"Warble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he began to weary of himself. Seeing a deer he drew an arrow and stealing silently to the game was just about to shoot, when despite himself the wild, unearthly sound broke forth like a demon's warble. The deer bounded away, and the young man cursed! And when he reached Old Town, half dead with hanger, he was worth little to make laughter, though the honest Indians at first did not fail to do so, and thereby somewhat cheered his heart. But ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland
... pain of thy transport O'erpowers each dying tone! Thou canst not warble a measure That ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one occasion, of the number ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... {70} On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of those delights can judge, and spare To interpose ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... cinemas do, after they've given the public a good, bright opening. It was true, what I said about my voice. I've lost everything but my middle register. I had a fortune in my throat. At present I've got nothing but a warble fit for a small drawing room—and that, only by careful management. I knew months ago I could never sing again in opera. I was coining money in New York, and would be now—if they hadn't dug me out as a slacker—an embusque—whatever you like to call it. I was a conscientious ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... green alleys and beneath the open sky—in the other their resting-place is in the shadowy aisle, and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the shower; in the other, no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals in through high ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... more, and by that time there was such a "Chick"-ing and "D.D."-ing and such a whisking to and fro of black caps and black bibs, that no one paid much attention when Minister Chick, D.D., himself, perched on a branch for a minute, and gave the sweetest little warble that was ever heard on a winter's day. Then he whistled "Fee-bee" very clearly, and went to eating again, heeding the Farmer Boy no more than if he were not there ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... Hartmann von Aue hits the meaning of a story! how loud and clear rings the crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"—a slightly mixed reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and romantic material which communicates to the Middle Ages so much ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knothole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble,—the old, old story. But the female flew to a near tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion, but the other said, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Greatworth for a whole fortnight, how will you do in Ireland for six months? Remember all my preachments, and never be in spirits at supper. Seriously I am sorry you are out of order, but am alarmed for you at Dublin, and though all the bench of bishops should quaver Purcell's hymns, don't let them warble you into a pint of wine. I wish you were going among catholic prelates, who would deny you the cup. Think of ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... round low laugh, so incontrovertibly merry and musical that it changed Mr. Simlins' face on the instant. It came to an end almost as soon, but short as it was it was better than the warble of any nightingale; inasmuch as the music of a good sound human heart is worth all the ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... all sorts began to warble in the trees, and with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... smiled rarely, and then but slightly; hardly ever did any one hear her voice. But a rumour was in circulation to the effect that it was very beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health; and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... sweetening influences of the day and the place, of the merry sunbeams at play amid the leaves of the arbour, of the frank perfume of the honeysuckle, of the warble of the birds before they sank into the taciturn repose of a ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be a quiet boy in church for a certain time. He did not very much enjoy the service, except when they sang "Old Hundred" or "Scarborough," when he would throw back his head and warble delightedly with the best. But he listened attentively to the prayers, and tracked the minister over that well-kenned ground. Walter was prepared for his regular stint, but he did not hold with either additions or innovations. He ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... yet, things could be seen but confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question and the answer. It was for her too; it ought to be for her; the Lord's will was ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... all my days My grateful powers shall sound my praise; The song shall wake with opening light, And warble ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... up into an apricot- tree and began to eat the apricots. The master coming said, 'Cogia, what are you doing here?' 'Dear me,' said the Cogia, 'don't you see that I am a nightingale sitting in the apricot-tree?' Said the gardener, 'Let me hear you sing.' The Cogia began to warble. Whereupon the other fell to laughing, and said, 'Do you call that singing?' 'I am a Persian nightingale,' said the Cogia, 'and Persian nightingales sing in ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... are Guy Mannering and The Kniqht of Snowdon] happens to find the notes, or some lark teaches Stephens [Catherine (1794-1882): a vocalist and actress who created Susanna in the Marriage of Figaro, and various parts in adaptation of Scott.] to warble the air—we will risk our credit, and the taste of the Lady of the Lute, by preserving the verses, simple and even ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... devotion. The sweet and bitter of life, religion, poetry and philosophy, ambition, revenge and superstition, controlled, created or destroyed by that little word. And how they loved—Perdita, Juliet, Miranda—quickly and entirely, without shame, as she had loved Danby—as buds bloom and birds warble. Oh it was sweet, sweet, sweet! Amid friends like these she became gay, moved briskly, grew rosy and sang. This was her favorite song, to a melody she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... to younger folk, or learned from old, How wealth might be increased, expense controlled. Now our good town has taken a new fit: Each man you meet by poetry is bit; Pert boys, prim fathers dine in, wreaths of bay, And 'twixt the courses warble out their lay. E'en I, who vow I never write a verse, Am found as false as Parthia, maybe worse; Before the dawn I rouse myself, and call For pens and parchment, writing-desk and all. None dares be pilot who ne'er ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... of finding jobs faster than invention can take them away—is not defeatism. To warble easy platitudes that if we would only go back to ways that have failed, everything would be ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... screened from the dog-star, in valley retired, Shalt thou sing that old song thou canst warble so well, Which tells how one passion Penelope fired, And charmed fickle Circe ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... tops below the clear warble of the purple finch proclaimed that under the fronds twilight had fallen. The vast green surface of the hills was streaked here and there with irregular peaks of darkness dwindling eastward. ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... you had another argument For staying; how the lovely dale for you Was mountain air and winged warble too. ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... said, every species may be recognized by its notes? Why does every red-eyed vireo sing in one way, and every white-eyed vireo in another? Who teaches the young chipper to trill, and the young linnet to warble? In short, how do birds come by their music? Is it all a matter of instinct, inherited habit, or do they learn it? The answer appears to be that birds sing as children talk, by simple imitation. Nobody imagines that the infant is born with a language printed upon his brain. The father and mother ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... superficial observer, he did not spy to see more than the world would when Nataly entered the dining-room at the quiet family dinner. She performed her part for his comfort, though not prattling; and he missed his Fredi's delicious warble of the prattle running rill-like over our daily humdrum. Simeon Fenellan would have helped. Then suddenly came enlivenment: a recollection of news in the morning's paper. 'No harm before Fredi, my dear. She's a young woman now. And no harm, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... powerful, and ardent for thy love, shall join his hand with thine, and a thousand slaves shall bow down at thy behest. All the precious things of Asia and Arabia shall be brought to delight thine eyes, the rarest birds of distant regions shall warble in unison with the lays ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... filial duty, and her musical accomplishments. She loves a man whom her father wishes her to lure to his death by her singing, and she sings entrancingly enough to bring about the meeting between her lover's back and her father's knife. That she does not warble herself into the position of "particeps criminis" in a murder she owes only to the bungling of the old man. Having done this, however, she turns physician and nurse and brings the wounded man back to health, thus sacrificing her love to the duty which her lover thinks he ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... if these places of more than usual mortification have any connexion with the world without, it is by an under-ground passage to some church in the neighbourhood! Thither repair the poor victims of superstition to warble Aves to the Virgin behind their screens, and then back again to their monotonous cloister. There are twenty-four nunneries in the city of Palermo alone, each containing from thirty to sixty women, and there are as many monasteries! With open doors like coffee-houses, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... sunrise in summer After the May-flowers have faded away, Warble to show unto every new-comer How to hush stars, yet to waken the Day: Singing first, lullabies, then, jubilates, Watching the blue sky where every bird's heart is; Then, as lamenting the day's fading light, Down through the twilight, when wearied with flight, Singing ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... a soft and musical tenor, died away and changed to a plaintive whistle, leaving the scene more lonely than ever. For a few moments nothing was to be seen except the endless expanse of wilderness, and nothing was to be heard save the mournful warble of the singer. Then a horse and rider were suddenly framed where the sparse timber ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... established rule which proclaimed it an Elijah season, and had chosen to give St. Paul, that night. Thayer liked the oratorio. It seemed to him more original, more inspired, infinitely more human than the other. Moreover, it would be restful to keep silent and let the tenor warble himself to a lingering death. Even fiery chariots become monotonous in time, and an indignant mob affords a welcome variety. He had not heard the tenor since they had sung together in Berlin, two years before, and he ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted eyes ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... could not understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird,[155] So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard;[bq] The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why—an overpowering tone, Whence Melody descends as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... he sang—the song that made his little mate's black beady eyes twinkle and shine as she sat in the tussock; for she felt so proud to think how her mate could warble:— ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... are the saddest, We shroud all our griefs in a smile; Our voices may warble their gladdest, And our souls mourn in ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... serious intent on his face. Some cooks sing when they make bread; the Scotchman I told you of in a previous letter invariably trilled "Stop yer ticklin', Jock," and his bread was invariably below par. But this cook does not warble. He only releases the stopper with a crack like a gun-shot, flings the liquid "doughshifter" over the lake in a devastating shower, and commences to knead, swearing softly. Anon the exorcism changes to a noise like that affected by ostlers ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... ghastly as their brothers in Macbeth: Their feet through faithless leather meet the dirt, And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt. The transient vestments of these frugal men, Hastens to paper for our mirth again: Too soon (O merry melancholy fate!) They beg in rhyme, and warble through a grate: The man lampoon'd forgets it at the sight; The friend through pity gives, the foe through spite; And though full conscious of his injur'd purse, Lintot relents, nor Curll can wish them worse. So fare the men, who writers dare commence Without their patent, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... hearty praise of the singer, and we all did the same; all save Junker Henning, who had not failed to mark that Herdegen had striven to out-do his modest warble, and likewise the ardent eyes he turned on the lady of his choice. Hence he moved not. Ann clapped her hands but lightly, sat looking into her lap, and for some time could say not a word; indeed, if she had trusted herself to speak the game would of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... foil'd ascent, while adverse fortune flings Her strong link'd meshes o'er his flutt'ring wings, Sinks, while exalted Ignorance supine, Unheeded slumbers like the pamper'd swine; Obsequious slaves in his voluptuous bowers Young pleasures warble, while the dancing Hours In sickly sweetness languishingly move, Like new-waked virgins flush'd with dreams of love— Him, when by Death's dark angel swept away From sloth's embrace, in premature decay, Surviving friends, donation'd ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... proceeding from a very moist eyelid! How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation. Every leaf of the vine and ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... begin to swell, And woods the blue-bird's warble know, The yellow violet's modest bell Peeps from ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... she lived on earth, She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name All things of sylvan birth; Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she came: Yet now, in careless mirth, They frisk, and build, and warble all the same. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... the small blue rift of sky above. Even the sun seems slow to peep in, as if his brightness were not needed by those who walk in the light of their own hearts. And the little birds warble and the little burnie runs, as if neither knew there was a weary world outside, where many a heart, pure as either, grows dumb amidst its singing, and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... troat[obs3], croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; hoot, hoo [owl]; chirp, cheep, chirrup, twitter, cuckoo, warble, trill, tweet, pipe, whistle [small birds]; hum [insects, hummingbird]; buzz [flying insects, bugs]; hiss [snakes, geese]; blatter[obs3]; ratatat [woodpecker]. Adj. crying &c. v.; blatant, latrant[obs3], remugient[obs3], mugient[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the earliest of ye Year By hands unseen, are Show'rs of Violets found; The Red-breast loves to build & warble there, And little Footsteps ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... that warble to the morning sky, O birds that warble as the day goes by, Sing sweetly: twice my ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... thy presence play, Do not, dear John, in rapture melt away; 'Tis not thy part, there will be list'ners round, To cry Divine! and dote upon the sound; Remember, too, that though the poor have ears, They take not in the music of the spheres; They must not feel the warble and the thrill, Or be dissolved in ecstasy at will; Beside, 'tis freedom in a youth like thee To drop his awe, and deal in ecstasy! "In silent ease, at least in silence, dine, Nor one opinion start of food or ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... a pause. The ticking of the little Swiss clock, the joyous warble of the thrushes, the soft rustle of the trees sounding preternaturally loud. Beatrix Stuart sat white to the lips, with anger, mortification, amaze, disappointment. Then she covered her face with her hands, and burst into a ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Tompkins. He was purty near as bad as Aristotle, though. He roped a puma up on th' Sacramentos, an' didn't punch no more fer three weeks. Well, here comes my pardner an' I reckons I'll amble right along. If yu needs any referee or a side pardner in any ruction yu has only got to warble up ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... one night shot across her brain. It was a heavy, breathless night, without star or moon. She had wandered into the dark garden; she had found her way to the grave, and standing by the Master's side she had listened to the music and seen the guests passing across the lighted windows. The warble of the fountain had seemed to her like the pulse of Eternity. All that was three years ago. "It is very wonderful, very wonderful," she thought, and she awoke with a start, and Mademoiselle Helbrun saw she had not been listening. She answered Louise's subsequent remarks, and ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... and the sky O'erhead is both mild and serene, Save where a few drops from on high, Like gems, twinkle over the green: And glowing fair, in the black north, The rainbow o'erarches the cloud; The sun in his glory comes forth, And larks sweetly warble aloud. ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... recklessness, and jollity; its antiquity—having begun no doubt with Adam—or its modes of production; as, when created grandly by the whistling gale, or exasperatingly by the locomotive, or gushingly by the lark, or sweetly by the little birds that "warble in ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sabbath day—in dight Of many a hallowed strain it comes. The bell Of every village o'er the plain doth tell, From its high seat, within the sacred tower Above the house of God, from hour to hour, A joyous song; and in cathedral town The gladsome peals break forth and warble down; While through the city every belfrey gives A glad reply, which seems to say, "He lives! He lives!" The song of praise is heard ascend, Raised to the heavenly throne, in one to blend With angels' song, from many a cottage rung, Where on this ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... you. Well, it will be better than the love-making." Then in a very sweet voice she began to warble amorous Moorish ditties that she accompanied upon the lute, whilst Peter, who was weary in body and disturbed in mind, played a lover's part to the best of his ability, and by degrees ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... noiseless hand—somehow he felt as if, in spite of all he had just heard, she must be there as usual to welcome him with that serene sweet smile which was the sunshine of his life. The empty desolate air of the room smote him with a sense of bitter pain,—only the plaintive warble of her pet thrush, who was singing to himself most mournfully in his gilded cage, broke the heavy silence. He looked about him vacantly. All sorts of dark forebodings crowded on his mind,—she must have met with some accident, he thought with a shudder,—for ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... flecked wi' flowers mony-tinted, frish an' gay, The birdies warble blithely, for my Father made them sae, But these sights an' these soun's will naething be to me When I hear the angels singin' ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... of sluggish growth; and, like the man himself, they are not matured in a day. The present generation becomes debtor to him who excels, but the future will discharge that debt with more than simple interest. The still voice of fame may warble in his ears towards the close of life, but her trumpet seldom sounds in full clarion, till those ears are stopped ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... necks are changeful and shining, Their eyes like living gems; And all day long they are busy Gathering straws and stems, Lint and feathers and grasses, And half forgetting to eat, Yet never failing to warble, "Sweetest, sweet, ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... O Priapus, and thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... these sad strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... and had, of course, enjoyed all the advantages to be derived from Parisian masters. Whilst she was singing, we all observed that a nightingale perched upon one of the neighbouring trees continued silent; the moment she stopped, he began to warble forth his 'wood-notes wild.' This occurred not once, but repeatedly. He was far, however, from showing the same attention to the chevalier. Apparently not entertaining an equally good opinion of the old man's musical talents, from the moment ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... difficulty. She felt her voice improving, and when she sang to herself the old songs she was no longer satisfied with the old degree of accuracy. A world of which she had had no suspicion was opening to her; music began to mean something quite different from the bird-warble which was all that she had known. Moreover, she began to have an inkling of the value of her voice. Mrs. Ormonde had scarcely with a word commended her singing, and had spoken of the lessons as something that might be ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... again to reproduce it, but in vain. It has a kind of gurgling quality, as if the bird were pressing his notes through an aqueous lyre, if such a conception is possible. Besides, I have, on more than one occasion, heard a jay warble a soft, reserved little lay that was continued for many minutes. It sounded very like the song of the brown thrasher, much modulated and partly uttered under its breath—a sort of ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... thou still must sing, Sing of my endless woes, Of Life, a poisoned spring, Of Love, a scattered rose; Wail-warble those who weep, Wild-warble but the brave; To the wearied, sing of sleep, And sing, to me, ...
— Soldier Songs and Love Songs • A.H. Laidlaw
... the wood. In the air life is audible—circling unseen. Such serenity must be inhabited by happiness. Ha! there thou art, our Familiar—the self-same Robin Redbreast that pecked at our nursery window, and used to warble from the gable of the ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthfull Poets dream On Summer eeves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned Sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, Warble his native Wood-notes wilde, And ever against eating Cares, Lap me in soft Lydian Aires, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of lincked sweetnes long drawn out, 140 With wanton heed, and giddy ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... matter; the Arabs would catch their horses or would fail to catch them, and indifferent he stood watching the moon hanging low over the landscape, a badly drawn circle, but admirably soft to look upon, casting a gentle, mysterious light down the lake. The silence was filled with the lake's warble, and the ducks kept awake by the moon chattered as they dozed, a soft cooing chatter like women gossiping; an Arab came from the wood with dry branches; the flames leaped up, showing through the grey woof of the tent; and, listening ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... bonnie bird, that strain, Frae hopeless love itsel' it flows; Sweet bird, oh! warble it again, Thou'st touch'd the string o' a' my woes; Oh! lull me with it to repose, I 'll dream of her who 's far away, And fancy, as my eyelids close, Will ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you been with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in for, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... on those regions of delight Might truth intrude with daring flight, 20 Could Stella, sprightly, fair, and young, One moment hear the moral song, Instruction with her flowers might spring, And wisdom warble from ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began to warble that stanza from the favourite song of "Wapping Old Stairs," in which the heroine, after rebuking her Tom for inattention, promises "his trousers to mend, and his grog too to make," if he will be constant and kind, and not forsake her. "Besides," she said, after ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... glory; when the miracle of the changing year is the soul's fair seed-time; when lying in the grass, the head resting in clasped hands, while soft white clouds float lazily through azure skies, and the birds warble, and the waters murmur, and the flowers breathe fragrance, we feel a kind of unconscious consciousness of a universal life in Nature. The very rocks seem to be listening to what the leaves whisper; and through the silent eternities we almost see the dead becoming ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... stopped making faces. He stopped still and made no sound. A lovely musical voice, a young woman's voice, grave and sweet, was heard. Christophe pricked his ears. As she went on with her words he turned again, keenly interested to see what bird could warble so. He saw Ophelia. In truth she was nothing like the Ophelia of Shakespeare. She was a beautiful girl, tall, big and fine like a young fresh statue—Electra or Cassandra. She was brimming with life. In spite of her efforts to keep within her part, the force of youth and ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... green mantle blythe Nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, [hillsides] While birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; [wooded dell] But to ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... dense groves and tangled thickets where bloom great flowers of unearthly beauty yet rank of smell and poisonous to the touch; here are birds of every kind and hue and far beyond this poor pen to describe by reason of the beauty and brilliancy of their plumage, some of which would warble so sweet 'twas great joy to hear while the discordant croakings and shrill clamours of others might scarce be endured. Here, too, are trees (like the cocos) so beneficent to yield a man food and drink, aye, and garments to cover him; or others (like the maria and ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... lest they turn and sting you. All do not, like the fabled phoenix, warble sweet melodies in their agony; sometimes they spit venom—venom you must breathe whether you will or no, for you cannot seal their mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. You can lock the door upon them, but they burst ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... morning when Red awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips
... deer. Suma had sensed his presence and stood tense and alert while the cub, a few feet in her wake, gazed at the fringe of swaying reeds in the tops of which black birds with red heads sat and trilled a cheery warble. Suddenly the stems parted and the head of a deer, crowned with wide-spreading antlers appeared framed in the mass of green. Warruk was fascinated by the sight of the magnificent animal which seemed to challenge them and expected his ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... jumps the obedient slave and his wife! The obedient slave and his dear Julia fall out of the box. Great applause. They rush to the footlights and kneel. Quick music by the orchestra, in which the bass drum don't warble so much as she did. "I'm free! I'M FREE! I'M FREE!!" shrieks the obedient slave, "O I'm free!" The stage is suddenly lighted up in a gorgeous manner. The obedient slave and his dear Julia continue kneeling. The dead mariner blesses them. The Goddess of Liberty appears again—this ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... "Time has not thinned my flowing hair." "Here is Dr. Arne's 'Sweet Echo.' Rosa used to play and sing that beautifully. And here is what he always liked to have us sing to him at sunset. We sang it to him the very night before he died." She began to warble, "Now Phoebus sinketh in the west." "Why, it seems as if I were a little girl again, singing to Papasito and ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... Paradise, which is the poet, must, metaphorically speaking, have no legs—as Adrian Harley said was the case with the women in Richard Feverel's poems. He must never be seen to walk in prose, for his part is, 'pinnacled dim in the intense inane,' to hang aloft and warble the unpremeditated lay, without erasure or blot. This is, I am sure, not fanciful, for two or three modern instances, which I am far too considerate to name, illustrate its truth. Unless you are a very great person indeed, the surest way to lose a ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... harper *pon live* *alive Would on the best y-sounded jolly harp That ever was, with all his fingers five Touch ay one string, or *ay one warble harp,* *always play one tune* Were his nailes pointed ne'er so sharp, He shoulde maken ev'ry wight to dull* *to grow bored To hear his glee, and of his ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Rome. In his transactions of business, Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, [50] asserted the free spirit of a Frank and the dignity of his master Otho. Yet his sincerity cannot disguise the abasement of his first audience. When he approached the throne, the birds of the golden tree began to warble their notes, which were accompanied by the roarings of the two lions of gold. With his two companions Liutprand was compelled to bow and to fall prostrate; and thrice to touch the ground with his forehead. He arose, but in the short interval, the throne had been hoisted from the floor to the ceiling, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... smoothly flow; Ye vernal airs that softly blow; Ye plains, by blooming spring arrayed; Ye birds that warble through the shade. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... leave their coral caves, Sound their loud conchs, and smooth the circling waves, Surround the timorous Beauty, as she swims, 260 And gaze enamour'd on her silver limbs. —Now Europe's shadowy shores with loud acclaim Hail the fair fugitive, and shout her name; Soft echoes warble, whispering forests nod, And conscious Nature owns the present God. 265 —Changed from the Bull, the rapturous God assumes Immortal youth, with glow celestial blooms, With lenient words her virgin fears ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... light at night and shade at noon, Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day. Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune; And as soft waters warble to the moon, Our answering spirits ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... attracting the sportsman by their presence; the fish-hawk makes his nest in the trees on the bank; the small blue heron wades pensively along the margin; and the common wood-birds, such as blackbirds, bluebirds, jays, sparrows and woodpeckers, chatter or warble or scold among the branches. Sometimes the redbird flashes like a living flame through the green tree-tops, or the brilliant orange-and-black plumage of the Baltimore oriole contrasts with the lilac-gray bark ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... much in my line," said the President; "but when you sing you warble yourself into a man's heart. I'd like to ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... of the invalid's chair in such a way as to present to my disappointed gaze her own long, meagre back, instead of Edmee's beautiful face. Then she took some work out of her pocket, and quietly began to knit. Meanwhile the birds continued to warble, the chevalier to cough, Edmee to sleep or to pretend to sleep, while I remained at the other end of the room with my head bent over the prints in a book that I was holding ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... ancient winds which have long since lost their names sough through our woods;—the first faint sounds of spring, older than the summer of Athenian glory, the titmouse lisping in the wood, the jay's scream, and blue-bird's warble, and ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... He would half open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly as if beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble—the old, old story. But the female flew to a near tree and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak and flew again to the hole in the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion; but the other said "Nay," ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... taper clear, And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer-eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, With wanton heed and giddy cunning ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... the voice—tun'd by harmonious love, Soft as the songs that warble through the grove! Oh! sweeter joys her converse can impart! Sweet to the sense, and grateful to ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... may look for the bluebird also. His soft, sweet warble is one of the most welcome of the springtime sounds. See him looking at the box in which last year he had a nest! Probably he is planning ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... Forbear!—But thou art sunk beneath reproach; In vain affected raptures flush the cheek, And songs of pleasure warble from the tongue, When fear and anguish labour in the breast, And all within is darkness and confusion. Thus, on deceitful Etna's flow'ry side, Unfading verdure glads the roving eye; While secret flames, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... "but they're down there in the Square now stackin' up drive impedimenta and such, red banners, and so forth, tuning up to warble the hymn to free Russia. Hurry if you want to join ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... Providence, however, reserves him for lower things. The Examiners triumph, and the career of the Servant of Society begins in earnest. The position of his parents secures for him an entrance into good houses. He is a young man of great tact and of small accomplishments. He can warble a song, aid a great lady to organise a social festivity, lead a cotillon, order a dinner, and help to eat it, act in amateur theatricals, and recommend French novels to inquiring matrons. His manners are always easy, and his conversation has that spice of freedom which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various
... dinner! One pound one thrown into the puddle, To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and Fuddle! Not to forget the sounds we buy From those who sell their sounds so high, That, unless the managers pitch it strong, To get a signora to warble a song, You must fork out the ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... "fine" or "pretty," it was all one to the birds. The woods were vocal with the cackling of robins, the warble of bluebirds, and the trills of pine warblers. Flickers were shouting—or laughing, if one pleased to hear it so—with true flickerish prolixity, and a single downy woodpecker called sharply again and again. A mocking-bird near me (there ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... bodies of natives, every one of whom was testifying the soundness of his repose by notes both loud and deep. Having selected the only spot where there was room even to sit down, I began, in a somewhat high key, to warble a lively strain calculated to cheer the drooping spirits of such of my neighbours as had that evening undergone the pang of parting from their friends. This proceeding soon had the effect of drawing all eyes ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... a conference called by the War Office it has been decided to wage a war of annihilation against the warble-fly. It is hoped that by means of concerted action through the country this pestilent insect, so injurious to the hides of horses and cattle, may be completely stamped out." ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... other trees. Its top in summer-time was a famous resort for the bluejay and his bride. Here, far beyond the reach of shot, in warm spring days the jay would sing and dance before his mate, spread his bright blue plumes and warble the sweetest fairyland music, so sweet and soft that few hear it but the one for whom it is meant, and books know nothing at ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... hill, and approach the hemlocks through a large sugar-bush. When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of the forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happy as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common and widely distributed birds. Approach any forest at any hour of the day, in any kind of weather, from May to August, in any of the ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... arrive there the last of September, and leaving in March and April. The habits of these birds of the central regions are very similar to those of the eastern, but more wary and silent. Even their love song is said to be less loud and musical. It is a rather feeble, plaintive, monotonous warble, and their chirp and twittering notes are weak. They subsist upon the cedar berries, seeds of plants, grasshoppers, beetles, and the like, which they pick up largely upon the ground, and occasionally scratch for among the leaves. During the fall and ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... shall the oak and cedar fling Their giant plumage and protecting shade; For you the song-bird pause upon his wing And warble requiems ever undismayed. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... trifle with this frugal fare, dear friend? My heart is so happy that I should love to warble ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... singing I heard an incessant warble of sweet, though feeble, notes and, looking above my head, saw the composer, his bride, dressed in olive and gold, weaving on the pendulous nest of moss and horse hair, near the tips of the overhanging limb. I then knew why his song had changed and ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... festivals, eclipsing us all! Our family, through all its different branches, has ever been famous for bad voices, but good ears; and we think we hear ourselves—all those uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, and cousins—singing now! Easy it is to "warble melody" as to breathe air. But we hope harmony is the most difficult of all things to people in general, for to us it was impossible; and what attempts ours used to be at Seconds! Yet the most woful failures were rapturously encored; and ere the ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... for the poet, fair Canada's sons. To live his strange life, and to warble his songs, To follow each current of thought as it runs, And to sing of your ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... Winds, that from four quarters blow, Breathe soft or loud: and wave your tops, ye Pines, With every plant, in sign of worship wave. Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise. Join voices all ye living Souls. Ye Birds, That, singing, up to Heaven-gate ascend, Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise. Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk The earth, and stately ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... crust of rime Milder spring can soften; Ere to greet the blither time Robins warble often; O'er the undulating wild, Rising like a hardy child, There the Mayflower sweet, unseen, Spreads its leaves ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... Month of May, repair to Vaux-Hall[14]. Here take your Evening Walk, either round the verdant Scenes, where Nightingales, the only Foreigners who give us their Songs for nothing, warble their most delicious Notes. When your Limbs demand Repose, you may enjoy it in an Alcove, from whence the embattel'd Troops of Venus will pass in review before you. Again, the lofty Dome of Ranelagh invites your Steps. Whether the illustrious Artist took ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... I hear the not again, and this time or the next perchance see this bird sitting on a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidently and gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees them hovering with a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-buildings, peeping into dove-cotes and stable windows, inspecting knotholes and pump-trees, intent only on a place to nest. ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... with the dead! I once saw a picture—it was at home in Italy, I think—an English picture of a quiet little churchyard in the country. The shadows of the trees rested on the lonely graves. And some great poet had written—oh, such beautiful words about it. The red-breast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground. Promise, Ovid, you will take me to some place, far from crowds and noise—where children may gather ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... another prominent singer in England, namely, the robin,—the original robin redbreast,—a slight, quick, active bird with an orange front and an olive back, and a bright, musical warble that I caught by every garden, lane, and hedge-row. It suggests our bluebird, and has similar habits and manners, though it is ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... from the open windows and mingled with the scent of the rose water which steamed up from the hot pavement. Within the palace he heard some music, as of many instruments cunningly played, and the melodious warble of nightingales and other birds, and by this, and the appetising smell of many dainty dishes of which he presently became aware, he judged that feasting and merry making were going on. He wondered who lived in this magnificent house ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... chamber, warm bath, warm footcloths, warm pheasant, and warm wine. He kicked his freezing iron feet in the freezing iron stirrup. He tried to blow his nose with his freezing iron hand; but dropt his handkerchief into the mud, and his horse trod on it. He tried to warble the song of Roland; but the words exploded in a cough and a sneeze. And so dragged on the weary hours, says the chronicler, nearly all day, till the ninth hour. But never did they see coming out of the forest the men who had ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... Warble on, ye feathered songsters, Lift your praises loud and high, Merry lark, and thrush, and blackbird, In the grove and in the sky Make your music, shame our dumbness, Till we ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... Now his hoary head draws near; Winds are blowing, winds are blowing; All around looks cold and drear. Hope of spring must now support us; Winter's reign will pass away; Flowers will bloom, and birds will warble, Making glad the ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various
... warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... another, and in fact behave as exactly as they will next spring when fully grown. Young linnets also begin to sing before losing their youthful plumage, learn to sing well during the moulting season, and often continue to warble right on into the winter; in a mild winter young linnets will sing just as well as old ones. The young woodlark begins to sing as soon as its first moulting is nearly over, and not only does this when perching, but flies aloft like the adult bird in the spring-time, and soars for a long time, singing ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... the bell rings, and the curtain rises; and out from the gorgeous scenery glide the actors, greeted with the vociferation of the expectant multitudes. Concert-halls are lifted into enchantment with the warble of one songstress, or swept out on a sea of tumultuous feeling by the blast of brazen instruments. Drawing-rooms are filled with all gracefulness of apparel, with all sweetness of sound, with all splendor ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... written line * Whose nature hiding shall e'er decline; And subdued by wine in its mainest might * Like lover drunken by strains divine,[FN216] Do thou gaze on our garden of goodly gifts * And all manner blooms that in wreaths entwine; See the birdies warble on every bough * Make melodious music the finest fine. And each Pippet pipes[FN217] and each Curlew cries * And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine; Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Hazar, * And Kata calling on Quail ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... the camp, he quickened his pace and where the shadows permitted ran swiftly up the slope to the grade. There he paused to recover his breath. In response to his warble Tressa opened the door. Conrad looked beyond her to her father ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... reply. The fountain's warble In the courtyard sounds alone. As the water to the marble So my heart falls with a moan From love-sighing To this dying. Death forerunneth Love to win "Sweetest eyes ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... maggots in back-boned animals has led to some remarkable modifications of the larva and to curious adventures in the course of the life-story. The Bot-fly of the Horse (Gastrophilus equi) and the Warble-fly of the Ox (Hypoderma bovis, fig. 22) lay eggs attached to the hairs of grazing animals, which, at least in the case of Gastrophilus, lick the newly-hatched larvae into their mouths. The 'bot,' or maggot of Gastrophilus, comes to rest ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... yours, isn't she? 'cause she can walk and talk and sing and dance, and yours can't do anything, can she?" asked Jamie with pride, as he regarded his Pokey, who just then had been moved to execute a funny little jig and warble the ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... often as he sat waiting for her by the margin of the spring, she would suddenly fall down around him in a shower of sunny raindrops, with a rainbow glancing through them, and forthwith gather herself up into the likeness of a beautiful girl, laughing—or was it the warble of the rill over the pebbles?—to see ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls, unconsciously, for she ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... architecture of their summer residences, and have no time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, operas, symphonies, and waltzes. Anxious questions are asked; grave subjects are settled in quick and animated debate; and only by occasional accident, as from pure ecstasy, does a rich warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound through the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as busy as their voices; they are all a constant flutter and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top to hold council, they wag their tails and heads all the time with the irrepressible ...
— Buds and Bird Voices (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... warble I never heard it before! It's a marvelous atmosphere that makes a rag time tune sound like a nightingale's music. If 'Forty-niner' would join it——Hello! what's ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... ear failed to catch any sound, and we knew he had reached his climax and was circling. Once we distinctly saw him whirling far above us. Then he was lost in the obscurity, and in a few seconds there rained down upon us the notes of his ecstatic song—a novel kind of hurried, chirping, smacking warble. It was very brief, and when it ceased, we knew the bird was dropping plummet-like to the earth. In half a minute or less his "zeep," "zeep," came up again from the ground. In two or three minutes he repeated his flight and song, and thus kept it up during the half-hour or more that we remained ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... depth of lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning
... that I am able. Perhaps Eastwick, and its environs, where you heard so very few birds, is not a woodland country, and therefore not stocked with such songsters. If you will cast your eye on my last letter, you will find that many species continued to warble after the beginning ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... I likes old Jeffords, an' considers him a pleasin' conundrum. About tenth drink time he'd take a cha'r an' go camp by himse'f in a far corner, an' thar he'd warble hymns. Many a time as I files away my nosepaint in the Oriental have I ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... reason why I should principally use it: I wish to make my book valuable in its parts as in itself. The value of a thing depends in large measure upon its unity, its wholeness. In a work of these limits, that form of verse alone can be available for its unity which is like the song of the bird—a warble and then a stillness. However valuable an extract may be—and I shall not quite eschew such—an entire lyric, I had almost said however inferior, if worthy of a place at all, is of greater value, especially ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... me their notes are blown in many a way Lost in our murmurings for that old day That fared so well, without us.—Waken to The pipings here at hand:—The clear halloo Of truant-voices, and the roundelay The waters warble in the solitude Of blooming thickets, where the robin's breast Sends up such ecstacy o'er dale and dell, Each tree top answers, till in all the wood There lingers not one squirrel in his nest Whetting his ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... walked up and down the room, overpowered by contending emotions. The severity of her voice, that voice that hitherto had fallen upon his ear like the warble of a summer bird, filled him with consternation. The idea of having offended her, of having seriously offended her, of being to her, to Henrietta, to Henrietta, that divinity to whom his idolatrous fancy clung with such rapturous devotion, in whose very smiles and accents it is no ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... bird wi' oben bill Did warble on, her vaice wer still; An' as she stood avore me, bound In stillness to the flow'ry mound, "The bird's a jay to zome," I thought, "but when he's dum, Her vaice will come, ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes |
