is she but harlot of that shining devil they worship. I, Olaf Huldricksson, know what she meant when she held out to you power ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... They chant their artless notes in simple guise; They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim: Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise, Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name; Or noble Elgin beets the heav'n-ward flame, The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays: Compar'd with ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... sang the death-chant of the Real Dogs. Then he stepped silently out, leading the file of warriors to the wall under the tree, that he might be the first to climb and meet the soldiers in case ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin
... cried Aunt Clara aloud in her excitement. "What a shame they had to miss it!" She stood a long time looking intently at the spot where the moose had disappeared, but it did not show itself again. As she stood there watching she heard a rhythmic chant coming across ...
— The Campfire Girls on Ellen's Isle - The Trail of the Seven Cedars • Hildegard G. Frey
... because it is a nearer approach to the spirit world. They bury on scaffolds and in trees that in some mute, sorrowful way they may still hold communion with their loved and their lost. At the grave they go to the four points of the compass and mourn, singing all the while a weird chant. They bury with their dead all of the belongings of the deceased, the playthings of the Indian child, for the Indian boy and girl have dolls and balls and baubles as does the white child: you may see them all pendent from the poles of the scaffold or ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... slower the music was, the better it seemed to him. He was the father of plain song, and he maintained that the more drawn out the music was, the more religious it became. But in the thirteenth century Christians found this chant most wearisome. The cathedrals in those days were the point of attraction: the theatre, the centre of all life. People went to the church to pray to God and to amuse themselves, forgetting for the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... on the main deck, as I passed the open door of the hospital I heard the muttering chant of O'Sullivan, and peeped in. There he lay, lashed fast on his back in the lower bunk, rolling his eyes and raving. In the top bunk, directly above, lay Charles Davis, calmly smoking a pipe. I looked for the marlin-spike. There it was, ready to hand, ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... opened one by one before Pere Courtois. When they reached the last one, Amelie laid her hand on the jailer's shoulder. She thought she heard a chant. Listening attentively, she became aware that it was ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... down to a summary narrative, sufficiently suggesting the flavor of the original, but not picturing fully the way in which the image is formed in the mind of the native story-teller. Foreigners and Hawaiians have expended much ingenuity in rendering the mele or chant with exactness,[5] but the much simpler if less important matter of putting into literal English a Hawaiian kaao has ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... species of Rajah; and earnestly representing to him that our kind mutual hostess would be woefully distressed by any disclosures. "Let your Hon'ble Ludship," I said, "only remain hermetically sealed, and preserve this as a trade secret, and my sisters, sisters-in-law, and aunts shall always chant hymns on the ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... which a black, who must have attained to some consequence among his superstitious brethren on account of his gigantic height, stood now in the ruddy glow tossing his arms on high, gesticulating and uttering a weird strange chant, until the English party saw that their guide had approached quite close to the huge giant, and was evidently talking to him eagerly and with a great show ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... years ago, fell in glorious battle and mingled his dust with the unforgetting earth. Each puff may give everlasting liberty to some dead and gone aboriginal. If you listen you may hear his far-off chant. Through the curling blue wreaths you may catch a glimpse of the happy hunting grounds to which he has now gone. That is the part of the service whose losing or gaining depends ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... plan to break E. of keeping the light on when I was sleepy. One night I lay awake until I couldn't stand it any longer, and then began to hum in a low, droning chant, sort of under my breath, like an exasperating mosquito: 'Laugh-ing wa-ter! Big chief's daugh-ter!' till I nearly drove my own self distracted. I could see her frown and change her position as ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... accompaniment with one half of his mouth, while he sang with the other half, had given me some instructions in the art of chanting: and, as to my brother, he, the hundred-handed Briareus, could do all things; of course, therefore, he could chant. He could chant: he had a right to chant: he had a right, perhaps, to chant "Te Deum." For if he ran away every day of his life, what then? Sometimes the enemy mustered in over-powering numbers—seventy, or even ninety strong. Now, if there ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... that until afterwards, when he heard father talk of the drive north. But he would have remembered that day and the night that followed, even though he had never heard a word about it. The bawling of the herd became a doleful chant of misery. Even the phlegmatic oxen that drew the wagons bawled and slavered while they strained forward, twisting their heads under the heavy yokes. They stopped oftener than usual to rest, and when Buddy was permitted ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... in, and Muata leapt ashore. As his feet felt the firm ground he raised one hand high and broke into a chant, the woman joining in at intervals. As he chanted he stamped his feet on the sand; and this song was of himself—of his deeds in the past, of his ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... pulse Beat with strange flutterings—I would wander forth And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills, The quiet dells retiring far between, With gentle invitation to explore Their windings, were a calm society That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began To gather simples by the fountain's brink, And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood In Nature's loneliness, I was with one ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... Latin extant is contained in the sacred chant of the Fratres Arvales. These were a college of priests, whose function was to offer prayers for plenteous harvests, in solemn dances and processions at the opening of spring. Their song was chanted in the temple with closed doors, accompanied by that ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... little burro. The manager of the reorganized gold-search syndicate strode along in the blinding glare of the high sun, herding them ahead of him, and as Pike turned for a last look backward at a bend of the trail, the words of the old darkey chant came to him ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... his manly chant, beside More dainty numbers, seems a rustic tune; It may be, thought has broadened since he died Upon the century's noon; It may be that we can no longer share The faith which from his fathers he received; It may be that our doom ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... a solemn stage-wait, now, for about twenty minutes—a thing I had counted on for effect; it is always good to let your audience have a chance to work up its expectancy. At length, out of the silence a noble Latin chant—men's voices—broke and swelled up and rolled away into the night, a majestic tide of melody. I had put that up, too, and it was one of the best effects I ever invented. When it was finished I stood up on the platform and extended my hands abroad, for two minutes, with my face uplifted—that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... compelled her, and she passed within. But horror filled her of the holiest depths From which the mystic oracle proceeds; And resting near the doors, in breast unmoved She dares invent the god in words confused, Which proved no mind possessed with fire divine; By such false chant less injuring the chief Than faith in Phoebus and the sacred fane. No burst of words with tremor in their tones, No voice re-echoing through the spacious vault Proclaimed the deity, no bristling locks Shook off the laurel chaplet; but the grove Unshaken, and the summits of the ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... and when it lifted up its neck, it uttered the peculiar tone he had heard. He was within long bow-shot, and, drawing the arrow to his ear, he took a careful aim and discharged the shaft. It took no effect. The beautiful bird sat proudly on the water, still pouring forth its peculiar chant, and still spreading the radiance of its plumage far and wide, and lighting up the whole world, beneath the eye of ...
— The Indian Fairy Book - From the Original Legends • Cornelius Mathews
... answered. "'Whiter than the snow, clearer than the ice-cave, more solemn than the choir. They will come at last.' That was what he said, even as he entered there." And the low dove-like tone and tender calm face continued upon Ebbo the spell that the chant had left. He dozed as though still ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the guns hangs thick in the air. Locusts chant their mysterious, imperturbable song. Doves coo lyrically in the crannies of the rocks. The cows ...
— The Underdogs • Mariano Azuela
... Evans stood at the door of fine old Hurstley, in wig, and band, and cassock, to receive back his wandering sheep that had been lost: and the school-children, ranged upon the steps, thrillingly sang out the beautiful chant, "I will arise, and go to my Father, and will say unto Him, 'Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... having paused long enough to let young Glendinning take a complete survey of what was around him, now said in her usual chant, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... We wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old negro, called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in touching broken English he poured forth his thanksgivings. We wish you could have heard the sound of that strange rhythmical chant which is now forbidden to be sung on Southern plantations,—the psalm of this modern exodus,—which combines the barbaric fire of the Marseillaise with the religious fervor of the old ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... were loosened, ready to release the vessels, and the ropes held in hand. There was a brief silence, then upon the elevated "castle" or stern of each ship, the young army of Crusaders commenced to chant that dear old hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" which the church in all ages has used on solemn occasions, and as its words floated from one vessel, they were taken up on another until the air was full of harmony which was wafted back to the hills and shore, where the seven ...
— Ten Boys from History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... is preeminent in the sunset key, and the western skies ever chant their evening hymn in the 5th, 7th, and 2d of the ethereal music. The correspondence of the sub-dominant would be red, green, and indigo; of the chord of the 6th, red, yellow, and indigo; and so on, the curious ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... just as good as we know how to be, and as bad as we dare be." And we are all growing better. Why not chant the beauties of the good instead of imagining it our "duty" to ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... and by-ways, sleepy-looking farms, and picturesquely careless houses. Below them there was a great fish entrepot, with fishing-boats plying up and down, brawny fishermen trilling their musical half-chant, half-song, as ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... toward a more central and elevated spot, the same mean and shrill voice that had first charged him, again was heard, advising that no hymn nor chant be sung; 'the Roman watch is now abroad, and despite the raging of the storm their ears may catch the sound and the guard be ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... had gone the deep drum—a hollow instrument of wood shaped like a fish—was beaten, and the priests gathered to vespers, dressed in many-coloured garments of silk; and, as evening fell, they intoned a sweet and mournful chant. ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Lerga ('the Gravemound on the Slopes') till the end of three days and three nights and I will oppose the hosts during that time." [4]He examined each wound so that it became clean. Then he sang him the 'men's low strain' till Cuchulain fell asleep withal. It was then Lug recited[4] [5]the Spell-chant of Lug.[5] ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... material as Burke or Grattan (perhaps exaggeratively) would have used it—the speaker is content with facts and expositions of facts. In another age he might have risen and hurled that great song in prose, perfect as prose and yet rising into a chant, which Meg Merrilees hurled at Ellangowan, at the rulers of Britain: 'Ride your ways, Laird of Ellangowan; ride your ways, Godfrey Bertram—this day have ye quenched seven smoking hearths. See if the fire in your ain parlour burns the blyther for that. Ye have riven the thack of seven ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... well-shaped, and easy and dignified in action. But she was not handsome, and her voice had a small degree of tremor. Moreover, she imitated, or, rather, faultily exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of prolonging and toning her pronunciation, sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant; but whether it was that the public ear was at that period accustomed to a demi-chant, or that she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, it is certain that her general judgment and genius, in the highest bursts of tragedy, inspired enthusiasm in all around her, and ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... several of the men were forced to hold him up while he was being securely bound with his back to the trunk. About his feet dry wood was then placed, and half way up his body. When this had been accomplished, the Indians formed themselves in a circle about the unhappy man, and began to chant a slow weird dirge ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... battle with shouts of "Eleleu!" The Welsh cry was "Ubub!" from whence comes our word hubbub, meaning a confusion. The Irish war shout was nearly like that of the Greek, being "Ullulu!" The Scotch clans had each its own shout or slogan; the pibroch being the chant ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... a place where the forest thinned out, and then broke away, leaving a little prairie. The warriors, who had previously been painting themselves in more hideous colors than ever, broke into a long, loud, wailing chant. It was answered in similar fashion from a point beyond a swell in the prairie, and Paul knew that they had come to the Indian village. The wailing chant was a sign that they had returned after disaster, and now all the old squaws were taking it up in reply. Paul was filled ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... does not know anything about anything,' said the little boy. 'They never taught him to say his prayers, nor sing hymns, nor chant, and he thinks it is only good for niggers. So I told him that singing psalms once beat an army, and he laughed; and I thought Cherry was sure to know where it was—but girls ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sounded the first notes of the battle-paean, and the men took up the hymn devoutly, in one mighty chorus. For at such times those who fear the gods have less fear of their fellow-men. [59] And when the chant was over, the Peers of Persia went forward side by side, radiant, high-bred, disciplined, a band of gallant comrades; they looked into each other's eyes, they called each other by name, with many a cheery cry, "Forward, friends, forward, gallant ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... a man kneeling before a pagoda, moving silent lips of prayer, when you see the people sitting quietly in the rest-houses on a Sunday, when you see the old men telling their beads to themselves slowly and sadly, when you hear the resonant chant of monks and children, lending a soul to the silence of the gloaming, you will know what they are doing. They are trying to understand and bring home to themselves the eternal laws of righteousness; they are honouring ...
— The Soul of a People • H. Fielding
... a poem—a chant of grief over the hard fate which obliges him now to leave his paradise and take up with his wife again. It seems to intimate that the paradise is cooling towards him; that he is warned off by acclamation; that he must not even ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to be better than he was—who had taken his selfish passions into discipline and clad them in severe robes, so that he had walked with them as a devout choir, till now that a terror had risen among them, and they could chant no longer, but threw out their ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... fruit, for these followers of the Lamb. The presence of the Lord was deeply felt. These Covenanters worshiped here in spirit and in truth. Their prayers ascended on the wings of the winds; the sound of the Psalms mingled with the song of the birds and the chant of the brooks. The eloquence of the preacher—now rising like the storm, now falling like a spring shower—now consoling the sad, now arousing the strong—now exhibiting the loveliness of Jesus, now depicting the woes of the lost—in ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... came on towards me gradually. I opened my parchment scroll, and read aloud the command. She paused, and seemed to waver and doubt; stood still; then I rehearsed the sentence, sounding out every syllable like a chant. She drew near my ring, but halted at first outside, on the brink. I sounded again, and now at the third time I gave the signal in Syriac,—the speech which is used, they say, where such ones dwell and converse in thoughts ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... stand? [To a Recording Angel] Open and chant the page Thou'st lately writ, that sums these happenings, In brief reminder of their instant points Slighted by us amid ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... the psalms; there was a rustle of leaves, and soon shrill, untrained voices of the choir-boys were screaming the chant like a number of baby ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... has a beast as his friend and protector, just as in the Highlands "the dog is the friend of the Maclaines". When the Finns, in their epic poem the Kalewala, have killed a bear, they implore the animal to forgive them. "Oh, Ot-so," chant the singers, "be not angry that we come near thee. The bear, the honey-footed bear, was born in lands between sun and moon, and he died, not by men's hands, but of his own will."(1) The Red Men ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... successful enterprise with a feast. They cooked a large amount of buffalo steak; then, each with his hands full of the savory meat, they began to dance around the fires, droning meantime an atrociously repellant chant. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud had learned at St. Mark's. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying to carry the sustained note an octave above the man's ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... body was found in a submarine temple, from which the sea receded every seven years for the benefit of pilgrims. Thus he became the patron of anchor forgers, and thence of smiths in general. Charles Dickens, in Great Expectations describes an Essex blacksmith as working to a chant, the refrain of which was "Old Clem." I have heard the explosions at Hursley before 1860, but more modern blacksmiths despise the custom. At Twyford, however, the festival is kept, and at the dinner a story is read that after the Temple was finished, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... a school for religious music. It was established in one of the halls of the Lateran, and even the Carlovingian kings obtained from it skilful maestri and organists. It is still prosperous. To Gregory we owe the canto fermo, or Gregorian chant, which, if properly executed, imparts such a grave and solemn character to the ceremonies of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... says 'Weep, this is the moment,' or 'Rejoice, the hour has come,' and we chant our dirge or kindle our bonfires accordingly. Why, it means a little martyrdom to the occasional sinner who selects his own occasion ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... struggling waters, of cracking trees, of snow-masses violently displaced. But now birds were in full song everywhere, carrying trifles of stick and floss and grass wherewith to build their nests. Formerly there had been the uneasy groans and sighs of a gigantic restless sleeper. Now there was the chant of a heart-free nature engaged again in vigorous toil, in wresting the recurrent glory of surging life and hope from the powers of darkness and bitter, benumbing cold. It was ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... Could a story be told in opposite ways and both ways be true? Could it? could it? Then again: Is there nothing always right, and nothing always wrong? Could Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite "put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to the workman's hammer?" and could the Spirit of the Lord chant paeans over her, loud paeans, high paeans, set in the book of the Lord, and no voice cry out it was a mean and dastardly sin to lie, and kill the trusting in their sleep? Could the friend of God marry his own sister, and be beloved, and the man who does it ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... grey, Called for the poet and his song, And called in vain. But far away, By the wild mountain-gorges, stirred, The shepherds in their watches heard, Above the torrent's charge and clang, The cleaving chant of one ...
— Alcyone • Archibald Lampman
... Vienna forever, and yet there was no message for him. A longing, that seemed to drown him in the flood of its intensity, rushed over his soul. He would fly to her presence and implore her to forgive the chant of victory that was rejoicing over her country's grave! Oh, the crash of that stunning harmony, how it maddened him, as kneeling, he listened to ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... came by the thousands. From Chicago alone there came one group of 3000 seekers. "Move on," came the endless chant. "Move on!" It didn't matter where, so long as they kept moving, making way for new mobs ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... through an important crisis in regard to the sacred books of Judaism and Christianity. All the features of the contest over "the higher criticism" are foretold by Emerson in "The American Scholar." "The poet chanting was felt to be a divine man; henceforth the chant is divine also. The writer was a just and wise spirit; henceforward it is settled the book is perfect. Colleges are built on it; books are written on it.... Instantly the book becomes noxious; the guide is a tyrant." This is exactly what has happened to Protestantism, which ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... the insistent tom-toms throbbed their rhythmic melancholy rune, hollow and dissonant. Then all at once the drums ceased; and through the night air drifted a minor chant; a wail, that rose, fell, died, and came again, lagging as ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... landing-place, was distinctly visible. It needed not that we should indulge imagination in picturing to ourselves Castel Sardo, and other places along the coast, which we hoped soon to visit. The esplanade was generally solitary, and suited our musings. One evening, the silence was broken by a melancholy chant from the chapel of a ruined monastery within the guarded enceinte. It was a service for the dead, at which a prostrate crowd assisted in deep devotion. The sentries on the walls rested on their arms, and we stood ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Valbonnans' praise let's chant, yes, chant! His gloves the best, as all must grant, The ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... lie at dead of night, Looking up to heaven's light, Hearing but the watchman's tone Faintly chanting "God is one,"[24] Oh what thoughts then o'er us come Of our distant village home, Where that chant when evening sets Sounds from ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... her valuables at a bank. She found Brussels, suburbs and city alike, swarming with grey-uniformed soldiers, most of whom looked tired and despondent. Those who were on the march, thinking Vivie must be the wife of some German officer of high rank, struck up a dismal chant from dry throats with a refrain of "Gloria, Viktoria, Hoch! Deutschland, Hoch!" At the bank the Belgian officials received her with deference. Apart from being the daughter of the well-to-do Mrs. Warren, she was English, and seemed to impose respect even on the Germans. They took over her valuables, ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... Shakespeare's dictum in regard to music holds good when applied to the Eskimo, for they have but little music in their souls, and among no people is there such a noticeable absence of "treason, stratagem and spoil." A rude drum and a monotonous chant, consisting only of the fundamental note and minor third, are the only things in the way of music among the more remote settlements of which I have any knowledge. Mrs. Micawber's singing has been described as the table-beer of acoustics. Eskimo singing is something ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... the Dedannan host listen to Finola's chant, and when the music ceased and only sobs broke the stillness, the four swans spread their wings, and, soaring high, paused but for one short moment to gaze on the kneeling forms of Lir and Bove Derg. Then, stretching their graceful necks toward the north, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-like, pastoral M——; a flute's breathing less divinely whispering than thy Arcadian melodies, when, in tones worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song sung by Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter wind more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy sire was old surly M——, the unapproachable church-warden of Bishopsgate. He knew not what ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... not pass with impunity, the last exponent of true feminine charm. The vulgar, the street boy, have evolved one of those strange sayings that have the air of being fragments from some lost and forgotten chant: ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... presented to him in a saucer, which he promptly upset. Then the women and girls danced round the cage, rising and hopping on their toes, and as they danced they clapped their hands and chanted a monotonous chant. The mother and some of the old women cried as they danced and stretched out their arms to the Bear, calling him loving names. The young women who had nursed no Bears laughed, after the manner of the young. The Bear began to get upset, and rushed ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... procession. The Virgin was being carried through the streets. The houses were decorated and women leaned out at the windows of houses. Old priests dressed in white gowns waddled along. Strong young men carried the platform on which the Virgin rested. The procession stopped. Someone started a chant in a loud clear voice. Other voices took it up. Children ran about gathering in money. All the time there was a loud hum of ordinary conversation going on. Women shouted across the street to other women. Young girls walked on the sidewalks and laughed softly as the young ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... strung high the nerves. Time-worn shields, careering in mad holders' hands, clashed; and keen lances, once reeking in Pawnee blood, clanged. Braves seized one another with an iron grip, in the heat of excitement, or chimed more tenderly in the chant, enveloped in the same robe with some maiden as they approvingly stepped through one ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... having recovered from her sickness, she one day presented herself at church in the nun's choir as usual; but while joining in the closing hymn, she suddenly changed colour, began to sob and tremble in every limb, then continued the chant in a strange, uncertain voice, sometimes treble, sometimes bass, like that of a lad whose beard is just beginning to grow. At this the abbess and the sisterhood listened and stared in wonder, then asked if the dear sister had ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of this performance bear any reference to love, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... last attack on Warsaw, when the loss of the Russians amounted to upwards of twenty thousand men, the soldiery mounted the breach, repeating in measured chant, one of their popular songs: "Come, let us ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... was far advanced. Pemmican, strips of venison and some corn cakes lay by the edge of the fire and he knew that good old Inmutanka had left them there for him. He began to feel hungry. He would rise in a few minutes and warm the bread and meat by the fire, but he first listened to a chant that came from the outside, low at first, though swelling gradually. His attention was specially attracted, because he caught the sound of his own name in a recurring note. At length he made out the song, something ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... the actor and the Californian, looked out and down. The boat's builder had left his seat and stood with Hugh at the forward rail. From the freight guards, far below, the leadsman, unseen up here except to experienced "poetic vision," sent up a long-drawn chant telling the fathoms of depth shown on the sounding-line that flew forward from his skilled hand into the boat's moonlight shadow, plunged to the river's bed, vibrated past his feet in the glare of the pine torch, stretched aft while ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... This was the sort of situation that appealed to his sense of humour. He began to chant an old-world ditty under ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... and Winds, sing your great chant of love! Heaven and Space and Time, echo back the melody! For Life has called to us the answer of his riddle! Heart to heart we sit, and lips to lips, and we are more wise than Solomon, and richer than barbarian ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... could, letting the coil of the line which he had over his arm run out until the way of the ship brought it perpendicularly under him; when, hauling it up quickly, and noticing how many fathoms had run out before the lead touched the bottom, he called out in a deep sort of sepulchral chant, ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... thinkers!... To Jean Jacques Rousseau, and his pupil, Maximilian Robespierre!" This enumeration of names was received with a triple salvo of applause, and was encored, with which request M. Saint Just complied. The banquet concluded with the "Marseillaise" and the "Chant du Depart" sung ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thought the Divine Mercy had destined to special torment, for all through the church, loud and soft, in every variety of voice, solo and in unison, came the supplication for 'repose, repose.' Ah, let him sleep quietly after his many years of turmoil and intrigue! The solemn stirring chant was answered in the nave by women's sobbing, above which rose the tragic convulsive gasp of Marguerite Oger, the gasp so impressive in the fourth act of 'Musidora.' All this lamentation touched the kind-hearted candidate and linked itself in his feelings ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... impressions of sound and scent and color. The violent blue of the sky, the one mystery than distinct entities. He could almost imagine that the boy's innocence was indeed a perfume, and that the palpitating roses had become a sonorous chant. ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... vanished into air, And left Valmiki wondering there. The pupils of the holy man, Moved by their love of him, began To chant that verse, and ever more They marvelled as they sang it o'er: "Behold, the four-lined balanced rime, Repeated over many a time, In words that from the hermit broke In shock of grief, becomes a sloke." This measure now Valmiki ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... and without any accurate recollection of the scene which had passed before her eyes. There were females in the hut who were swathing the corpse in its bloody plaid before carrying it from the fatal spot. "Women," she said, starting up and interrupting their chant at once and their labour—"Tell me, women, why sing you the dirge of MacDhonuil Dhu in the house of ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott |
