"Lute" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in Little Dorrit that Young John Chivery wore 'pantaloons so highly decorated with side stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute.' This appears to be the only reference to this instrument, and a lute of three strings is the novelist's own conception, the usual ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... Mr. Isaacs," she said, turning her voice to where she could see the light of his cigarette and the faint outline of his chair in the starlight, "here we are in the camp. Now where is the 'lute' you promised to produce for us? I think the time has come at last for you ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... burn—an expectancy of something yet to come which should put the touch of perfection on his life, He spoke of it to Athenais, as they sat together, one summer evening, in a bower of jasmine, with their boy playing at their feet. There had been music in the garden; but now the singers and lute-players had withdrawn, leaving the master and mistress alone in the lingering twilight, tremulous with inarticulate melody of unseen birds. There was a secret voice in the hour seeking vainly for utterance—a word waiting to be spoken at the centre ...
— The Lost Word - A Christmas Legend of Long Ago • Henry Van Dyke
... Sonnet first came into England. The word sonnet in fact, is from the Italian sonetto (literally "a little sound"), and the sonetto was originally a short poem recited or sung to the accompaniment of music, probably the lute or mandolin. ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
... Bartoli's Tuscan to cover a page with!—yet, yet the pity of it! Le Jeune, the Phoenix, and Rossini who directed his letters to his mother as 'mother of the famous composer'—and Henry Lawes, and Dowland's Lute, ah me! ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... the Receiver with the Spirit of Wine, stop it very close, for it is full of Spirits which it hath retained from the Oil, as you will hear afterwards: But in Balneum Mariae you will find that blessed Oil of Antimony red as Bloud; take it out, wash the Lute off by gentle mollification, that nothing impure may fall into that curious red Oil, when you take the head off; reserve it carefully, that by no means it may receive prejudice, for you have a Celestial Oil, which in a dark ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... had a dainty lute under his arm, He touch-ed the strings, which made such a charm, Says, "Please you to hear any music of me, I'll sing you a song of ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... crippled—we women—by the long years in which nothing was expected of us but to sit in ivy-mantled casements and work embroidery while our lords went out to fight, or thrummed the lute under ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... altogether in the phase of forgiving her so much bliss; in the phase moreover of believing that, should they continue to go on together, she would abide in that generosity. She had, at such a point as this, no suspicion of a rift within the lute—by which we mean not only none of anything's coming between them, but none of any definite flaw in so much clearness of quality. Yet, all the same, if Milly, at Mrs. Lowder's banquet, had described herself to Lord Mark as kindly used by the young woman on the other side because of some faintly-felt ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... merit, but their quality merely. And though Mr. Raffalovich is not a wonderful poet, still he is a subtle artist in poetry. Indeed, in his way he is a boyish master of curious music and of fantastic rhyme, and can strike on the lute of language so many lovely chords that it seems a pity he does not know how to pronounce the title of his book and the theme of his songs. For he insists on making 'tuberose' a trisyllable always, as ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... unto this glittering glorious King, And praise His name let every living thing; Let heart and voice, let bells of silver, ring, The comfort that this day to us did bring; Let lute, let shawm, with sound of sweet delight, The joy of Christ ...
— Notes and Queries, Issue No. 61, December 28, 1850 • Various
... love," Mr. Stimpson exclaimed, as his wife came out of her pavilion in her Coronation Robes and chain, attended by the Court Godmother, "I should hardly have known you! You look majestic!—abso-lute-ly majestic!" ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... above, With desperate thoughts and bold intent, Towards the shades below he went; For thither his fair love was fled, And he must have her from the dead. There in such lines, as did well suit With sad airs and a lover's lute, And in the richest language dress'd That could be thought on or express'd, Did he complain; whatever grief Or art or love—which is the chief, And all ennobles—could lay out, In well-tun'd woes he dealt about. And humbly bowing to the prince Of ghosts ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... and it is time to lead her away. Operatic confidant sympathetic—but a more modern heroine might find one "get on her nerves," perhaps. Manrico a very robust type of Troubadour—but oughtn't a Troubadour to carry about a guitar, or a lute, or something? If Manrico has one, he invariably leaves it outside. Probably doesn't see why, with so many competent musicians in the orchestra, he should take the trouble of playing his own accompaniments. And why does the Curtain invariably ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 29, 1892 • Various
... carried for many years, without the government or excise having the slightest suspicion by what means the smuggling was accomplished. As we before observed, the great articles in request, and which were now smuggled from France, were alamodes and lute-strings. The attention of Government had been called to check the admission of these goods, but, hitherto, their attempts had not been ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... tuned by the guru as the strings of a lute (vina) each different from the others, yet each emitting sounds in harmony with all. Collectively they must form a key-board answering in all its parts to thy lightest touch (the touch of the Master). Thus their minds shall open for the harmonies of Wisdom, to vibrate as knowledge ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... hatred of class to class which hangs like a sick dream over us to-day. The earliest, the most awful instance of such a hatred was gathering round Prior John, while at his manor-house of Mildenhall he studied his parchments and touched a defter lute than Nero or the Breton Belgabred. In a single hour hosts of armed men arose, as it were, out of the earth. Kent gathered round Wat Tyler; in Norfolk, in Essex, fifty thousand peasants hoisted the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... vinegar, To draw his volatile substance and his tincture: And let the water in glass E be filter'd, And put into the gripe's egg. Lute him well; And leave him ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... hank, catch, latch, bolt, latchet[obs3], tag; tooth; hook, hook and eye; lock, holdfast[obs3], padlock, rivet; anchor, grappling iron, trennel[obs3], stake, post. cement, glue, gum, paste, size, wafer, solder, lute, putty, birdlime, mortar, stucco, plaster, grout; viscum[obs3]. shackle, rein &c. (means of restraint) 752; prop &c. (support) 215. V. bridge over, span; connect &c. 43; hang ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... in her ladyship's household—youths who played lute and viol, and sang the dainty, meaningless songs of the latest ballad-mongers very prettily. The warm weather, which had a bad effect upon the bills of mortality, was so far advantageous that it allowed these gentlemen to sing in ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... dimpling and sparkling at his side, and now quite resigned to the semi-official nature of the ball, rose and drank the health of the distinguished guest in long and flowery praises. Rezanov responded in briefer but no less felicitous vein, and concluded by remarking that the only rift in the lute of his present enchanting experience was the fear that whereas he had nearly died of starvation several times during the past three years, he was now threatened with a far more ignominious end, so delicious and irresistible were the temptations that beset the wayfarer in this most hospitable ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... d'un luth, Cotgrave says, is the belly of a lute, meaning "all in nature must dance ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... also thou art fain to excel other men in knowledge. But in nowise wilt thou be able to take everything on thyself. For to one man has god given for his portion the works of war, [to another the dance, to another the lute and song,] but in the heart of yet another hath far-seeing Zeus placed an excellent understanding, whereof many men get gain, yea he saveth many an one, and himself best knoweth it. But, lo, I will speak even as it seemeth best to me. Behold ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... pall the tasteless meats, and joyless wines, And luxury with sighs her slave resigns. Approach, ye minstrels, try the soothing strain, [bb]Diffuse the tuneful lenitives of pain: No sounds, alas! would touch th' impervious ear, Though dancing mountains witness'd Orpheus near; Nor lute nor lyre his feeble pow'rs attend, Nor sweeter musick of a virtuous friend; But everlasting dictates crowd his tongue, Perversely grave, or positively wrong. The still returning tale, and ling'ring jest, Perplex the fawning niece and pamper'd guest, While growing hopes scarce awe the gath'ring ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... be red-roan, And the lover shall be noble, With an eye that takes the breath,— And the lute he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble, As his sword ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... and grew bigger, and his ears grew up beautifully high and straight. He was, however, of a merry disposition, jumped about, played and had especial pleasure in music, so that he went to a celebrated musician and said, "Teach me thine art, that I may play the lute as well as thou dost." "Ah, dear little master," answered the musician, "that would come very hard to you, your fingers are certainly not suited to it, and are far too big. I am afraid the strings would not last." No excuses were of ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... drink with a friend of yore; Quick! bring me a bough from the myrtle tree Which is budding afresh by Nicander's door. Tell Nicander himself he must sup with me, And along with the bough from his myrtle tree We will circle the lute, in a choral glee To the goddess of corn and peace. For Nicander and I were fast friends at school. Here he comes! We are ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... and goblets were caroused one to another, Dr. Faustus began to play them some pretty feats, insomuch that round about the hall was heard most pleasant music, and that in sundry places: in this corner a lute, in another a cornet, in another a cittern, clarigols, harp, hornpipe, in fine, all manner of music was heard there in that instant; whereat all the glasses and goblets, cups, and pots, dishes, and all that stood upon the board began ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... the particulars of the ceremony. The youthful monarch conducted his yet more youthful bride and her attendants to his pavilion, while the heralds summoned the knights to the tournament, and prepared the other sports of the day. He took his lute and performed before her, and he sang words of his own composition, which related to her—for, like others of his family that had gone before, and that came after him, James had a spark ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... the ballet, Mars and Venus stood at the wings awaiting their cue and watching the graceful dancing of a nimble dryad who, beset by a cruel satyr, changed speedily into the tuneful Apollo, vanquished the surprised satyr, and then sang to the accompaniment of his own lute the high-sounding praises of the great and ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... American general who used to say that no emergency of war or peace had ever found him "with his boots off"; but I may say that whenever the various periodicals mentioned in this book called on me to come out and blow the trumpet of personal opinions or strike the pensive lute that speaks of the past, I always tried to pull on my boots first. I didn't want to do it, God knows! Their Editors, to whom I beg to offer my thanks here, made me perform mainly by kindness but partly by bribery. Well, yes! Bribery. What can you expect? I never pretended ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... Borghetto, is a greeting to the pair on their return from the church: "Long live in health the bride and groom! What a beautiful and fortunate marriage! Let the mind be firm and the heart constant. And so we come to the happy day. I would that my words were as sweet as those of a song, and my lute well tuned! A hundred years I would sing new songs. Long live love and marriage!" This other song, from Palermo, a variant of one already published, is also an expression of good wishes for the pair: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... The League of the Leopard The Man from the Wilds The Allinson Honour The Impostor The Pioneer Musgrave's Luck Hawtrey's Deputy The Head of the House The Keystone Block Dearham's Inheritance The Wilderness Patrol The Trustee The Lute Player Agatha's Fortune A Debt of Honour The Broken Net A Risky Game Askew's Victory Carmen's Messenger The Dust of Conflict Sadie's Conquest A Damaged Reputation Helen the Conqueror Footsteps ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "'Hicky Bloo!' Miss Ryan." And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made a hideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound compared to which an Indian tom-tom would have seemed as dulcet as the strumming of a lute in a lady's boudoir. ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... be no path untrod By that immortal race— Who walked with Nature, as with God, And saw her, face to face— No living truth by them unsung— No thought that hath not found a tongue In some strong lyre of olden time; Must every tuneful lute be still That may not give a world the thrill ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... courtier's, toying with a sword, Nor minstrel's, laid across a lute; A chief's, uplifted to the Lord When all the kings ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... The fair-grown yew tree, for a chosen bow: And, when the pleasant sun is getting low, Again I'll linger in a sloping mead To hear the speckled thrushes, and see feed Our idle sheep. So be thou cheered sweet, And, if thy lute is here, softly intreat My soul to keep in its ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... made the Renaissance, and crowded to those lectures filled with that dangerous new charm which always belongs to the poetic presentation of new knowledge—those lectures, "musical as is Apollo's lute," being given up on the hill nearby, by a romantic young priest ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... preparing for his enemy will not deny that gunpowder has aptitudes of mischief; and from the point of view of a nigger ordered upon the safety-valve of a racing steamboat, the vapor of water is a thing accurst. Shall we condemn music because the lute makes "lascivious pleasing?" Or poetry because some amorous bard tells in warm rhyme the story of the passions, and Swinburne has had the goodness to make vice offensive with his hymns in its praise? Or sculpture because from the guiltless marble may be wrought a drunken Silenus or a lechering ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the name of the instrument played at such a price; and on the antiquarian principle that consonants are changeable at pleasure, and vowels go for nothing, we take leave for hurdy-gurdy (what a vulgar sound it has!) to read flute, violin, lute, or, in short, any other presentable musical instrument that may chance to find the greatest favour in our eyes. A change which has the twofold merit of saving Abel's character for taste, and preserving so excellent a story from carrying a lie ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... of this game which the dolls could vary indefinitely. The dwarfs also gave concerts and taught her to play the lute, the viola, the theorbo, the lyre, and various ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France
... have taught us to cut capers, by only seeing them do it, without stirring from our places, as these men pretend to inform the understanding without ever setting it to work, or that we could learn to ride, handle a pike, touch a lute, or sing without the trouble of practice, as these attempt to make us judge and speak well, without exercising us in judging or speaking. Now in this initiation of our studies in their progress, whatsoever presents itself before us is book sufficient; a roguish trick of a page, a sottish mistake ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of sentiment," had his chance here. It took only four days for Cornelia's attractions to begin to dim Harriet's. Shelley arrived on the 27th of July; on the 31st he wrote a sonnet to Harriet in which "one detects already the little rift in the lover's lute which had seemed to be healed or never to have gaped at all when the later and happier sonnet to Ianthe was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... oranges, and adorned with tapestry, sat Apollo, attended by the Nine Muses, all in classical costume; at the helm stood Neptune with his trident. The Muses executed some beautiful concerted pieces; Apollo twanged his lute. Having reached the landing-place, this deputation from Parnassus stepped on shore, and stood awaiting the arrival of the procession. Each professor, as he advanced, was gravely embraced and kissed by Apollo and all the Nine Muses in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... new invention but warmly upheld the lute and viol. He explained that the lute was once considered difficult to play because it had too few strings, only ten to fourteen, while at the time of his writing it had sixteen to twenty-six. He makes the statement that he never spent more than a shilling a quarter for strings. ...
— How the Piano Came to Be • Ellye Howell Glover
... none may taste of the golden fruit Till the golden new time come Many a tree shall spring from shoot, Many a blossom be withered at root, Many a song be dumb; Broken and still shall be many a lute Or ever ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... his learned lute a verse such as Cynthian Apollo modulates with his imposed fingers."—Propertius, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... emotion, to coin its thoughts into words. Mrs. Carlton, like a sensible mother, said nothing until the floods of Jessie's grief passed away. Then smoothing her head with her hand, she spoke in tones, so soft and lute-like, that they sounded like sweet music in Jessie's ears, ...
— Jessie Carlton - The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse, the - Wizard, and Conquered Him • Francis Forrester
... the tender horns of cockled snails; Love's tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste; For valour, is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical, As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write, Until his ink were tempered with love's sighs; Oh, then his lines would ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... and painted beauties intent upon the game and the gold. The odour of musk was everywhere, and the sound of the tapping of gold snuff-boxes, and the fluttering of fans, and the sharp, technical calls of the gamesters, and the hollow laughter of hollow hearts. There was a hired singing-girl with a lute at one end of the room, babbling of Cupid and Daphne, and green meadow and larks. But she was poorly dressed and indifferent looking; and she sang with a sad, mechanical air, as if her thoughts were far off. Hyde would have passed her without a glance; but, as he approached, she broke her love-ditty ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... works of Horace, all of whose verses he knew by heart; for, inasmuch as it had once been very wisely observed in his presence by some distinguished scholar that no other human lute-strummer had ever sung so beautifully and so grandly as Horace, it thenceforth became a point of honour with Mr. Bodza to read nothing else; so he never troubled his head about any other poet or poets, whatever language they wrote in. He made ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... master of many instruments. Milton's mighty organ was no less obedient to his touch than the little lute of the troubadour. He was never the same; that was his strength. Clarke's style possessed at once the chiselled chasteness of a Greek marble column and the elaborate deviltry of the late Renaissance. At times his ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... your lute you will weave a theme Which the world will harken and know; For every note of the song will teem With a great soul's overflow— You will speak the meaning within a dream And the pain in ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... lute of their budding romance, they ate and drank and went to the play and had what might otherwise have been an enchanted ride home in the moonlight. But when Landry said "Good-night" Cissy felt the loss of something in his manner. His greeting that afternoon had had in it ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... The flower of thy chivalry lies low in the land of the stranger; no longer does the Vivarrambla echo to the tramp of steed and sound of trumpet; no longer is it crowded with thy youthful nobles gloriously arrayed for the tilt and tourney. Beautiful Granada! the soft note of the lute no longer floats through thy moonlit streets; the serenade is no more heard beneath thy balconies; the lively castanet is silent upon thy hills; the graceful dance of the Zambra is no more seen beneath thy bowers! Beautiful Granada! why is the Alhambra so lorn ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... Then Lute, with a look of disgust, would declare that he would trade the —— crazy old fool off the very first chance he had "if he had to take a ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... all. 'Twas in sincerity they came—there's no disputing it—and in loving-kindness, however ingenuously, they sought our welfare. When I came from the unkind night into the light and warmth of that plain temple, Parson Lute, of Yellow Tail Tickle, whom I knew and loved, was seeking to persuade the shepherds of our souls that the spread of saving grace might surely be accomplished, from Toad Point to the Scarlet Woman's Head, by means of unmitigated doctrine and more artful discourse. He was a ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... shut, stop, occlude; conclude, finish, end, terminate; inclose, encompass, confine, environ; grapple, clinch; lute, calk. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... this last month, told me they had dances at Court in Epiphany octave, when we rade for our lives from Oxford; and that very night my Lord's Grace of Exeter was beheaden at Pleshy, his wife, the Lady Elizabeth, was at the cushion dance and singing to her lute in the Lady Blanche [the Princess Royal] her chamber, where all ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... before, in Palma de Mallorca, a young nobleman, a poet, a skilled player on the lute had stood tiptoe for attainment before the high-born and very stately lady he had courted through many moonlight nights, when her eye had chilled his quivering love suddenly and she had pulled open her bodice with both hands and shown him her breasts, one white and firm and the ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos
... agree with Vischer in seeing the hand of Bartolommeo della Gatta in the angels. They show much of the influence of Pollaiuolo, and seem to me to be Signorelli's unassisted work. The face and gesture of one of them especially—the angel in the flowered robe playing a lute—is almost a duplicate of the child on the gradino of the throne in the Perugia altar-piece. The bishop in the compartment next this angel is repeated in the Volterra "Madonna and Saints," and in that of ...
— Luca Signorelli • Maud Cruttwell
... dreaming eye yet dauntless foot, Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had; One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit, Nor fear because some dotard owned the root; Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh And kept not all his valour for his lute; One who could dare as well as sing and sigh. Ah! then were hearts to love, but ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... of it. 'Bloweth seed and groweth mead'—assuredly the sun shone then as now, people wassailed or wailed—oh, 'twas pretty much the same in all ages. But when we come to the most unmistakable facts, all this sheen of gilded armor and egret-plumes, of gemmed goblet and altar-lace, lute, mandolin, and lay, is cloth of gold over the ghastly, shrunken limbs of a leper. Pass over the glory of knight and dame and see how it was then with the multitude—with the millions. Almost at the first glance, in fact, your knight and dame turn out unwashed, scantily ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "we've got somebody in view that would like to try and fill it. Barzilla Small was in to see me yesterday afternoon and he's sartin that his boy Luther—Lute, everybody calls him—is just the one for the place. He's been to work up in Fall River in a bank, so Barzilla says; that would mean he must have had some experience. Whether he'll do or not I don't know, but he's about the only candidate in sight, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... prey. The whistling winds add their less artful strains, And a grave base the murmuring fountains play. Nature does all this harmony bestow; But to our plants, art's music too, The pipe, theorbo, and guitar we owe; The lute itself, which once was green and mute, When Orpheus struck the inspired lute, The trees danced round, and understood By sympathy the ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... beneath the moss, a hole Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps; Lulled by near noises of the cautious mole Tunnelling its mine—like some ungainly Troll— Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps Picking its drowsy and monotonous lute; Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps, And trees ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... my heart, And gently offered to impart Thy sorrows to my listening ear, Like a half-shy, half-trusting child, The while my lute, in wood-notes wild, Thine ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... in fashion of a lute, If he had only had the groin cut off Just at the point at which ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... a spirit doth dwell, Whose heart-strings are a lute; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars, so legends tell, Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... "improvvisatori" has never died out in central and southern Italy. One of the most celebrated in the sixteenth century, named Silvio Antoniano, at the age of eleven could sing to the accompaniment of his lute on any argument proposed to him, the poetry being as graceful and pleasing as the music. One day, while sitting at a state banquet in the Palazzo di Venezia, Giovanni Angelo de' Medici, one of the cardinals present, asked him if he could improvise "on the praises of ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... fair Be it right or wrong, these men among Believe me, if all those endearing young charms Bird of the wilderness Blame not my Lute! for he must sound Blow, blow, thou winter wind Blow high, blow low, let tempests tear Break, break, break Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny bonny bride But are ye sure the ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing his morning hymn, as he then used to do to his lute before he put on ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of reindeer moss, at the foot of a great white birch, a mouse-colored donkey sat playing a lute. Over his head, hanging from a bit of bark, was ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... waving wing, The banquets of the Cyprian king. Old shapes of song that do not die Shall haunt the halls of memory, And though the Bow shall prelude clear Shrill as the song of Gunnar's spear, There answer sobs from lute and lyre That murmured ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang
... while crossing the hall, a mandolin lying forgotten on a chair, she told Mary Seyton to take it, to see, she said, if she could recall her old talent. In reality the queen was one of the best musicians of the time, and played admirably, says Brantome, on the lute and viol d'amour, an instrument ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... playing on a Lute, and her haire downe singing. Ofelia How should I your true loue know From another man? By his cockle hatte, and his staffe, And his sandall shoone. [H1] White his shrowde as mountaine snowe, Larded with sweete flowers, That bewept to the graue did not goe With true louers ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... A small matter. I know one spent in less than a year eight and fifty pounds in mustard, and another that ran in debt, in the space of four or five year, above fourteen thousand pound in lute-strings ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... skilful physiologist, would very probably obtain the desired production of mutually more or less infertile breeds from a common stock in a comparatively few years; but still, as the case stands at present, this little 'rift within the lute' is not to be disguised or overlooked."—(Westminster ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... understand him, nor was I able to learn anything about the state of things when I first reached the house of my relatives, for my brother-in-law had been sent into the town as special constable. It was only on his return home, lute in the afternoon, that I heard what had taken place in one hotel at Chemnitz while I had been resting in another inn. Heubner, Bakunin, and the man called Martin, whom I have mentioned already, had, it seemed, arrived before me in a hackney-coach ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... In dying notes discovers[7] The woes of hopeless lovers, 35 Whose dirge is whispered by the warbling lute. ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... in the high, strident voice of Lute Perkins. He took a deep breath of fresh, clean air, and looked about him. After the hot, dusty room, the grove, with its green foliage, through which the moonlight filtered, looked invitingly cool. He sauntered forward, climbed the hill up which the ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... Bordeaux magistrate, the earliest sample of those worldly judges who enlivened the gown in the seventeenth century, plays the lute between whiles, and even makes the witches dance before sending them to the stake. And he writes well, far more clearly than anyone else. But for all that, one discovers in his work a new source of obscurity, inherent to those times. The witches being ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... a look of weariness on her face, while Hypsipyle fanned her softly with a huge feather fan of black and white ostrich plumes. Glycerium, seated by the head of the couch, was busy in adorning her mistress's black hair with flowers. At her feet Euphrosyne nursed a kind of lute and sang the Venus song in a ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was the winged lion of St Mark, which it was impossible not to know; and, crowding the piazza, and walking to and fro on its marble floor, was a countless multitude of men in all the costumes of the world. With the deep hum of voices was softly blended the sound of the Italian lute. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the Hotel dell' Europa. I made a spring from the gondola, and alighted on the steps ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... Don Quixote retired to his apartment, and finding a lute there, he tuned it, opened the window, and, perceiving there was somebody walking in the garden, he ran over the strings of the instrument; and, having tuned it again as nicely as he could, he coughed and cleared his throat; and then, with a voice somewhat ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... understanding you:—there was Jem White, the author of Falstaff's Letters, who the other day left this dull world to go in search of more kindred spirits, "turning like the latter end of a lover's lute:"—there was A——, who sometimes dropped in, the Will Honeycomb of our set—and Mrs. R——, who being of a quiet turn, loved to hear a noisy debate. An utterly uninformed person might have supposed this a scene of vulgar confusion and uproar. While the most critical question was pending, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... out thar'," George Olver explained to me. "I don't want 'em to skeer him off, for it ain't every night Lute takes kindly to his fiddle. There's times he won't touch it for days and days. Talkin' about Lute's fiddlin'—I suppose it's true—there was some fellows out from Boston happened to hear him playin' one night, up to Sandwich te-own, and they offered him a hundred and fifty a month—I ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... fair Damascus, as the day grew late, Passed Kafur homeward through St. Thomas' gate Betwixt the pleasure-gardens where he heard Vie with the lute the twilight-wakened bird. But song touched not his heavy heart, nor yet The lovely lines of gold and violet, A guerdon left by the departing sun To grace the brow of Anti-Lebanon. Upon his soul a crushing burden weighed, And to his ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... His was naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature—but he was over- sensitively organised,—his nerves did not resemble iron so much as finely-tempered steel, which could not but suffer from the damp and rust in the world's conventionalities. And some "little rift within the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances to many, so that the subtle music of his soul jarred into discord with the things of life, making harsh sounds in place of melody. There was no adequate cause for ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... heart is hushed, my tongue is mute, My life is centred in your will; You play upon me like a lute Which answers to its master's skill, Till passionately vibrating, Each nerve ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... the railing, a la Juliet, having first decked Hosey out in a sketchy but effective Romeo costume consisting of a hastily snatched up scarf over one shoulder, Pinky's little turban, and a frying pan for a lute. Mother Brewster did the Nurse, and by the time Hosea began his limping climb up the balcony, the turban over one eye and the scarf winding itself about his stocky legs, they ended by tumbling in a heap of ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... is divine philosophy? Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, But musical as is Apollo's lute, And a perpetual feast of nectar'd sweets, Where no crude ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... Beatrice and Fidelio. Fidelio strums his lute softly throughout the next conversation, up to the words ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... and fire; her face wrinkled by the hands of care and evil passions still more than by Time, with a big man's voice, whose harshness made those in the next room tremble; yet feminine in her tastes, skilful with her needle, fond of embroidery work, striking the lute with a touch remarkable for its science and feeling, speaking many languages, including Latin, with fluency and grace; most feminine, too, in her constitutional sufferings, hysterical of habit, shedding floods of tears daily at Philip's coldness, undisguised infidelity, and frequent absences from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... another composer who devotes herself chiefly to songs. Like Mlle. van Rennes, she is a native of Utrecht. Her works include many songs and vocal duets, of which "Meidoorn," a collection of children's songs, deserves especial mention. She wrote the words and music for a child's operetta, "Three Little Lute Players," which was performed three ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... for empty joys At ball or concert, rout or play; Whilst, far from fashion's idle noise, Her gilded domes, and trappings gay, I while the wintry eve away,— 'Twixt book and lute the hours divide And marvel how I e'er could ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... effulgence of a hundred thousand colours shone. A spasm of delight pulsated. Sorrow and anger, envy and fear, fled and fainted. From the zenith came a murmur of voices, the sound of dancing, the kiss of timbril and of lute. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... my heart is cold, Because of a silent tongue! The lute of faultless mould In silence oft hath hung. The fountain soonest spent Doth babble down the steep; But the stream that ever went Is silent, strong, ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... reduced to extreme distress between Khan and Zhai, for seven days he had no cooked meat to eat, but only some soup of coarse vegetables without any rice in it. His countenance wore the appearance of great exhaustion, and yet be kept playing on his lute and singing inside the house. Yen Hui (was outside) selecting the vegetables, while Zze Lu and Zze Kung were talking together, and said to him: 'The master has twice been driven from Lu; he had to flee from Wei; the tree beneath which ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... masses on her bare shoulders; her eyes were large, deep and brown, and her skin was exquisitely fine in texture and color; her dress was artistic and well suited to her lithe figure. She held an instrument resembling a lute in her hands, and stopped suddenly when she noticed that the ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... me wake the lute, It once was dear to Henry's ear. Now be its voice for ever mute, The voice which ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... hear voices, and the murmurs of the sleeping men and the groans of the wounded. The scene closed. There was space and light, and a gorgeous figure, stiff with the splendour of his robes, talked in a dark garden with his lady. Their voices murmured, a lute was played, some one sang, and through the thread of it all I saw that moment when, packed together on our cart, we hung for an instant on the top of the hill and looked back to a country that had suddenly crackled into flame. There was ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... commences To practise on the lute; And as he sings and travels With lingering, laggard foot, Despair ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... music to it, set by Hen. Lawes, is printed in a book, entitled Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, to sing to the Theorbo Lute, and Bass Viol, folio. 1675, and in Playfield's Antidote against Melancholy, 8vo. 1669, and also in Dr. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, vol. ii. p. 350; but in the latter with a mistake in the last line of the third stanza, of the ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... shall be red roan, And the lover shall be noble, With an eye that takes the breath. And the lute[316-1] he plays upon Shall strike ladies into trouble, As his sword strikes men ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Vernacular or cultured verse, The scholar's speech, the ploughman's patter You'd use, but still in each were terse, As clear in point as full in matter. You'd not disdain "the trivial flute," The rustic Pan-pipe you would finger, Yet could you touch "Apollo's lute" To tones on which Love's ear would linger. Farewell, farewell! Two countries loved, Two countries mourn you. None will quarrel With English hands, which, unreproved, Lay on ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 22, 1891 • Various
... sailor; or riding along the moorland roads between his houses of Stow and Bideford, while every woman ran out to her door to look at the great Sir Richard, the pride of North Devon; or, sitting there in the low mullioned window at Burrough, with his cup of malmsey before him, and the lute to which he had just been singing laid across his knees, while the red western sun streamed in upon his high, bland forehead, and soft curling locks; ever the same steadfast, God-fearing, chivalrous man, conscious (as far as a soul so healthy could be conscious) of the pride of beauty, and strength, ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... speak as we pass by. Rift in the lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. The night Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... that Robert was good last night. He told me he had been defending Swedenborg and the spirits, which suggested to me some notion of superhuman virtue on his part. Yes; love him. He is my right 'glory'; and the 'lute and harp' would go for nothing beside him, even if 'Athenaeums' spelled one ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... Then our lute's exulting numbers, Unrestrain'd will wander on, While the night has seal'd in slumbers, Fair creation, all her own. And we'll wed, while music stealeth Through the starry fields above, While each bounding spirit feeleth ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... follow, the spell was broken,—the Maid was martyred. In this sense the poet conceives the coming of Arthur, a sign to be spoken against, a test of high purposes, a belief redeeming and ennobling till faith fails, and the little rift within the lute, the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, makes discord of the music. As matter of legend, it is to be understood that Guinevere did not recognise Arthur when first he rode below ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... some time in the middle of the room, till at last Sadie went up to her and begged her to sit down, as she also had her part to play. At these words Amina fetched a lute from a case of yellow satin and gave it to Sadie, who sang several songs to its accompaniment. When she was tired she said to Amina, "My sister, I can do no more; come, I pray you, and take ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... and the tables were removed, one of the gentlemen who had assisted in his capture accosted him with polite expressions of regret at his want of appetite. During the interchange of courtesies which ensued, one of the bandits took a lute, another a viol, and the party began to amuse themselves with music. The advocate was then invited to walk into a neighboring room, where he perceived a considerable number of mantles ranged in order. He was desired to select his own, and to count out the thirty pistoles agreed upon, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... risin' an' fallin', an' she a-tremblin' an' alibe all ober wid excitement an' pride an' lub. Wen he right afore de balc'ny his voice rung out like a trumpet, 'Right 'bout, face. 'Sent arms.' I dun declar dat 'fore we could wink dey was all in line frontin' us wid dere guns held out. Den he s'lute her wid his sword an' she take a red rose fum her bosom an' trow it to him an' he pick it up an' put it to his lips; den it was 'Right 'bout! March!' an' away dey went tromp, tromp, towa'ds de Bat'ry. I kin see it all. I kin see it all. O Lawd, Lawd, ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... enjoyed the inestimable advantage of a very sensible, though at the same time a very severe master.—I learnt from him that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a logic of its own as severe as that of science.—Lute, harp, and lyre; muse, muses, and inspirations; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene; were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now exclaiming, "Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and Ink! Boy you mean! Muse! boy! Muse! ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... lute, David and his harp, Donnelley and his dog! These are inseparable associations, and so fine and historic an animal is "Brownie" that the newspapers devote write-ups to him just as if he were a regular celebrity or something like that. He is now guarding the chicks on a ranch and is making ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... and sob in our ears, silly Yoomy that thou art!—no! no! none of your sentiment now; my soul is martially inclined; I want clarion peals, not lute warblings. So throw out your chest, Yoomy: lift high your voice; and blow me ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of time, of oppression belated and vain? Put up the old weapon, O despot, slack hand from the scourge and the chain; For the days of the PHARAOHS are done, and the laureates of tyranny mute, And the whistle of falchion and flail are not set to the chords of the lute. True, the Hebrew, who bowed to the lash of the Pyramid-builders, bows still, For a time, to the knout of the TSAR, to the Muscovite's merciless will; But four millions of Israel's children are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 9, 1890. • Various
... Henry Purcell the elder, was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (that is, a singer in the choir, and in many cases organist as well), and was master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey for three years. He held various posts in the "King's Musick," sharing the duties of "lute and voyce" for a time with one Angelo Notari. The latter appears to have died in 1663; but strangely enough after his death he asked for arrears of salary for 1661 and 1664. However, in 1663 Henry Purcell the elder seemed to have taken over the whole ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman
... . who of men can tell That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail, The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale, The meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones, The seed its harvest, or the lute its tones, Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet If human souls did ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... of flowers on the window-sill, by no means came up to the ideas which he had entertained of monastic asceticism; and when, over and above all this, he found more than a breviary and a crucifix within reach, namely, a sort of pocket-library and a lute, his astonishment ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... unseemly ballads. 1579." In 1599 there appeared a very ambitious work in folio form, so arranged that four persons might sing from it, and bearing the title: "The Psalms of David in Metre, the Plain song being the common Tune, to be sung and played upon the Lute, Orpharion, Citterne, or Bass-viol, severally or together; the singing Part to be either Tenor or Treble to the instrument, according to the Nature of the Voice, or for Four Voices; with Ten Short Tunes in the end, to which, for the most part, all Psalms may be ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... fay; She blew her horn with main and mood[45]; Unto the castle she took the way. Into the hall soothly she went; 185 Thomas followed at her hand; Then ladies came, both fair and gent, With courtesy to her kneeland[46]. Harp and fithel both they fand[47], Gittern and also the sawtery[48], 190 Lute and ribib[49] both gangand[50], And all manner of minstrelsy. The most marvel that Thomas thought, When that he stood upon the floor, For fifty hartes in were brought, 195 That were bothe great and store[51]. Raches lay lapping in the ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... write a poem about those tadpoles, but Endymion tells us that Louis Untermeyer has already smitten a lute on that topic. We are queasy of trailing such an able poet. Therefore we celebrate these tadpoles in prose. They deserve a prose as lucid, as limpid, as cool and embracing, as the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... restless in her luxurious solitude; she pines for the excitement and triumphs of singing and dancing before an assembly. So, in the Nawab's absence, she takes professional disguise, and sings with a lute in the harem before his wife. To those who would like to see a Mohammedan lady of high rank in full dress, the following description of costume ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... nothing looked the least bit in the world like the lovely ordered picture he had been accustomed to delight in from the shilling gallery—after the first few days he began to focus this strange world and to suffer its fascination. And he was proud of the silent part allotted to him, a lazy lute-player in attendance on the great lady, who lounged about on terrace steps in picturesque attitudes. He was glad that he was not an unimportant member of the crowd of courtiers who came on in a bunch and bowed and nodded and pretended to talk to one another and went ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... "Shan't nuther, Lute Small!" declared Hartwell, a freckle-faced youngster, who was the next step downward in the family stair of children. "Set on it yourself. Make him, ma, now! ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... praise of lute and pen, Her hair was like a summer night, dark and desired of men, Her feet like birds from far away that linger and light in doubt, And her face was like a window where a man's first love ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... their favourite author: the others did not exist for them. As a matter of fact, music had ousted literature: "the libraries were closed like sepulchres." But fashionable people were interested in an hydraulic organ, and they ordered from the lute-makers "lyres the size of chariots." Of course, this musical craze was sheer affectation. Actually, they were only interested in sports: to race, to arrange races, to breed horses, to train athletes and gladiators. As a pastime, they collected Oriental stuffs. Silk was then ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... the ecstasy of his delight dropped the Colonel's clothes-brush. "Lan' sakes!" he cried, "ef she ain't recommembered." Recovering his gravity and the brush simultaneously, he made Virginia a low bow. "Mornin', Miss Jinny. I sholy is gwinter s'lute you dis day. May de good Lawd make you happy, Miss Jinny, an' give you ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... agglomeration they may be thrown. So ten minutes after Bud Perkins left home he found Piggy and Jimmy and old Abe and Mealy in the menagerie tent. Whereupon the South End was able to present a bristling front to the North End—a front which even the pleasings of the lute in the circus band could not break. But the boys knew that the band playing in the circus tent meant that the performance in the ring was about to begin. So they cut short an interesting dialogue with a keeper, concerning the elephant that remembered the man who gave her tobacco ten years ...
— The Court of Boyville • William Allen White
... would say." Amene rose, and went into another closet, near to that where the bitches were, and brought out a case covered with yellow satin, richly embroidered with gold and green silk. She went towards Safie and opened the case, from whence she took a lute, and presented it to her: and after some time spent in tuning it, Safie began to play, and accompanying the instrument with her voice, sung a song about the torments that absence creates to lovers, with so much sweetness, that it charmed the caliph and all the company. Having sung with much ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... have drawn quite freely and sometimes literally from the excellent and authoritative translations of Chinese classics by Professor Giles in his "Chinese Literature" and from "The Lute of Jude" and "The Mastersingers of Japan," two books in the "Wisdom of the East" series edited by L. Cranmer-Byng and S. A. Kapadia (E. P. Dutton and Company). These translators have loved the songs of the ancient poets of China and Japan and caught with ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... for, and several of the princely company sang to the lute; Jean, pleased to show there was something in which her sister excelled, and gratified at some recollections that floated up of her father's skill in minstrelsy, insisted on sending ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge |
