"Knell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his stick. The tray sounded, loud and bell-like. He heard me coming, and raised his stick again. The second clang would be the death-knell of my beloved! ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the cathedral tolled out a funeral knell as a solemn procession marched to a transport ship. They were dust covered, haggard men, with a hunted look, chained in pairs. On either side marched a file of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Pierola's men were ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... time in godly prayers, And quiet rest did from her fly; She to her friends full oft declares, She could not live if he did die: Thus she continued till the bell, Began to sound his fatal knell. ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... those people who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city—the silence of their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom—before we show contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... distinguish. distintivo distinctive mark. distinto distinct, different. disuadir to dissuade. divertido amusing. dividir to divide. divino divine. divisar to perceive, descry. doblar to double, fold, bend, give way. doble double, m. passing bell, knell. doblegar to bend, curve. doce twelve. doctrina doctrine. documento document. dolor pain, grief. doloroso sorrowful, painful. domar to subdue. domicilio home. dominar to dominate, rule. domingo Sunday. dominio domain. don m. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... spread the unfurled banner of your infamy on every breeze, and cause it to float in the atmosphere of every State in this Union, until your very name becomes a mockery and a by-word! And I call upon the people of Kentucky and Missouri to ring the loud knell of your infamy, from steep to steep, and from valley to valley, until their swelling sounds are heard in startling echoes, mingling with the rush of the criminal's torrent, and ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... understand and quick to choke down and smother the understanding; swift to leap up in flame at a mention of that hope, which spoke volumes to her vanity and her love, that she might one day be Mrs. Weir of Hermiston; swift, also, to recognise in his stumbling or throttled utterance the death-knell of these expectations, and constant, poor girl! in her large-minded madness, to go on and to reck nothing of the future. But these unfinished references, these blinks in which his heart spoke, and his memory ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... colonies,' he said,—'saved the colonies. I knew it must be so. It is the knell of ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... neighboring steeple was striking the ninth hour, and the old man paused in his muttering and sat counting the strokes as the iron tongue pealed them forth; counting them in his fear as if each stroke was a knell, and so indeed to him it was, and many of the chimes we listen carelessly to, would be knells to us, if we knew what would happen twixt them and their ...
— How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's - And Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... hell, and his obsequies' knell Serve Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Harry as well! 15 England, good cheer! Rupert is near! Kentish and loyalists, keep we not here, CHORUS.—Marching along, fifty-score strong, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... the ensign Amboires of Oluferne; Pagans cry out, by Preciuse they swear. And the Franks say: "Great hurt this day you'll get!" And very loud "Monjoie!" they cry again. That Emperour has bid them sound trumpets; And the olifant sounds over all its knell. The pagans say: "Carlun's people are fair. Battle we'll have, ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... enough, too; he did not know My Miriam! I can fancy the poor horse lashed through the heavy mire, tired, foaming, panting, while his strong arm urged it on, with whip and spur; I can hear the exulting beating of his heart, that wild refrain that was raging as his death-knell—"Mine! Mine at last!" I could hear it, I say. It rung in my ears all night. He held her in his power; she must be his; hastily, yet carefully he performs his toilet; I dare say he stopped to think which cravat she liked best. "Mine! Mine!" ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... me where is Fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head? How begot, how nourished? It is engendered in the eyes With gazing fed, And Fancy dies in the cradle where it lies. Let us all ring Fancy's knell. I'll begin it—ding, dong, bell. ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... him something of the old political life of Vienna, continually agitated by some "Balkan Question"; of the general dislike of the "Heir," whose violent death at Sarajevo had been the death knell of European peace; apprehensions of the day when he should ascend the throne, for he was intensely clerical and reactionary. If he had survived until the old Emperor's death, and there had been ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... saw, in the suggestion of that same establishment, an easy means of relieving himself from an irksome charge in the way of temper and watchfulness. It is undoubtedly a fact that in the attentive ears of Mr Pecksniff, the proposition did not sound quite like the dismal knell ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the trees and standing back to them, they saw a man. He appeared unconscious of their presence. Yes, that must be Ferguson! The thought flashed through the boy's mind and, unconscious of his own safety, his lips opened to cry the alarm, which would have sounded his own death knell, when he saw a tomahawk hurtle through the air and bury itself in the man's brain. He fell to his knees without a moan. The Indian, leaping to his side, had scalped him before Rodney realized what had happened. Then, seizing the lad by the shoulder, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... his every whim, for in the blackness of her trouble nothing seemed at present to really matter. The whirling eddies of her thoughts rushed through her brain in a perpetual series of questions and answers. Must hate strike the death knell of love? Surely the only thing to do with an injury is to forgive it. Would revenge wipe out the wrong or in any way solve anything? No, there would only be one more wrong done in the world, to go on in ever-widening circles of ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... whether the economic system adopted by a society is feudal, capitalistic, or collectivist, provided it keeps the race afoot (the hive and the anthill being as acceptable to her as Utopia), the demonstrations of Socialists, though irrefutable, will never make any serious impression on property. The knell of that over-rated institution will not sound until it is felt to conflict with some more vital matter than mere personal inequities in industrial economy. No such conflict was perceived whilst society had not yet grown beyond national communities too ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... in after years, as she looked back over this life, that the news of Father Salvierderra's death was the first note of the knell of their happiness. It was but a few days afterward, when Alessandro came in one noon with an expression on his face that terrified her; seating himself in a chair, he buried his face in his hands, and would neither look up nor speak; not until Ramona was near ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... the churchyard, and methought There entering, as I let the iron gate Swing to behind me, that the change was good— The unquiet living, for the quiet dead. And at that moment, from the old church tower A knell resounded—"Man to his long home" Drew near. "The mourners went about the streets;" And there, few paces onward to the right, Close by the pathway, was an open grave, Not of the humbler sort, shaped newly out, Narrow ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... What is that noise? A clatter as of falling boards. There is a sound as of hammering. At first it seems to Romeo Augustus like Mephibosheth's death-knell. Thud, thud, thud, go the blows. Drawn almost against his will, Romeo Augustus stealthily approaches the window. He glances fearfully out. What does he see? His father pounding busily, making—what is he making? Can it be? It is—it is ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... burdens, he has been tomahawked in the face; he is now to be roasted alive. A dark forest is selected for the sacrifice; stripped naked, he is bound to a tree, and the inflammable brushwood piled around him. Savage voices sound his death-knell. Fire is applied, when a sudden shower dampens the flame, to burst forth again with renewed strength. Though securely fastened, the limbs of the victim are left some liberty to shrink from the accursed heat. He has thought his last thought of home, of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... they led him to a dark and dismal cell. Where they left him. Sad and solemn, heavy, awful as a knell, Seemed the fading of their footsteps, as he heard them slowly glide Through the long and vaulted corridor till ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... The latest of my wealth I'll share amongst you. Wherever we shall meet, for Timon's sake Let's yet be fellows; let's shake our heads, and say, As 'twere a knell unto our master's fortunes, "We have seen better days." Let each take some. (Giving them money.) Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more: Thus part we rich ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... men concerned, for when it was abolished compensation was given for the loss of fees, the annual payments ranging from L10 8s., to L36 8s. Increased posting facilities, and the infusion of greater activity into the performance of post-office work, were no doubt the things which "rang the parting knell" of these useful servants of ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... Helfrich recalled them. He signalled with his hand, but Mr Gale did not observe him. "Fire a gun there," he shouted; "quick, for your lives!" A gun had been ready loaded for the purpose. Its report served as the funeral knell ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... Dartie had that financial crisis, due to speculation in Oil Shares, James made himself ill worrying over it; the knell of all prosperity seemed to have sounded. It took him three months and a visit to Baden-Baden to get better; there was something terrible in the idea that but for his, James's, money, Dartie's name might have appeared ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... name of Nola, daughter of Menecreta, amongst those whom the State doth not guarantee for skill, health or condition," rejoined the praefect quietly, and his rough voice, scarcely raised above its ordinary pitch, seemed to ring a death-knell in ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... forgotten some of her misgivings of the day. Now they suddenly returned to her. What news did Jack Elliott bring? Lines from an old poem flashed unbidden into her mind—"there was a sound of revelry by night"—"Hush! Hark! A deep sound strikes like a rising knell"—why should she think of that now? Why didn't Jack Elliott speak—if he had anything to tell? Why did he just stand there, ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... objective of Great Britain in India, and that a substantial measure of it is to be given at once; when this promise is made good by the granting of the Reforms outlined last year in Lucknow, then the end of the War will be in sight. For the War cannot end till the death-knell ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... come, fast they come; See how they gather! Wide waves the eagle plume Blended with heather, Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set! Pibroch of Donuil Dhu Knell for the onset! ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Sorrow would I sing. Aye as the Star of Evening flung its beam In broken radiance on the wavy stream, My soul amid the pensive twilight gloom Mourn'd with the breeze, O Lee Boo![64:2] o'er thy tomb. 10 Where'er I wander'd, Pity still was near, Breath'd from the heart and glisten'd in the tear: No knell that toll'd but fill'd my anxious eye, And suffering Nature wept that one ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... brooding over what she had come through. And Jean Merle had not trusted himself to look into the open grave, about to close over all that remained of the woman he had so passionately loved. The tolling of the minute-bell, which began early in the day and struck its deep knell through the tardy hours till late in the evening, smote upon his ear and heart every time the solemn tone sounded through the quiet hours. He was left alone in his old home, for Mr. Clifford was gone as one of the mourners to follow Felicita to the grave; and all the ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... five thy father lies: Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Hark! now I hear them,— ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... descendant of the stories in the Acta Sanctorum and elsewhere. It embodied their spirit and carried it forward, uniting their delicate feeling for chastity and purity with the ideal of monogamic love. Aucassin et Nicolette was the death-knell of the primitive Christian romance of chastity. It was the discovery that the chaste refinements of delicacy and devotion were possible within the strictly normal sphere ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... from our view, whilst the loud and awful death-cry of five hundred helpless beings, imprisoned in the burning vessel, rings in our ears, curdling our blood, and seeming as if it would burst the very vault of Heaven with its appalling tones. It was a fitting knell to be ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... could not speak That parting word of bitterness; the cheek Grows pale when the tongue utters it; the knell Which tells "the grave is ready!" and doth swell On the dull wind, tolling—"the dead—the dead!" Sounds not more desolate. It is a dread And fearful thing to be of hope bereft, As if the soul itself had died, and left The body living—feeling ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... notice, monsieur, in Beethoven's Symphony in A, that knell which ever and ever comes back and beats upon your heart? Yes, I see very well, you feel as I do, music is a communion—Beethoven, ah, me! how sad and sweet it is to be two to understand him ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... and you know how exultingly we both looked forward to such a future. But we made shipwreck of those plans, and now it is too late to build them anew. However, let us not mourn over the past, but forget it. This hour has witnessed your last lament over your dead past. Its knell has been rung, let us both now doom it to oblivion. I have retained one thing in my memory, however, and that is the note which the incautious Princess gave you that evening in the greenhouse. Do you ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... loved his joke, his pipe, and mug of ale; For twenty years he did the duties well, Of ostler, boots, and waiter at the Bell. But death stepped in, and ordered Peter Staggs To feed the worms, and leave the farmers' nags. The church clock struck one—alas! 'twas Peter's knell, Who sighed, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... was interrupted for three administrations, but justice moved steadily onward. In the news that the men of California had chosen freedom, Calhoun heard the knell of parting slavery, and on his deathbed he counseled secession. Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison had died despairing of the abolition of slavery; Calhoun died in despair at the growth of freedom. His system rushed irresistibly to its natural development. The death-struggle for California ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... fell, and again, in terrible earnest. There was a gasp from the gathered multitudes as they saw and understood. That swift, relentless hand was sounding the knell of doom to ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... whereby he strives to spell His lines of life, nor where he bends his knee, Since, with his grave before him, he can see White Peace above it, while the churchyard bell Poised in its tower, poised now, to boom his knell, Seems but the waiting tongue ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... clanging knell," Cried the fair youth with silver voice; "And for devotion's choral swell, Exchange ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... praise who came to them covered with the blood of those who had striven in their defence. The holiday was duly called forth; houses, where funeral hatchments for murdered inmates had been perpetually suspended, were decked with garlands; the bells, which had hardly once omitted their daily knell for the victims of an incredible cruelty, now rang their merriest peals; and in the very square where so lately Egmont and Horn, besides many other less distinguished martyrs, had suffered an ignominious death, a gay tournament was ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the valley, Voiceless now, speed on before; Soon shall knell that chapel bell For the songs ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... he went to the window to look mechanically into the yard. Between these two creatures but a moment before clasped together, a sudden icy coldness sprung up as if each had divined that the hour was about to sound, terrible as a knell, when their affairs must be settled. The kisses of love are to ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... streets, what was the phrase that kept ringing in his ears?—"And when she bids die he shall surely die!" But he no longer heard the pathetic vibration of Natalie Lind's voice; the words seemed to him solemn, and distant, and hopeless, like a knell. But only if it were over—that was again his wild desire. In the grave ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung; There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall a while repair, To ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... compared with others, we were getting along finely. Every day, as the difficulties of the trail increased, I saw more and more instances of suffering and privation, and to many the name of the White Pass was the death-knell of hope. I could see their faces blanch as they gazed upward at that white immensity; I could see them tighten their pack-straps, clench their teeth and begin the ascent; could see them straining every muscle as they climbed, the grim lines harden round their ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... some far-off quarter of the square, and he turned short about and the people saw his face. Despair had seized it, and if any one there desired vengeance, he had it. The knell of active life had been rung for this man. He would never remount the courthouse steps, or face again ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... upon thee; Sirra? Rascal? You Lenten Chaps, you that lay sick, and mockt me, Mockt me abominably, abused me lewdly, I'le make thee sick at heart, before I leave thee, And groan, and dye indeed, and be worth nothing, Not worth a blessing, nor a Bell to knell for thee, A sheet to cover thee, but that thou Stealest, Stealest from the Merchant, and the Ring he was buried with Stealest from his Grave, do ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... which had veered more to the eastwardly, rose considerably, drowning the clanging knell of the Spit buoy bell and rattling the windows and doors, like some desperate burglar on thoughts of plunder bent trying to effect ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... chamber in which his friend Peregrine was stationed, thrust the label with his uncle's name through a small chink in the partition according to agreement, muttering at the time a sort of gibberish, that increased the panic of his audience; then returning to his chair, the knell was tolled again, and Pickle called aloud, "D—n your mummery: why ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the sound of that death-knell shook her nerves, and made her feel faint and weak. Oh, it would have been easier had she been as she was a year ago, before she learned to love, and hand in hand had seen faith and hope re-arise from the depths of her stirred ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... this hour of warmth and light The last great knell were knolled; If Death should close mine eyes to-night And all the tale ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... not forgotten; there are memories clinging Round every breast that beats to hope and fear In this drear world, until the death's knell, ringing, Chimes with heart-moanings o'er the solemn bier; Then come love's pilgrims to the sad shrine, bringing The choicest offering of the ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... I must do doth make me tremble thus. But let these last and lingering thoughts have way, To which you only and the night are conscious, And both regardless; when the Hour arrives, 490 'Tis mine to sound the knell, and strike the blow, Which shall unpeople many palaces, And hew the highest genealogic trees Down to the earth, strewed with their bleeding fruit, And crush their blossoms into barrenness: This will I—must ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... the whole of Cseiteburg, as soon as he inherited it. But the wicked nurse could not be moved by his tears and prayers, she pierced the second one through with the big gold pin, and then she left them in the depths of the forest, covered with dry leaves; the cuckoos sounded their funeral knell, and the nightingale sang their death dirge. The same day came the handsome knight to the beautiful lady in the castle. And the beautiful lady said to him, full of joy, '"The four eyes" are no longer in our way, the two children lie out there covered with leaves, the cuckoo has ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... summon courage enough to ask a question concerning you and yours, and yet God Almighty knows that every hour the thought had been gnawing at my heart. I then for the first time heard of that event which sounded like my own knell, without its natural hope or sense of rest. Such shall I be (is the thought that haunts me), but O! not such; O! with what a different retrospect! But I owe it to justice to say, Such good I truly can do myself, etc., etc." The rest ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... who shaped my ways, Or works, or thoughts," he said. "I scarcely marked her living days, Or missed her much when dead." But O, his joyance knew its knell When ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... simple-hearted old Charley! It was the imminent danger only to the Cause that made his heart sink in that seemingly fateful hour. When we heard in the malignant and triumphant roar of the Rebel cannon in our rear what might be the death-knell of the last great experiment of civilized men to establish among the nations of the world a united republic, freed from the curse of pampered kings and selfish, grasping aristocrats—it was in that moment, in his simple language, that the peril to the Cause ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... to all of us, was to send for Monty. His steamer was not supposed to sail for an hour yet. But the thought had hardly flashed in mind when we heard the roar of steam and clanking as the anchor chain came home. The sound traveled over water and across roofs like the knell of good luck—the clanking of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... their forgetting that Shakespeare was a man; that he had moods, that he made mistakes, and, above all, that he knew his art was an art and not an attribute of deity. That is what is the matter with the Germans; they cannot "ring fancy's knell"; their knells have no gaiety. The phrase of Hamlet about "holding the mirror up to nature" is always quoted by such earnest critics as meaning that art is nothing if not realistic. But it really means (or at least its author really thought) ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... flames, against the rear of the house. All the efforts of the garrison to extinguish the fire were unavailing, and the building was soon in a blaze. As the flames rapidly rolled up the wall and over the roof, the savages raised shouts of exultation, which fell as a death-knell upon the hearts of those who had now no alternative but to be consumed in the flames or to surrender themselves to the merciless foe. The bullets were still rattling against the house, and fifteen hundred warriors were greedily watching ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... if ever I strive merry story to tell, Full of japeful and humorsome graces, 'T is as though I were tolling a funeral bell As if dismally, dolefully tolling a knell, So solemn and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the fishermen finding the body, and remembered the shriek which arose on the gusty air. She dared not speak; it would sound her own death-knell. She could not confess her presence at the margin of ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... clock—I love you well, For your silver chime, and the truths you tell— Your every stroke is but the knell Of Hope, or Sorrow buried deep; Say on—but only let me hear The sound most sweet to my listening ear, The child and the mother breathing clear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or near by—it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... 'internal weakness,' and as 'equally incapable of offering any popular or national resistance to an active or enterprising enemy.' In this Mr. Finlay does but agree with other able writers; but he and they should have recollected, that hardly had that very year 623 departed, even yet the knell of its last hour was sounding upon the winds, when this effeminate empire had occasion to show that she could clothe herself with consuming terrors, as a belligerent both defensive and aggressive. In ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... some distance from the Preceptory, broke short their argument. One by one the sullen sounds fell successively on the ear, leaving but sufficient space for each to die away in distant echo, ere the air was again filled by repetition of the iron knell. These sounds, the signal of the approaching ceremony, chilled with awe the hearts of the assembled multitude, whose eyes were now turned to the Preceptory, expecting the approach of the Grand Master, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... those warlike Austrians see that that is their death-knell, and that it is a bad omen for them that Gentz had to blow the war-trumpet? Is it not the same Gentz who drew up the high-sounding manifesto for the King of Prussia, previous to ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the battle's fearful sounds, They seem'd my lover's knell— I heard, that pierc'd with ghastly wounds, My vent'rous ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... fifteenth century the knell of the Church rang out; it is memorable evermore in history for the discovery of the New World, and the consequent practical demonstration of the falsehood of the whole theory of the patristic and ecclesiastical theology. In the flood only "Noah and his ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... midnight's holy hour—and silence now Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds, The bell's deep-notes are swelling. 'Tis the knell ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... adds zest to Froude's satisfaction. No purer soul ever set himself to right the world than Reginald Pole; no one failed more completely in his cherished plans. He and Mary died on the same day; the bells that tolled their knell rang out the order for which they stood. But the utter failure of their hopes roused no emotion save that of bitter contempt in Froude. He saw no merit in the "hysterical dreamer" who had sacrificed his all for his religion; he saw no pathos in the life of that lone ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... secure the visible unity of the ecclesiastical commonwealth. The Catholic confederation was supposed to comprehend all the faithful; and it was, no doubt, expected that, not long after its establishment, it would have rung the death knell of schism and sectarianism. According to its fundamental principle, whoever was not in communion with the bishop was out of the Church. To be out of the Church was soon considered as tantamount to be without God and without hope, so that ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... It stood like a shrouded ghost, and the drip, drip, drip of the rain on the veranda came to him like a death-knell. ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... noble hearts for those less blest than they. These are the men who serve the city in times of peace, save it in times of war, deserve the highest honors in its gift, and leave behind them a record that keeps their memories green. For such an one we lately tolled a knell, my brothers; and as our united voices pealed over the city, in all grateful hearts, sweeter and more solemn than any chime, rung the words ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... in his dying fear One dreadful sound could the Rover hear, A sound as if with the Inchcape bell, The devil below was ringing his knell. ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... churchyard. He left the archdeacon's grounds that he might escape attention, and sauntered among the green hillocks under which lay at rest so many of the once loving swains and forgotten beauties of Plumstead. To his ears Eleanor's last words sounded like a knell never to be reversed. He could not comprehend that she might be angry with him, indignant with him, remorseless with him, and yet love him. He could not make up his mind whether or no Mr Slope was in truth a favoured rival. If not, why should she ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... chapel vault was a dungeon grim, And they say that many a chanted hymn Has rung a knell on the moldy air For luckless errant prisoned there, As kneeling monk and pious nun Sang orison at set of sun. A single window, dark and small, Showed opening in the heavy wall, Nor other entrance seemed attained That erst had human footstep gained. ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... mute! And when the midnight moon should lave Her forehead in the silver wave, How solemn on the ear would come The holy matins' distant hum, While the deep peal's commanding tone Should wake, in yonder islet lone, A sainted hermit from his cell, To drop a bead with every knell! And bugle, lute, and bell, and all, Should each bewildered stranger call To ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... by the moor, Where father, mother, mourning dwell. The fire is bright, where hearts are sore The chime to them a mournful knell. ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... "Is that my death-knell?" he asked wearily. "Have I, then, died already, and is it death that is lying so heavily ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... as the twilight deepened, waking at intervals in the gloomy stillness, as if from sleep. It filled the room every now and then with a sad, sighing sound, then died out slowly, again to swell, again to fall, sad as the tolling of a funeral knell. He lay listening to it when I went to him, with parted lips and strange solemnity of face. Too heart-broken for speech, I knelt beside him with a stifled moan. 'Magsie,' (that was his pet name for me,) 'I thought ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... hundred or more—Oh! he made them all fly! One day, by a blow, He was conquered, I know; But no wonder at last he should yield to a foe: He yielded, poor fellow! The conquering bellow Resounds in my ears as my poor father's knell—Oh!" A Fox then replied, While, leering aside, He laughed at his folly and vapouring pride: "My chattering youth, Your nonsense, forsooth, Is more like a funeral sermon than truth. Let history tell How your old father fell; And see if the narrative sounds ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... single syllable; and the flask that had been filled for him stood upon the table untouched. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the stranger, and his skin as pale as a corpse. Betty was in the same state of immovable terror. Every word that fell from his lips was a death-knell—every drop of his red drink was as much liquid fire—and every look ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... Here last September was he laid; Poppies these, that were his eyes, Of fish-bones are these blue-bells made; His fins of gold that to and fro Waved and waved so long ago, Still as petals wave and wave To and fro above his grave. Hearken, too! for so his knell Tolls all day ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard
... a jerk she freed her skirt from his clutch. Then she ran quickly up the stairs. Outside the door of her own room on the first landing she paused for one minute, and from out of the gloom her voice came to him like the knell of passing hope. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... carillon, curfew, tocsin, gong. Associated Words: campanology, campanologist, peal, ring, knell, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... Had the Taepings shown better generalship there is no saying but that they would have succeeded in capturing it, as the Imperialists had left quite unguarded the approach by Chingting and Paoting, and the capture of Peking would have sounded the knell of the Manchu dynasty. But the Taepings did not seize the chance—if it were one—and they were far from being in the best of spirits. They had advanced far, but it looked as if it was into the lion's mouth. Their march had been a remarkable one, but it had been attended with no striking success. ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... heartless rigour. The tower of the Cathedral of S. Caterina contains five bells, the largest of which, still in daily use, is the same which was formerly tolled on the occasion of the auto-da-fe. It was quite thrilling to listen to its deep knell, and to think that those same tones must have fallen upon the agonised ears of the poor victims of an ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... "helpless" was ringing like a knell over his late triumph. It tinged victory with a hideous color of ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Nature laments that her best achievement, man, has become discontented with her in his ungrateful discontent with himself. It is like the whimpering of a hurt animal, and the queer, ingenious metre, with its one rhyme set at wide but distinct and heavily recurrent intervals, beats on the ear like a knell. Blind and dumb forces speak, conjecture, half awakening out of sleep, turning back heavily to sleep again. Many poets have been sorry for man, angry with Nature on man's behalf. Here is a poet who is sorry for Nature, who feels the earth and its roots, as ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... hard in him. A clock outside, chiming the half-hour, rang its knell with derisive strokes that seemed to beat upon his heart. It was just his luck. She would never turn up. A hundred contingencies might arise to prevent her—a street accident, a headache, bad news of ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... hills, and the glad birds were warbling melodiously in the thickets, as if none but the living were moving amongst them; and but for the wild dirge, which mingled with the whispers of the wind, and but for the deep-toned knell which ever and anon rose slowly and mournfully above it, the lone traveller would never have conjectured that Death was conveying its victims through those smiling scenes. As the procession approached the portals of the Abbey, it was met, as was then ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... the midnight bell, Pealing forth its funeral knell; Now its tones sound loud and clear— Now low and dirge-like, strike the ear, Solemn and slow, they seem to fall, Upon ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... on Lionel like a knell. He foresaw trouble. "Sibylla," he gravely said, "I have been speaking ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... those full, piercing eyes, and felt that I was conquered. Still I resolved to make some struggles for my dignity yet, and not submit until defeat was no longer doubtful. People in talking of "unrequited affection," speak of "the knell of departed hopes," but no knell could sound more dreadful to the ears of a girl in her teens—trembling for her scarcely-fledged young-lady-hood—than did the voice of my grandmother, (and it was by no ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... de (or en) su obligacion: To neglect one's duty. Desfallecer de animo: To lose courage. Deshacerse de los generos: To get rid of the goods. Detestar de la mentira: To hate lying. Disfrutar de buena renta: To enjoy a good income. Doblar por un difunto: To sound the death knell. Dudar de ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... only laugh at Love to whom the fullness of living has been denied, in whose cold veins, adulterate with inherited disease, a stagnant liquid mocks the purpose of the rich red blood of a healthy race; that in that laugh of theirs is the, knell of them and of their people; that the nation which has ceased to love ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... enjoy them. But now—in a single moment—Ambition was dethroned. At the time, though his eyes were open, he scarcely realized that the old supremacy had passed. Only long afterwards did he ask himself if the death-knell of his success had begun to toll on that golden morning; because a man cannot serve ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... was no longer the herald of peace, nor the token of joy, for the villagers knew full well that it was tolling the knell of the departed priest, and their hearts were heavy with sorrow for the friend they ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Mr. Sinclair emphatically, and he never did, though he saw her form grow thinner, and her cheek paler every day, and before the winter was gone heard that deep, hollow cough from her, which has so often sounded the knell of hope to the anxious heart. With the coming on of summer this cough passed away, but Mary was oppressed by great feebleness and languor—scarcely less fatal symptoms. Still she omitted none of those cares essential to her father's comfort—while to the poor, the sick, the ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... the least afraid, and only thought, even when those doleful words seemed to ring like a knell through the roar of the waves, "Tom will be saved if I reach the shore, and if I don't, Pirate is sure to land and make his way to a house at once. That will tell as well as any words ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... measures aimed at undermining the State's stability and independence. It is not stupidity! It is that the Boer realizes at least one of the inevitable consequences of reform—that the ignorant and incapable must go under. Reform is the death-knell of his oligarchy, and therefore a danger to the independence of the State—as he sees it. Until the European people who have lately become so deeply concerned in Transvaal affairs realize how widely divergent are the two interpretations of 'Independence,' they will ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... that there is implied the ultimate universality of His dominion and sole supremacy of His throne. There is to be but one Shepherd, and over all the earth a great unity of obedience to Him. Here is the knell of all authority that does not own Him, and the subordination of all that does. The hirelings, the blind guides, that have misled and afflicted humanity for so many weary ages, shall be all sunk in oblivion. The false gods shall be discrowned, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... that speech. For, in my humble opinion, it betrayed to say the least, a confusion of thought. Could he think of the Turkish people as apart from the Ottoman Government? And what is the meaning of the death-knell of Ottoman Dominion in Europe and Asia if it be not the death knell of Turkish people as a free and governing race? Is it, again, true historically that the Turkish rule has always been a blight that 'has withered some of the fairest regions of the earth?' And what is the meaning of his statement ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... the dirge, the knell? These were the mourner's share,— The sullen clang, whose heavy swell Throbbed through the beating air; The rattling cord, the rolling stone, The shelving sand that slid, And, far beneath, with hollow tone Rung on the ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the push in the West is indecisive then our push is only to be postponed. Postponed! The word is like a knell. To write it gives me a feeling of sick despair. Only postponed! As well ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... my room-mate," answered Rebecca, who thought her own knell of doom had sounded, if he ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... own, but alas, the fond cry of welcome to sweet Adah Hastings was a death knell to 'Lina, for it seemed to shut her out of that gentle woman's heart. There was no place for her, and in her terrible desolation she stood alone, her eyes wandering wistfully from one to another, but turning very quickly when they fell on the white-haired Densie, her mother. She would ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... even in his dying fear One dreadful sound could the Rover hear, A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell, The fiends below were ringing his knell. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... violence of the conflict within us,—of the definite with the indefinite—of the substance with the shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails,—we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer—note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies—it disappears—we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... after the echoes of the shot had died away, a spluttering funeral knell. Other natives, laying their spears aside, sprang from behind trees and rocks to the help of their fallen chief. Nobody would harm them; the magic had ceased. They raised him with the greatest solicitude, ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... them bearing, Through sectarian rubbish tearing; The bell and whistle and the steaming, Startle thousands from their dreaming. Look out for the cars while the bell rings! Ere the sound your funeral knell rings. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Harp • Various
... night from one tavern to another, and feasted without moderation or bounds. In this way they endeavored to avoid all contact with the sick, and abandoned their houses and property to chance, like men whose death-knell had already tolled. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various |
