"Serenade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... o'er the valley sail Dim not the sinking sun, whose lustre fires The old cathedral and its gorgeous spires, The ruin'd abbey, garlanded and pale The vesper choristers in each lone wood Chant to the peeping moon their serenade; Now creeps the far-off forest into shade, And twilight comes o'er heath, and field, and flood. Oh! had I genius now the task to try, My picture should ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... would fain make Pogner promise that the victor should receive the maiden's hand without her consent being asked. He fears lest the capricious fair one may yet refuse to marry him, and decides to make sure of her by singing a serenade under her window that very night. But when he sees the handsome young candidate step forward and receive the support of Pogner, (who has already made his acquaintance, and who evidently is inclined to favour him,) the ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... the listening head bent forwards, the features like discords melting info chords; it is hard to tell how such strength was given in such slight sentences,—but from the time when he contemptuously tossed out his tune-fooleries, through the hour when with moonlight fancies "a serene ecstatic serenade was rippling silently beneath his pen," to that when the organ burst upon his ear in thunders quenchless and everlasting as the sea's, he is still Beethoven, gigantic in pride, purity, and passion. "I dream ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... sang the song of the princess. 'This is the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunave was born to-day—a beautiful princess, Queen of Butaritari.' So I was told it went in endless iteration. The song was of course out of season, and the performance only a rehearsal. But it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves from ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a couple of weeks, an' he begun ter talk of goin' back. We wanted ter give him a banquet an' speeches and a serenade, but he wouldn't hear a word of it. He wouldn't let us tell him how pleased we was at his success, either. The one thing he wouldn't talk about was his work, an' some got most mad, he was ...
— Across the Years • Eleanor H. Porter
... and shocking scandal, late into the moonlight; and so again and again every evening until the flower died. Sometimes, by way of a grand finale, the whole company would suddenly rise before the flower and serenade it, together with an ode ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... concluded was of high rank, spoke so familiarly to him, and, being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of a serenade, the President was called for by the crowd assembled. He appeared at a window with his wife (who was somewhat below the medium height), and made the ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... plenty more like him in the country.' This comforter was himself to need comfort, by and by, on a less sombre subject. He dashed in upon Sir George, crying, 'Sir, I have seen the Old Gentleman,' and with his frame shaking as if he had. It was the Australian bat on midnight circuit, a strange serenade to the European. Another of nature's creatures was to figure amid circumstances which did hold ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... or three limbs were gnarled and twisted in such a way that he could seat himself and arrange his body in such a way that he could have enjoyed a night's slumber with as much refreshment as if stretched out upon a blanket on the ground. But the serenade below was not calculated to soothe his nerves into soft, downy sleep, and he shuddered at the thought of sitting where he was for four or five hours, with the pattering feet below him, varied by a yelp or howl, when he should feel disposed ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... hushing the melancholy of a night-bird's song, came the wild low note of the Romany epic of vengeance. It had a thrill of exultation. Something in the voice, insistent, vibrating, personal, made every note a thrust of victory. In spite of her indignation at the insolent serenade, she thrilled; for the strain of the Past was in her, and it had been fighting with her all night, breaking in upon the Present, tugging ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... entertained, however, during those waking hours with a serenade such as few civilized ears ever listen to. This was nothing else than a vocal concert performed by all the dogs of the village, and as they amounted to nearly two thousand the orchestra was ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... the duke's gifts to the Gonzaga of Mantua. And she did care for Luca! She had spoken to him but rarely indeed, yet passing in and out of the same doors, and going to the same church offices, and dwelling always beneath the same roof, he had found means of late for a word, a flower, a serenade. And he was so handsome and so brave, and so gentle, too, and so full of deference. Poor Pacifica cared not in the least whether he could paint or not. He ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... the Spanish Americas, there were churchly feasts and celebrations in Cuba whose origin has been forgot. Why did the slaves serenade their masters on New Year morning, jingling huge tambourines, and in the villages how came it to be thought that the cause of righteousness was advanced by parades and music on saints' days? Hatred of the Jews was an inheritance rather than an experience, and for lack of Jews to prove ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... Count, "what the devil is Taddeo doing there against the drapery, there like a jealous Spaniard at a corner of Seville, listening to a serenade given by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... unconscious that it is light enough for him to be visible. Objects which are not men but look as if they might be in the hazy distance, called for attention on the chance. For ten minutes, perhaps, the serenade lasted, and then things settled down to the normal. The men were yawning and stirring from their dug-outs. After the muster they would take the places of those who had been "on ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... sure our man's inside. Let me see the guitar-case. I shall lay this siege in form, Elvira; I am angry; I am indignant; I am truculently inclined; but I thank my Maker I have still a sense of fun. The unjust judge shall be importuned in a serenade, Elvira. Set him up ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of this terrible tale, Foote used to relate, was the fact that on the night the murder was committed he arrived at his father's house in Truro, and was kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he fancied it might be a serenade got up by some of the family to welcome him home, but not being able to discover any trace of the musicians, he came to the conclusion that he was deceived by his own imagination. Shortly afterwards, however, he learnt that the murder had been ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... of our public men are constantly being surprised with serenades, I concluded I'd be surprised in the same way, so I made arrangements accordin. I asked the Brass Band how much they'd take to take me entirely by surprise with a serenade. They said they'd overwhelm me with a unexpected honor for ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... Roman Catholics . . . have to serenade the British public from the drive; we Anglican Catholics have the ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... "A serenade! Only De Malfort could have thought of such a thing. Lying ill and alone, he sends me the sweetest token of his regard—my favourite air, his own setting—the last song I ever heard him sing. And you wonder that I value so pure, so disinterested a love!" ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... the word music, the sounds of a guitar attracted me to the window, which looks into a narrow back street, and is exactly opposite a small white house belonging to a vetturino, who has a very pretty daughter. For her this serenade was evidently intended; for the moment the music began, she placed a light in the window as a signal that she listened propitiously, and then retired. The group below consisted of two men, the lover and a musician he had brought ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... the Plot. The story of a woman who follows her lover in the disguise of a page-boy, hears him serenade another woman, and acts as a go-between in his suit to this other woman, is to be found in the second book of La Diana Enamorada, a pastoral romance, in prose, freely sprinkled with lyrics, by Jorge de Montemayor, a Portuguese who wrote in Spanish about the middle ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... A soft serenade rendered by violins, with a harp accompaniment, was followed by a gay mazurka, played by all the instruments together,—and this finished the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... of days, but whenever I dropped asleep I found myself acting the whole scene over and over again. At night I had, as usual, to sit up, wrapped in my buffalo robes, with my feet at the fire, and my pistols in my hands, keeping the wolves at bay. Oh, how I wished they would cease their horrid serenade. The old year passed away, and the new year began, but there was no change in my condition. I was growing seriously alarmed about Obed. He ought to have been back by this time, I thought. I was afraid some accident might have befallen him, for I was very certain that he would not have deserted ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... the solid pine groves on Maple and Government islands loom up big and black. The Judge was enjoying his vacation the better for its lateness. He had bolted his supper early enough to secure his favorite chair in the best part of the piazza: a mandolin orchestra was playing a waltz from "The Serenade," and playing it well, the Judge thought. He threw away the match with which he had lighted his third cigar—to keep off the mosquitoes, he blandly told his conscience—and leaned back in the Morris chair, thinking how congruously comfortable it all was, now that he had his ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... have some more to-morrow night," retorted the banker. "You still have the poorhouse, the cattle pound, and the lockup to serenade." ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... which the music may not suggest, though the capacity of fine music is equal to any words. The beauty of Schubert's songs is their completeness. They are lyrics, and the words are only an addition. Those who heard Rakemann play the translated serenade will remember that the instrumentation produced the whole effect of the song. If the music be fine, it gives all the sentiment of the words in its own way. It is like painting a statue to unite them. Sometimes, indeed, one feels that both are written ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... such exhibitions. A wedding is more pathetic than a funeral, and nothing, perhaps, is more out of place than the jubilations of the guests. When a man and a woman, as husband and wife, have lived together five years, then the community should engage a band and serenade them, but at the outset—however, I will not insist—I am doubtless cynically inclined. I come to the moment when, having successfully weathered the pitfalls of the honeymoon (there's another mistaken theory—but let that pass) my wife and I found ourselves at last in our own home, in the midst ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... 212 out of the 233 votes in the electoral college, where in form the election is made. Three Northern States only, one of them his native State, had gone against him. He made some little speeches to parties which came to "serenade" him; some were not very formal speeches, for, as he said, he was now too old to "care much about the mode of doing things." But one was this: "It has long been a grave question whether any Government not too strong for ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... or some time past when the trio of campers were suddenly aroused by a most terrific clamor. It sounded as though all the small boys in Chester had secured dishpans and such instruments of ear torture, and assembled with the idea of giving a village serenade to some newly wedded folks who would be expected to treat the bunch ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... and shut her out: and then, undressing himself, he stepped into bed; and, in defiance of the straw which everywhere stuck out, and a quilt of a hundred-weight,[21] he sunk into a deep slumber under the agreeable serenade of those clamorous outcries which Mrs. Sweetbread still kept up on ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... churchyard, and the watchman bawled in hoarse voice a long and doleful "All's well!" A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little burgh; nothing disturbed this awful silence excepting now and then the bark of some profligate, night-walking dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. It is true Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them; but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps along the quiet streets. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... hovering round her small reserved mouth, the unfortunate gentlewoman was fain to turn to the window to keep her countenance until it was concluded. She did not ask him to repeat it, nor did she again subject herself to this palpable serenade, but a few days afterwards, as she was idly striking the keys in the interval of a music lesson, one of her little pupils broke out, "Why, Mrs. Martin, if yo ain't a pickin' out that pow'ful pretty tune that ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Centaur The Two Peacocks of Bedfont Hymn to the Sun Midnight To a Sleeping Child To Fancy Fair Ines To a False Friend Ode—Autumn Sonnet—Silence Sonnet Sonnet—to an Enthusiast To a Cold Beauty Sonnet—Death Serenade Verses in an Album The Forsaken Song Song Birthday Verses I Love Thee Lines False Poets and True The Two Swans Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy Song The Water Lady Autumn I Remember, I Remember! The Poet's Portion Ode to ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... chance to lose, 'tis true; but our down-right Honesty I perceive you are resolv'd we shall maintain through all the dangers of Love and Gallantry; though to say truth, I find enough to do, to defend my Heart against some of those Members that nightly serenade us, and daily show themselves before our Window, gay as young Bridegrooms, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... compelled to content himself with an invisible auditory,—in spite of the Spanish proverb, which says, no woman sleeps so soundly that the twang of a guitar will not bring her to the window,—began to sing in a strong Andalusian accent. The serenade consisted of a dozen verses, in which the singer celebrated the charms of a cruel mistress, vowed inextinguishable love, and denounced fearful vengeance upon all rivals. The menaces, however, were far more abundant, in this rude ditty, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... at the top of the companion, and were greeted with wishes for 'A happy New Year, and many of them,' that we quite realised that nothing serious was the matter. Soon the strains of sweet music, proceeding from the Honolulu choirs, which had come out in boats to serenade us, fell upon our ears The choristers remained alongside for more than an hour, singing English and American sacred and secular hymns and songs, and then went off to the 'Fantome,' where they repeated the ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... passed the music saloon, we paused for an instant to look through the port-hole at a pale-faced girl with big eyes and a wonderful bright red dress, singing "The Angels' Serenade," while an excitable bear-leader turned her music for her. Near her stood a lanky girl who adored actors and tenors, and lived in the hope of meeting some of those gentlemen of the footlights, who plough their way so calmly through the hearts of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... taken this method of expressing the feelings of his heart. As Fanny was probably fast asleep in her cabin, it would be entirely thrown away upon her, and I had no intention of calling her up to listen to the serenade. I determined, however, to call Harry should the canoes approach nearer; but the song ceased, and they ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... one tiny penetrating note dominated all. He knew that the singer of that note was four-footed. Have you ever heard a cricket's serenade? It was something like that. Have you ever heard a tree-creeper talking to itself? It was something like that also. He looked down and saw, as he expected, a round fur ball rolling in and out the grass-stems. At times the ball sat up and sniffed. He knew the ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... tree, was downright bewildered, and gazed fixedly at the castle; a circle of tall torches upon the steps of the entrance cast a strange glare upon the glittering windows and deep into the garden; the assembled servants were to serenade their master. In the midst of them stood the gorgeous Porter, like a minister of state, before a music-stand, working away busily ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... had so bitterly attacked him during the campaign. He seemed only to have a feeling of deep gratitude to his fellow citizens who had testified their confidence in his administration. On the evening of election day, when it became evident that he was re-elected to the Presidency, in response to a serenade he said: ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... Gideon. "Am I not Jimson? It would be strange if I did not serenade my love. O yes, I mean the word, my Julia; and I mean to win you. I am in dreadful trouble, and I have not a penny of my own, and I have cut the silliest figure; and yet I mean to win you, Julia. Look at me, if you can, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... restored, but his gaiety was somewhat forced. "You are looking charming this morning, Miss Ogden. I wished last night that there was a guitar or even a banjo in the camp, that I might serenade ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... foes, and attacking the Copperhead clubs, threw their furniture out of the window, and—inadvertently perhaps—also a few Copperheads. Just before they let their angry passions rise in this fashion there came one night a delegation to serenade Colonel Forney at the office. The Colonel was grand on such occasions. He was a fine, tall, portly man, with a lion-like mien and a powerful ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... Love his golden shafts employs; here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings: Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd, Casual fruition; nor in court amours, Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball; Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings To his proud ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... good while at it, she being willing to be friends, so I was by and by, saying no more of it. So home, and there met with a letter from Captain Silas Taylor, and, with it, his written copy of a play that he hath wrote, and intends to have acted.—It is called "The Serenade, or Disappointment," which I will read, not believing he can make any good of that kind. He did once offer to show Harris it, but Harris told him that he would judge by one Act whether it were good or no, which is indeed a foolish ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... except, indeed, the hissing, which, I believe, is made by the lizards. They will serenade you every night. I only hope you will not be disturbed by ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... him. He thought of bridegrooms, youth, strength; but it was as the hollow echo of a far-off regret, some vague sunrise of gold over hills of dream. Then a beautiful tenor voice began to sing Schubert's Serenade. It was as the very voice of hopeless passion; the desire of the moth for the star, of man for God. Death, death, at any cost, death to end this long ghastly creeping about the purlieus of life. ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... early hunting-matches there; to have my sleep disturbed by break of day, with heigh, Jowler, Jowler! there Venus, ah Beauty! and then a serenade of deep-mouthed curs, to answer the salutation of the huntsman, as if hell were broke loose about me: and all this to meet a pack of gentlemen savages, to ride all day, like mad-men, for the immortal fame of being first in at the hare's death: to come upon the spur, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... capitale, Est-ce que fit le ciel de plus froid et plus pale, C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard; On s'y couche a minuit, et l'on s'y leve tard; Ses raouts tant vantes ne sont qu'une boxade, Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster; Et n'etait sa foret de mats percant la brume, Sa tour dont a minuit le vieil oeil s'allume, Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines bien plus, Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j'ai lus, Il n'en ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, "very superior pyrotechny this evening!" Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,[649]—"The heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long as the question ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in anguish. The serenade was bad enough, but this unmerciful mocking derision of ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... sweet Miss Pecksniffs,' said the lady of the house; 'my own loves, if you will allow me the privilege of taking that freedom on the eve of our separation, Mr Jinkins and the gentlemen have made up a little musical party among themselves, and DO intend, in the dead of this night, to perform a serenade upon the stairs outside the door. I could have wished, I own,' said Mrs Todgers, with her usual foresight, 'that it had been fixed to take place an hour or two earlier; because when gentlemen sit up late they drink, and ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... thought. "No, I'll never care for him again; the dream is over. What a fool I've been! And yet—why did he send his horses down to Muddlebury? Why did he serenade me that night from the Park? Why is he not now with his dear Lady Scapegrace at Scamperly, where I see by the Morning Post Sir Guy is 'entertaining a party of fashionables during the frost'? No! I will not give him up ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... his way with difficulty to the nearest window, the very one at which she was leaning when he first entered the gallery. He played with her wild curls; he whispered to her in a voice sweeter than the sweetest serenade; but she only raised her eyes from his breast and stared wildly at him, and then clung round his neck with, if ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... were glad of any thing in the shape of beds. Not an inn in Normandy which we had visited, either by day or by night, seemed to be more sorry and wretched than this, where we—stretched our limbs, rather than partook of slumber. At one in the morning, a young and ardent lover chose to serenade his mistress, who was in the next house, with a screaming tune upon a half-cracked violin—which, added to the never-ceasing smacking of whips of farmers, going to the next market town— completed our state of restlessness ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and each soldier should be awarded a suitable prize. The fort having the least number of flags may be given a booby prize in the shape of small toy drums for the ladies and toy fife or horn for the gentlemen. The "General" may then order the soldiers of this fort to serenade ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... not a necessary consequence," said Bluebell, rather mystified by the meaning tone of his voice, but Alec, believing she had heard his nocturnal serenade and assuming a secret understanding on the strength of it, lingered by her side talking in an undertone—really about nothing in particular, for, like most spoony boys, he trusted more to his eyes than his tongue. Still it had all the effect of ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... a sturdy beggar because you happen not to be in immediate want of his wares? Or the band of which we were speaking, which arrives at the hour when the master of the house returns from his office, and performs a serenade of welcome as he greets the circle from which he has been absent since breakfast, shall it be denied the pleasure of heightening the pleasure of others? Are not the taxes of these Jem Baggses, these wandering minstrels, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... seizing now both her hands, "rougher, perhaps, than the gay gallants of Bideford, who serenade you, and write sonnets to you, and send you posies. Rougher, but more loving, Rose! Do not turn away! I shall die if you take your eyes off me! Tell me,—tell me, now here—this moment—before we part—if I may ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... "I spoiled a serenade for you a few nights ago. I was officer of the day, and caught sight of a man gazing up at your window after midnight. I felt sure he was going to sing: so, like a good fellow, I ran over to play an accompaniment, and then—would you believe ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... she returned home greatly fatigued. A few hours later the girl students who had been waiting admission to the university came to serenade her in recognition of her successful work for them, but she was too ill to see them. She was passing through the first stage of what proved to ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... profusion. Hippos played about in the river, baboons scampered about on the edge of the water, monkeys chattered in the trees, and it seemed as though nearly all of the eight hundred varieties of East African birds gave us a morning serenade. A five-minutes' walk from camp would show you a rhino, while from the top of any knoll one could look across a vast sweep of hills upon which almost countless numbers of zebras, kongoni, and ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... seventeenth century, ballads had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced himself with them in his tent, the maiden danced to them on the green, the lover sang them for his serenade, the street beggar chanted them for alms; they entered into the sumptuous entertainments of the nobility, the holiday services of the church, and into the orgies of thieves and vagabonds. No poetry of modern times has been so widely spread through all ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... passed—apostrophes to liquid names of guardian saints, too melodious for denunciations, hurled back with triple expletives and forgotten the next moment in friendly parsiflage; here and there a strain of ordered music, in serenade, from a group of friendly gondolas swaying only with the tranquil movement of the water; or the mysterious tone of a violin, uttering a soul prayer meant for some single listener, which yet steals tremblingly forth upon the night air—more passionate, more beautiful and true than that other human ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... Stepan Arkadyevitch, who, after drinking several glasses of wine at supper, was now in his most charming and sentimental humor. "Look, Kitty," he said, pointing to the moon, which had just risen behind the lime trees —"how exquisite! Veslovsky, this is the time for a serenade. You know, he has a splendid voice; we practiced songs together along the road. He has brought some lovely songs with him, two new ones. Varvara Andreevna and he must ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... The young man sees the lady who steals his heart, and begins to woo her from a distance with eyes and voice till he can gain an introduction to her family. The main joy in a Spanish courtship is the clandestine prelude to the actual engagement. He may follow the lady about and serenade her, according to regulations, but he may not speak till he is introduced. She appears to ignore his attentions, but she misses nothing. The courtship is often protracted, but the girl is given freedom of choice. The law can come ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... the pursuit," said Ferloga, "and take me with thee to Emania,[19] and let the maidens of Emania so long as I am there sing a serenade before my ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Antonio, Texas, on the first day of May, 1856, and took the road to El Paso, or Paso del Norte, on the Rio Grande, 762 miles by the itinerary. The plains of Texas were covered with verdure and flowers, and the mocking birds made the night march a serenade. ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... over to Dorchester that night, so presently they started. Two or three old slippers were thrown for good luck. Several of the younger men were quite nonplused at this arrangement, for they had planned some rather rough fun in a serenade, thinking the bridal couple ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... will come back to us in the month of September, will you not? Try to let us know the day as we have resolved to give you a serenade (or charivari). The most distinguished artists of the capital—M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and the Abbe Bardin, the coryphees of the Rue d'Amboise (and my neighbours), Maurice Schlesinger, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... to please you, let his wit run, Of late, much on a serving man and cittern; And yet, you would not like the serenade,— Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade: You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor; Ah! que locura con tanto rigor! In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed, To act their parts, the players were ashamed[2]. Ah, how severe your malice was that day! To damn, at once, the poet and his play[3]: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... home later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates thereupon quitted the party. His head was very befogged, but he could not expel one idea ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... heart refused him in its ire, When Alp, beneath his Christian name, Her virgin hand aspired to claim. In happier mood, and earlier time, While unimpeached for traitorous crime, Gayest in Gondola or Hall, He glittered through the Carnival; 190 And tuned the softest serenade That e'er on Adria's waters played At ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... seventeenth century, if we are to trust Praetorius, and consisted of solos and concerted vocal music in various forms, accompanied sometimes by full orchestra and sometimes by wind instruments alone. Great composers occasionally honoured their patrons and friends with the serenade; and composers who hoped to be great found it advantageous as a means of gaining a hearing for their works. It proved of some real service to Haydn later on, but in the meantime it does not appear to have swelled his lean ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... students of Lund to visit their ancient town. Here a public dinner was given to me; speeches were made, toasts were pronounced; and as I was in the evening in a family circle, I was informed that the students meant to honor me with a serenade. ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen
... so within a few days he quit; he wasn't willing to pay the price. He thought he would play the violin, but he wasn't willing to spend hours practising the scales and simple fingering, so he laid aside the violin. He wanted to play Schubert's Serenade right off, but on learning the cost, he contented ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... sometimes in an almost unapproached degree, but his verse is admittedly very difficult to set to music. I should myself go farther and say that it has in it some indefinable quality antagonistic to such setting. Except the famous Indian Serenade, I do not know any poem of Shelley's that has been set with anything approaching to success, and in the best setting that I know of this the honeymoon of the marriage turns into a "red moon" before long. That this is not merely due to the fact ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... unhealthy, that this flower of Ivan's madness is not yet in print. Others of the works of this time, the "Songs of the Herzeleide," the "House of Life," and the "Hymn to Pan" (both these last written for organ and orchestra), together with the "Serenade to Death," are gradually acquiring a public who listen in disorganized astonishment to these records of a soul in the strangest travail ever revealed to fellow-men.—But enough! Another paragraph, and Gregoriev ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... serenade of the German air-lieutenants this afternoon drew forth a few rifle shots from roofs of Paris houses, and even a quick-firing gun was discharged at one of these taubes. But the distance was too great, and the ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... the General, turning to me. "You see what these young officers know of their trade. I have no doubt that Monsieur le Lieutenant's musical education is much more advanced, and to serenade mademoiselle suits him much better than to make war against ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... Union Square. Soon after my arrival there was an audible commotion out in front: the populace, headed by a brass band and incited, doubtless, by pure love of art, had arrived to do honor to the great singer. There was music—a serenade—followed by shoutings of the lady's name. She seemed a trifle nervous, but I led her to the balcony, where she made a very pretty little speech, piquant with her most charming accent. When the tumult and shouting had died ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... taste; he is an adept at Venetian history. He supplies us with books, which are a great comfort.... The other evening we were surprised by a perfect fleet of gondolas stopping under our windows, from one of which we had the most beautiful serenade; the moonlight was like day, and the effect was admirable. There was a festa the other night in a church on the water's edge; the shore was illuminated and hundreds of gondolas were darting along like swallows, the gondoliers rowing as if they had been mad, till the water was ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... went to Akron, Ohio, where the "Travelling World's Fair" was to exhibit. The Mayor of Akron called upon them and invited them to a concert, where, in response to loud calls, Barnum gave a short speech; they were afterward tendered a reception and a serenade at the hotel. The next day they were escorted to Buchtel College by the founder of the institution, Mr. J. R. Buchtel, and the Reverend D. C. Tomlinson. The students received Barnum enthusiastically, and he gave them one of ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... banco and took up the trail to the village where he was to spend his first night. Confidently he trotted through the jungle, picking his way easily among the gathering shadows. Soon voices became distinguishable, and he heard tom-toms beating the evening serenade. Dogs howled in response, women chattered, boys quarreled. To Piang this represented the usual ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... Dirge Horace Smith What is Life? Blackwood The Confession Blackwood The Milling Match between Entellus and Darcs Moore Not a Sous had he Got Barham Raising the Devil Barham The London University Barham Domestic Poems Hood 1. Good-night 2. A Parental Ode to my Son 3. A Serenade Ode to Perry Hood A Theatrical Curiosity Cruikshank's Om The Secret Sorrow Punch Song for Punch-drinkers Punch The Song of the Humbugged Husband Punch Temperance Song Punch Lines Punch Madness Punch The Bandit's Fate Punch Lines written after a Battle ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Dresden brought me also another devoted and lifelong friend, though his qualities were such that he exerted a less decisive influence upon my career. This was a young physician, named Anton Pusinelli, who lived near me. He seized the occasion of a serenade sung in honour of my thirtieth birthday by the Dresden Glee Club to express to me personally his hearty and sincere attachment. We soon entered upon a quiet friendship from which we derived a mutual benefit. He became my attentive family ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... at the Occidental Hotel and the very first evening Madam Urso was honored by a serenade, though no announcement of her arrival had been made. Certainly, the musical people of the Pacific Slope were eager to welcome her. It seemed so, for on announcing a concert at Platt Hall, there was a greater ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... said, when she had finished her "Serenade." "I believe you've really got some music in you! You brought out that crescendo passage very well indeed. We want a little more delicacy in these arpeggios, and then it will do. Your touch has ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... she was struck by the resemblance between the mode of life and thought their talk betrayed, and that of the same class of girls at La Chatre; and how in the midst of Venice, to the sound of the rippling waters stirred by the gondolier's oar, of guitar and serenade, and within sight of the marble palaces, her thoughts flew back to the dark and dirty streets, the dilapidated houses, the wretched moss-grown roofs, the shrill concerts of the cocks, cats, and children of the ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... had been served in the drawing-room, Hood, again dominating the company (much to Deering's disgust), suggested music. Pierrette contributed a flashing, golden Chopin waltz and Pantaloon Schubert's "Serenade," which he played atrociously, whereupon Hood announced that he would sing a Scotch ballad, which he proceeded to do surprisingly well. The evening could not last forever, and Deering chafed at his inability to detach Pierrette from the piano; but she was most ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... speech. It would be hard to find a serenade to beat it. And he read it superbly. He had sung it to every one of his only girls in the world, his eternal (pro tem.) passions. He had had about ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... of European politics, of the liberation of Italy, and the Franco-German war. He expressed a most orthodox horror of the Pope, who, he said, he knew from his Bible was the "Beast!" He said, "I bring band and serenade for good Queen sake," but this has not ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Such was the ceaseless serenade that drove peace from the lovers' pillow during the whole of that memorable night. At dawn, the corpulent matron again appeared from among the wild and reeling crowd, and concluding her functions by some mysterious ceremonies, led forth the lank groom from the dark cavity of his hot and ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the sick, miss. 'Tis little enough pleasure 'em has. Now, children, sing up"; and the "serenade" began. It was "Asleep in Jesus," and the patients loved it! I got my picture, "sketched them off," as the old fellow ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... began to go ill with Levi, the tax-gatherer, who lived on the road to Tiberias. One morning his fellow-residents prepared a discordant serenade for him. They pointed out to Levi with animation, from the roof of his house, in what honour he was held, by means of the rattling of trays and clashing of pans, since he had accepted service with the heathen as toll-keeper and demanded money even ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... direction of the mouth of the river, a lake steamer whistled a prolonged tenor note. Somewhere from an open window in one of the neighbouring houses a violin, accompanied by a piano, began to elaborate the sustained phrases of "Schubert's Serenade." Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing along the sidewalks, and their staccato gaiety was ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... that Gatti, the ass, begged the Archbishop for permission to compose a serenade shows his worthiness to wear the title, which I make no doubt he deserves also for ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... dropped the curtains of Elsie's tent behind her, and made her way quietly through the trees, the tinkling sound of a banjo fell upon the still night air; and presently, as she neared Polly's retreat, this facetious serenade, sung by Jack's well-known voice, was ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... with the works of all the great composers. Bill Opus and Jeremiah Fugue have no secrets from him—none whatever—and in conversation he creates the impression that old Issy Sonata was his first cousin. He can tell you offhand which one of the Shuberts—Lee or Jake—wrote that Serenade. He speaks of Mozart and Beethoven in such a way a stranger would probably get the idea that Mote and Bate used to work for his folks. He can go to a musical show, and while the performance is going on he can tell everybody ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... before had it seemed so haunting and mysterious; a mingling of reproaches and command. It barely reached them where they sat together listening, a fairy thing and fascinating, yet it left the woman cold. And soon the serenade entirely ceased. Olivia recovered herself; Count Victor ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... Vivarrambla echo to the tramp of steed and sound of trumpet; no longer is it crowded with thy youthful nobles gloriously arrayed for the tilt and tourney. Beautiful Granada! the soft note of the lute no longer floats through thy moonlit streets; the serenade is no more heard beneath thy balconies; the lively castanet is silent upon thy hills; the graceful dance of the Zambra is no more seen beneath thy bowers! Beautiful Granada! why is the Alhambra so lorn and desolate? The orange and myrtle still breathe ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... he was universally supposed to be identified with that party; and if he were not so identified, he showed a puerile ignorance of the requirements of a Minister, quite beyond conception, when he received a serenade of five thousand people at New York, who came in procession, bearing aloft the accompanying transparencies, he being at the time accredited to his ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... rumor spread abroad that peace had been concluded with Austria, the greater part of the inhabitants of Paris gathered under the windows of the Pavilion of Flora. Blessings and cries of gratitude and joy were heard on all sides; then musicians assembled to give a serenade to the chief of state, and proceeded to form themselves into orchestras; and there was dancing the whole night through. I have never seen a sight more striking or more joyous than the bird's-eye ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... rather than in actual language that these poems distinguish themselves from the literary pastoral. More noticeably dialectal is an anonymous Pescatoria amorosa printed about 1550. It is a Venetian serenade sung in the persons of fishermen, and possesses ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... be, like Mrs. Jarley's show, the delight of the nobility and gentry of the day. "Gradually," said my friend to me, "I discovered a process by which I might execute a deed of separation. First, I rattled my stick against the area railings, and I saw him wince; then I whistled an Ethiopian serenade, and 'o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced'; but when I set my hat well on the back of my head, and gorped with open mouth at six legs of pork in a butcher's shop, he fled, and I ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... depend for bread on the salmon he caught, and trifling presents received. A small portable harp, of elegant workmanship, (adorned with "real silver," so ran the tale,) was the companion of his moonlight wanderings. He had a whim of serenading those who had never heard of a "serenade," but were not the less sensible of a placid pleasure at being awakened by soft music in some summer sight. The simple mountain cottagers, whose slumbers he thus broke or soothed, often attributed the sweet sounds to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... arpeggios to test the touch of the piano; then, with a sweetness and purity that made every listener turn in amazed delight, a well-trained tenor began the "Thro' the leaves the night winds moving," of Schubert's Serenade. ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... strains of music came floating in from the parade, and, as is always the case, visitors began to arrive. Several ladies and officers dropped in during the evening; they sat on the piazza enjoying the serenade until the shrill piping of the fifes and rattle of the drums sounding tattoo sent the musicians off to bed and numerous pairs of white trousers scurrying towards the cadet barracks. They watched the simultaneous "dousing of the glim" ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the Gilas of New Mexico, "when a young man sees a girl whom he desires for a wife, he first endeavors to gain the good-will of the parents; this accomplished, he proceeds to serenade his lady-love, and will often sit for hours, day after day, near her home, playing on his flute. Should the girl not appear, it is a sign she rejects him; but if, on the other hand, she comes out to meet him, he knows that his suit is accepted, and he takes her to his ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... politic self-defence are found recklessly courting the peril of midnight meetings in Mildred's chamber with the aid of all the approved resources and ruses of romance—the disguise, the convenient tree, the signal set in the window, the lover's serenade. And when the lover, who dared all risks to his lady and to himself for a stolen interview with her night by night, finally encounters Tresham, he is instantly paralysed, and will not even lift a sword in his own defence. Upon this union of boundless daring for one another's ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... streets, where all the world are strolling, and take your granito of ice or sherbet, and talk over the things of the day and the time, and pass as you go home groups of singers and serenaders with guitars, flutes, and violins,—serenade, perhaps, sometimes, yourself; and all the time the great planets and stars palpitate in the near heavens, and the soft air full of fragrance blows against your cheek. And you can really say, This is Italy! For it is not what you do, so much as what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... "After that serenade, I move that we take our departure," said Nick. "The youngster has a decent voice, so far as my poor ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... air; melody &c. 413; aria, arietta[obs3]; piece of music[Fr], work, number, opus; sonata; rondo, rondeau[Fr]; pastorale, cavatina[obs3], roulade[obs3], fantasia, concerto, overture, symphony, variations, cadenza; cadence; fugue, canon, quodlibet, serenade, notturno [Italian], dithyramb; opera, operetta; oratorio; composition, movement; stave; passamezzo [obs3][Italian], toccata, Vorspiel [German]. instrumental music; full score; minstrelsy, tweedledum and tweedledee, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that "serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks;" that singing, "in bad accord," of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby for poor Mary, half Frenchwoman ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... Clinton Hall on the evening of October 2, 1833, to perform the aforesaid duty of patriots, while the objects of their attention were convened at Chatham Street Chapel and organizing their new fanaticism. The mob flew wide of its mark a second time, for when later in the evening it began a serenade more expressive than musical before the entrance to the little chapel on Chatham street the members of the society "folded their tents like the Arabs and as silently stole away." The Abolitionists ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following exquisite little Serenade— ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... men might cross their path. The prairie larks sang about them their lovely autumn song—the short, sweet call that sounds like: "Hear me, hear me! I am the herald announcing the King." Fluttering in the air and floating for a moment above the riders they carolled a wild and glorious serenade that has no possible rendition into human notation. After a hard gallop they rode in silence side by side, hand in hand, while Jim gazed across the plain or watched the fat, fumbling prairie dogs. But ever he turned his face and ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... clergy had a quaintness all its own. The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly inaudible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coincidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the guidance of a single ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... "Serenade? I had an idea they didn't do that any more over here. I remember the young men going about at night with an orchestra sometimes when I was a boy, but ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... lute is sounding in a chamber bright With a high festival; on every side, Soft in the gleamy blaze of mellowed light, Fair women smile, and dancers graceful glide; And words still sweeter than a serenade Are breathed with guarded voice and speaking eyes, By joyous hearts in spite of all their sighs; But byegone fantasies that ne'er can fade Retain the pensive spirit of the youth; Reclined against a column he surveys His laughing compeers with a glance, in sooth, Careless of all their mirth: for other ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Lovelace Song, "See, see, she wakes! Sabina wakes" William Congreve Mary Morison Robert Burns Wake, Lady Joanna Baillie The Sleeping Beauty Samuel Rogers "The Young May Moon" Thomas Moore "Row Gently Here" Thomas Moore Morning Serenade Madison Cawein Serenade Aubrey Thomas De Vere Lines to an Indian Air Percy Bysshe Shelley Good-Night Percy Bysshe Shelley Serenade George Darley Serenade Thomas Hood Serenade Edward Coote Pinkney Serenade Henry Timrod Serenade Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "Come into the Garden, Maud" ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... him, he might behold his own burial. But heaven smiled with her thousand lights, and invited to love; the stars looked at each other with love; the nightingales sang of love; even the crickets amorously vibrated their sonorous elytra, as troubadours the plectrum, in a serenade; all the earth on this tranquil and beautiful night seemed given up to love. There was no warning; there was no sign; there was no funeral pomp; all was life, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... near the dwelling of the delinquent, having provided themselves with old trays, pots and pans, and anything by means of which a horrible din can be raised, and proceed to serenade the offender. To be the subject of such a demonstration is regarded as a signal disgrace and a most emphatic mark of popular odium. Mr. Warde Fowler tells me, on the authority of a German book on marriage, etc., that "the same ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... have been a happier expression of this spirit of harmony than was presented in the serenade offered to these gentlemen—representatives of the honored name of Steuben on the evening of their arrival in New York, the band playing first "The Watch on the Rhine," followed by the "Marseillaise" and "God Save the Queen," and then the martial airs of the Old World resolving themselves ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... rudeness of Mrs. Martha's words, so often repeated, gave her a feeling in favour of their object. She had known Mrs. Martha unjust before. Poor Tom! if he had only been a Spaniard, he would have sung about the white dove—his pretty thought—in a serenade, but then he might have poignarded Mr. James in his passion, which would have been less agreeable—she supposed he had forgotten her long ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we give up the picnic, and that glorious ride home by moonlight, when it's probably the only outing of the kind we'll have this summer? The boys were going to take their banjos and mandolins, and they counted on us to help serenade—" ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston |
