"Melody" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for he speaks of the redoubtable Anthony Van Corlaer—purest of Dutchmen—as "passing through Hartford, and Pyquag, and Middletown, and all the other border towns, twanging his trumpet like a very devil, so that the sweet valleys and banks of the Connecticut resounded with the warlike melody, and stopping occasionally to eat pumpkin pies, dance at country frolics, and bundle with the beauteous lasses of those parts, whom he rejoiced exceedingly with his soul-stirring instrument." Which passage, while it proves that the practice of bundling prevailed in Connecticut, ...
— Bundling; Its Origin, Progress and Decline in America • Henry Reed Stiles
... and men out here may listen to your sweet voices." Thereupon a strange unearthly concert of voices burst on their ears from the cave, the nasal squeak of old men and women forming the dominant note. But the hearers outside listened with delight to the melody, praised the sweet voices of the singers, and then got up and danced to the music. The singing swelled louder and louder as the dance grew faster and more furious, till the concert closed in a nocturnal orgy of unbridled license, which, but for the absence of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... that opened the debate,' or 'the very eloquent gentleman who has just sat down.' All day the coming scene had been flitting before my fancy, and cajoling it. My ear already caught the glorious melody of 'Hear him! hear him!' Already I was practising how to steal a sidelong glance at the tears of generous approbation bubbling in the eyes of my little auditory,—never suspecting, alas! that a modern eye may have so little affinity with moisture, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... music and expression are everything. The words, often striking and suggestive, to be sure, represent broken fragments of ideas, thrown up from the depths of the Negroes' consciousness and swept along upon a torrent of wild, weird and often beautiful melody. One reason the verses of the Negro folk songs are so broken and fragmentary is that the Negroes were not yet in secure possession of the English language. Another explanation is the conditions under which they were produced. The very structure of these verses indicate ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... to be heard at all, except that soft sound of Juanita's voice, and the clear trills and quavers of the little birds' voices in the trees. There was no disturbance in any of those sounds; nothing but joy and gladness and the voice of melody ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... a group of trees further on, to listen to the song of a thrush, which was so full of melody that they approached him quite close without his noticing them, Nell and her aunt were amused by seeing two rooks quarrelling over a worm which they had both got hold of at the same time, one at either end gripping the unfortunate creature; ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... not, to be sure, understand its meaning, but she felt as though it must have some deep significance. It came back to her again and again, like a melody which haunts the inward ear against our will; and her meditative fancy was trying to solve its meaning, when Diodoros returned to tell her that the street was quite empty. He knew now where they were, and, if she liked, he could lead her by a way which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sound like that of a whistle with a pea in it. During the heat of the day all remain silent, and take their siesta in the shadiest parts of the trees, but in the cool of the evening they again exert themselves in the production of pleasant melody. It is remarkable that so many songbirds abound where there is a general paucity of other animal life. As we went forward we were struck by the comparative absence of game and the larger kind of fowls. The rivers contain very few fish. Common flies are not troublesome, as they are wherever ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... The quoted lines run in the same rhythm as the melody and should be pronounced accordingly. See Buddhist Hymns, ...
— The Buddha - A Drama in Five Acts and Four Interludes • Paul Carus
... with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... battle as if it were an enjoyable game. They mention the "Play of the spear" and speak of "putting to sleep with the sword," as if the din of war were in their ears a slumber melody. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... the costly taste of a woman who has not given up the thought of pleasing. Indeed, she was far from having given it up. Married a dozen years ago, for a second time, to the doctor, they seemed still to be at the first months of their dual happiness. While she sang a popular Russian melody, savage and sweet like the smile of a Slav, Jenkins was ingenuously proud, without seeking to dissimulate the fact, his broad face all beaming; and she, each time that she bent her head as she regained her breath, glanced in his direction a timid, affectionate smile that flew ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... would like very much to cry. Nothing had ever stirred her as this flood of melody which seemed to have been turned on for their especial benefit. While they listened, there came the sound of three pistol shots in quick succession and a cry. Was it an English cry ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... and Hamlet would have spoken the prose of daily life. Does a beautiful arch or dome or tower of a building imitate any part of reality? Is its architectural value dependent upon the similarity to nature? Or does the melody or harmony in music offer an ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... they were tossed about in their disorderly array. As they drew near, the Aztecs set up a hideous yell, which rose far above the sound of shell and atabat, and their other rude instruments of warlike melody. They followed this by a tempest of missiles—stones, darts, arrows—which fell thick as rain on the besieged. The Spaniards waited till the foremost column had arrived, when a general discharge of artillery and arquebusses ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... The most important and the most significant contributions they have made to art are in music,—first in the plaintive beauty of the so-called "Negro spirituals"—and, secondly, in the syncopated melody of so-called "ragtime" which has now taken the whole ...
— Fifty years & Other Poems • James Weldon Johnson
... replied, emphatically nodding her head. "Invent the steps." Sure of her melody she marked the rhythm boldly so as to simplify the way. Helen caught the idea; seized Miss Allan by the arm, and whirled round the room, now curtseying, now spinning round, now tripping this way and that like a child skipping ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... think they are crusaders sent From some infernal clime, To pluck the eyes of sentiment And dock the tail of Rhyme, To crack the voice of Melody And break the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... brown-jeans coat, moved with free, elastic gestures in all the liberties of a practiced bowing. If he saw the hunter motionless on the brink of the crag, the fiddler gave no intimation. His every faculty was as if enthralled by the swinging iteration of the sweet melancholy melody, rendered with a breadth of effect, an inspiration, it might almost have seemed, incongruous with the infirmities of the crazy old fiddle. He was like a creature under the sway of a spell, and apparently drawn by this dulcet lure of the enchantment of sound was the ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Willis is distinguished for exquisite finish and melody: his language is pure, varied, and rich; his imagination brilliant, and his wit of ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... fell the carving-knife was shaken out from the waist-band of my pantaloons, and dropped with a rattling sound to the floor. Never did any strain of the richest melody come so sweetly to my ears! With the intensest anxiety I listened to ascertain the effect of the noise upon Augustus—for I knew that the person who called my name could be no one but himself. All was silent for some moments. At length I again heard the word "Arthur!" repeated ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... yellowed keys. The spinet had been in the family for a number of years and very proud had the Schuyler girls been of it. Kate could rattle off gay waltzes and merry, rollicking tunes that fairly made the feet of the sedate village maidens flutter in time to their melody, but Marcia's music had always been more tender and spiritual. Dear old hymns, she loved, and some of the old classics. "Stupid old things without any tune," Kate called them. But Marcia persevered in ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... melody floated down from some unseen place, in varying strains of divine music broken by many pauses, and running through every phase of jubilation, sorrow, and pain. It ended in a low wail of unutterable sadness, a pleading, yearning cry of anguish, which seemed to call on God Himself to hear. When it ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... a second melody, a single melodious voice, and the King seemed to hear the words: "I am an angel, ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... meeting his mother. Fortunately, as he thought, she was away from home. He went out and down the path toward the gate. The air was full of the fragrance of blossoms and the melody of birds. Outside in the road a neighbor woman stood talking to a countryman in a wagon; they spoke to him; and he heard, but did not reply. Then he began to stride down the ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... often sit for whole hours by his cage, listening to his melody. Sometimes so attentively would she gaze at him, that she would insensibly let her work fall out of her hands; and after he had entertained her with his melodious notes, she would regale him with a tune on her bird organ, which he would endeavour ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... dim melody came to my ears. I recognized the sound of a rebaza, the violin with a single string, played by the Tuareg women. It was Aguida playing, squatting as usual at the feet of her mistress. The three other women ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... Stella was humming the words of the song, her fingers picking at the melody instead of ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... but that beautiful study plays a great part in every campaign. People are apt to abuse mathematics, when they don't know what they're talking about. The science of mathematics is the very basis of music, divine melody, ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... vr Poco:—Monsir, Acoutez in de Corner; me come for offer to your Bon gace mi trez humble service. By gar no John fidleco shall put into your neare braver Melody dan dis vn petite pipe shall play upon ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... reason, the greatest nature lover who ever lived says that it 'deserves preeminence.' It always settles from its long voyage through the air in an ecstasy of melody. Do you know what it ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... passion—not a rule, but a life—and, when he sang, his melodies reached heights of beauty that Beckmesser's rules did not provide for. It was Walter von Stolzing who sang the Prize Song, and as the hearts of the people were stirred in answer to its spontaneous melody, until all the population of Nuremberg were singing its accumulating harmonies, poor Beckmesser on his blackboard jotted down the rules which were being broken. Beckmesser represents a static conception of life ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... the children!" he said; and stepping out from his open window into the garden, he again bent his ear to listen. The tremulous voices came nearer and nearer, and words could now be distinguished, breaking through the primitive quavering melody of 'The Mayers' Song' known to all the country side since the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... reduced all music to a succession of soft chords, The Maid of Dundee and Annie Laurie, The Banks of Banna and The Last Rose of Summer, then one of the simpler nocturnes of Chopin, and, following these, a quaint, slow melody which was like all of the others and ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... the key-note of a great piece of music, and can skilfully keep it ever sounding its melody through all the changes clear to the end. It has been in my heart to wish that I could do something like that here. If what has come to me has gotten out of me into these pages, there will be found a dominant ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... The divine melody ceased; the elder stranger rose; the words were on the lips of Egremont, that would have asked some explanation of this sweet and holy mystery, when in the vacant and star-lit arch on which his glance was fixed, he beheld a female form. She was apparently in the habit of a Religious, yet scarcely ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... seldom rises above the expression of a cheerful gratitude and contentment. He had not the subtlety and elevation of Herbert, but he surpassed him in the grace, melody, sensuous beauty, and fresh lyrical impulse of his verse. The conceits of the metaphysical school appear in Herrick only in the form of an occasional pretty quaintness. He is the poet of English parish ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... and again until she had found out a way of producing them so as to make them a more pregnant, passionate language to her. The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she would often take up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she might taste more keenly by abstraction the more primitive sensation of intervals. Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... when wrought upon by these moral influences, turns everything to melody and beauty: The very crowing of the cock, who is sometimes heard in the profound repose of the country, "telling the night watches to his feathery dames," was thought by the common people to announce the approach of this ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... if they could be used with a chance of being understood. But, unfortunately, the ability to comprehend a great work, as a whole, is even rarer in music than in poetry. The little taking bits of melody are all that is thought of or perceived; the great epos or rhapsody, the form and meaning of the entire composition,—which is a work of Art in no other sense than a poem is one, except that it uses, instead of speech, musical forms, of greater variety and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... Let the melody of the Shepherd's reed fall gently on your ear,—"It is your Father's good pleasure." I have given you, He seems to say, the best proof that it is mine. In order to purchase that kingdom, I died for you! But it is also His: "As a shepherd seeketh ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... melodious sound that seemed to fill the air. No music on Earth could equal it! Before me arose a vision of beautiful flowers—flowers that had thoughts as beautiful as themselves, and that through the genius of a man poured forth their souls in a volume of melody, so beautiful as ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... of Hermogenes Tigellius may soil. I repeat to nobody, except my intimates, and that when I am pressed; nor any where, and before any body. There are many who recite their writings in the middle of the forum; and who [do it] while bathing: the closeness of the place, [it seems,] gives melody to the voice. This pleases coxcombs, who never consider whether they do this to no purpose, or at an unseasonable time. But you, says he, delight to hurt people, and this you do out of a mischievous disposition. From what source do you throw this calumny upon me? Is any one ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Trills of melody were heard behind the scenes, and gurgling from a sweet pasteboard cottage covered with roses and trellis work. "Philomele, Philomele," cries the old woman, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of it. The up-gushing water had now again taken the shape of a man in a long, white, fleecy robe, who appeared to be making gestures of welcome. The king likewise heard the noise of the shuttle in the loom and the sweet melody of the beautiful woman's song, and then the pleasant voices of herself and the four maidens talking together, with peals of merry laughter intermixed. But Ulysses did not waste much time in listening to the laughter or the song. He leaned ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grating; nor so surlily Rocked the Tarpeian when by force bereft Of good Metellus, thenceforth from his loss To leanness doomed. Attentively I turned, Listening the thunder that first issued forth; And "We praise Thee, O God," methought I heard, In accents blended with sweet melody. The strains came o'er mine ear, e'en as the sound Of choral voices, that in solemn chant With organ mingle, and, now high and clear Come swelling, now ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... apartments. Walking down the great corridor which led to these, the most beautiful rooms in the palace, he became aware of the silvery sound of stringed instruments mingling with harmonious voices,—though he scarcely heeded the soft rush of melody which came thus wafted to his ears. He was full of thoughts and schemes,—his son's refusal to confide in him had not seriously troubled him, because he knew he should, with patience, find out in good time all that the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... major: Chopin'—what rot! As if working people cared about Chopin! Miss Elinor McQuinch is a fool, I see. 'Song: The Valley: Gounod.' Of course: I knew you would try that. Oho! Here's something sensible at last. 'Nigger melody. Uncle Ned. Mr. Marmaduke Lind, accompanied by himself ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... sleep, consciousness reverts to its pure condition—the individual self becomes the All-Self: the rainbow, no longer prismatic by reason of its refraction in materiality, becomes the pure white light; the melody of life resolves itself into the primordial harmony; sequence becomes simultaneity, and Time, no longer "besprent with seven-hued circumstance," ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... materialism—"What can we reason but from what we know?"—which is stated, explained, and defended with an axiomatic brevity rarely equalled, never surpassed—with a number of illustrations comprising the chef d'oeuvre of poetic grace, and synthical melody combined with arguments as cogent as the examples ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... the shocking cynicism of the gallows song Die duerre Dirne mit langen Halse. Such music is shameful—"and that's the precise effect I was after"—could the composer triumphantly answer, and he would be right. What kind of music is this, without melody, in the ordinary sense; without themes, yet every acorn of a phrase contrapuntally developed by an adept; without a harmony that does not smite the ears, lacerate, figuratively speaking, the ear-drums; keys forced into hateful marriage that are miles asunder, or ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... seemed to tread on eider-down, and, cigar in mouth, strolled along Fleet-street and the Strand, towards my domicile in Half-Moon street—"nescio quid meditans nugarum"—sometimes humming the fag end of an Irish melody; anon stopping to stare in a print-shop window; and then I would trudge on, chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy as I conned over the various ups and downs that had chequered my life since Jack Withers and I were thoughtless lads ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... insignificant works of the stereotyped sort, with much sound and very little thought and feeling, the hand of a master is visible, and talent is perceptible; while many passages are remarkable for their poetic figures, melody of versification, and beauty and force of expression. No poet previous to Pushkin can be compared to him for talent, and for direct, independent inspiration. His poetry is chiefly the poetry of figures ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... from which groups of angels stand out, playing all sorts of music, or dancing with hand clasped in hand. Two are prostrated in profound admiration at the base, and shed clouds of incense from their thuribles, while two others draw melody from heavenly harps. ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... pointed sentences, comprised in vigorous and animated lines. This character Rowe has very diligently and successfully preserved. His versification, which is such as his contemporaries practised, without any attempt at innovation or improvement, seldom wants either melody or force. His author's sense is sometimes a little diluted by additional infusions, and sometimes weakened by too much expansion. But such faults are to be expected in all translations, from the constraint of measures and dissimilitude of languages. The ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... times would occupy his favourite seat on the water cask, and looking up at the sky and then on the ocean, and between whiles he would whistle a strange, wild, unknown melody. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... like a beast that is deaf and senseless. Even reading hardly serves to distract me now, though I bury myself in books in my despair. As for composition, that is finished; I can no longer bring to mind the meaning of a harmony or a melody, and I almost begin to doubt if the compositions that bear my name are really mine. Good God! what is the use of all this fame? What is the good of these great aims if misery is all that lies at ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... them; so that I left my home with a decided dislike to barrel-organs in general. Four years' residence, however, in the bush had rendered me much less fastidious in music, as well as in many other things; and during the two last years spent at York Factory, not a solitary note of melody had soothed my longing ear, so that it was with a species of rapture that I now ground away at the handle of this organ, which happened to be a very good one, and played in perfect tune. "God Save the Queen," "Rule Britannia," "Lord McDonald's Reel," and the "Blue Bells of Scotland" were played ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... reality, it is much more exquisitely appreciated and enjoyed in Nature's way. If the nerves are perfectly free, they will catch the rhythm of the music, and so be helped back to the true rhythm of Nature, they will respond to the harmony and melody with all the vibratory power that God gave them, and how can the result be anything else than rest and refreshment,—unless having allowed them to vibrate in one direction too long, we have disobeyed a law ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... again in five minutes with a face which drove all thoughts of melody from Peter's head. In fact, at sight of it, he came instantly to a sitting position and his guitar slid unheeded ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that simple stone; a solemn tread in every foot that trenches on its limits. This is the grave of a great poet. A man whose works, though little read in modern times, were once the wonder of his country; and whose very name comes upon the German people in a gush of melody, and a halo of bright thoughts. It is like an old legend breathed through the chords of a harp. This is the grave of Klopstock, the Milton of Germany. We will enter the churchyard, and look for a moment on the unimposing tablet. The inscription is scarcely legible, but the poet's mother lies ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... greater than I. They cannot feel, but there may be something in them that feels,—a glorious intelligence, as much nobler and more swift than mine, as these rays, which are its body, are nobler and swifter than my flesh;—the spirit of all light, and truth, and melody, and ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... and laden with the perfume of the flowers. A nightingale was singing plaintively in an adjoining tree, and presently came a response equally tender from another part of the grove. Mistress Nutter could not choose but listen, and the melody so touched her that she was half suffocated by repressed emotion, for, alas! the relief of tears was ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... nursed his wounds, till, when the snow melted, the huntsman's "In-hoick, in-hoick, loo-loo-in-hoick!" resounded in the coverts, and he was routed from his lair for a last, half-hearted chase, that ended as Melody pulled him down at a ford of the river ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... have already made many beautiful things of it," said Gottsched, in the full consciousness of his own fame. "But you have not been able to give it any melody, or any grace," said Frederick. "The German language is a succession of barbarous sounds; there is no music in it. Every tone is rough and harsh, and its many discords make it useless for poetry or eloquence. For instance, in German you call a rival 'Nebenbuhler,' ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... tender that night and Billy felt a strange constriction in his throat. But you never would have guessed, as Lynn Severn turned at the end of her melody to search the dimness for the presence she felt had entered, that he had been under any stress of emotion, the way he grinned at her and ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... poetic expression of the same thought is given by Spangenberg in a poem written during the voyage, and sent home to David Nitschmann to be set to the music of some "Danish Melody" known to them both. There is a beauty of rhythm in the original which the English cannot reproduce, as though the writer had caught the cadence of the waves, on some bright day when the ship "went softly" after a ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... boy singing, and I said how pleasant it was to hear a real Sicilian melody sung by a modern Theocritus about the delights of his own country. But Peppino soon put a stop to that. The boy was one of a theatrical company that had arrived in the town from Piedmont where the song was popular; he did not know all the words, ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... a legendary hero, indefinitely dating back. May not his monody, then, be a spontaneous melody, that has been with us since Mardi began? What bard composed the soft verses that our palm boughs sing at even? Nay, Yoomy, that monody was not written ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... away from each other by design. We have already made two breakfast-tables: yet I am meek; he is sullen: I make courtesies; he returns not bows.—Sullen creature, and a rustic!—I go to my harpsichord; melody enrages him. He is worse than Saul; for Saul could be gloomily pleased with the music even ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... readily and charmingly, and her hidden auditor was indeed charmed. She was singing to an absent one, and she mingled the name of our hero in her song. It was a plea for the absent one to return, and the sweetness of the melody was not more entrancing than the verses. She appeared to be not only a singer but a poetess, ...
— A Desperate Chance - The Wizard Tramp's Revelation, A Thrilling Narrative • Old Sleuth (Harlan P. Halsey)
... "fresh-water college" has an advantage. First, it was given under gas; then, the hall being darkened, a magnesium-light gave a moon-like radiance, in which the dew on the buds glistened, and the mignonette seemed to exhale a double perfume, and a dreamy melody of Mendelssohn sung by two sweet girl-voices floated out about the "pleached bower," like a song of nightingales. Then toward the end came the scene of the chapel and Hero's tomb. No lovelier form was ever sculptured than that of the beautiful Queen Louisa of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... feet, Fearing the sounds would vanish into air, And prove delusion ere she reach'd the spot, She forward rush'd, and soon beheld the friend, The dear companion of her youth. She seiz'd The hand that lay upon the quivering chords, Stopping their melody and resting mute. The pause was awful—He at length exclaim'd, In a deep, laboured cry, "Ye heavenly powers! If Lora lives, the hand I feel is hers!" She could not speak, but with her other hand Clasp'd his, and sigh'd and rais'd her eyes to heaven, When ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... on his comrade's cheeks, and bowed his head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple loosestrife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will on Mole, and mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all ...
— The Wind in the Willows • Kenneth Grahame
... long after the joy of peace; for the peace of Thy children do I beseech, for in the light of Thy comfort they are fed by Thee. If Thou give peace, if Thou pour into me holy joy, the soul of Thy servant shall be full of melody, and devout in Thy praise. But if Thou withdraw Thyself as too often Thou art wont, he will not be able to run in the way of Thy commandments, but rather he will smite his breast and will bow his knees; ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... oddly. One minute, a very brute-beast in his ferocity, the next, a woman in his tenderness and a poet in his thoughts. But if the boy was puzzled, he was, at least, discreet. He put nothing into words: merely walked on in silence, and left the man to his thoughts and the nightingales to their melody. ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... strength to bear everything; sorrow and misery and persecution. He saw his people doing the work of servants through the centuries, from the farthest past to the present day. He saw the bare walls of the synagogue, the wretched Ark of the Covenant, he heard the sad melody of their prayers which grew to despairing screams. . . . He had the feeling that he was with his people in a large ship. For eternities this ship was on a voyage of searching. It landed at harbors always new and strange: Egypt, Palestine, Babylon, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... the study and general keeping-room of the master of Scarthey, and here, for the greater part, daily sat Sir Adrian Landale, placidly reading, writing, or thinking at his table; or at his organ, lost in soaring melody; or yet, by the fireside, in his wooden arm-chair musing over the events of that strange world of thought he had made his own; whilst the aging black retriever with muzzle stretched between his paws slept his light, lazy sleep, ever and anon opening an eye ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... song, ye Nightingales! O, pour The mazy-running soul of melody Into my varied verse. The Seasons: Spring. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... Master, And sweet the Magic, When over the valley, In early summers, Over the mountain, On human faces, And all around me, Moving to melody Floated ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... from which he selected a cigar with anxious care and much sniffing; then he bade me a ceremonious adieu and departed down the stairs, blithely humming a melody from the latest ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... (Op. 8) and the two Ballades, but with some reservation. The first Ballade appears to me somewhat cut short; it wants I know not what at the beginning and towards the middle (page 7) of something needed to make the melody stand out; and the pastorale of the 2nd Ballade (page 7) figures like a too-cheap piece of "padding."... And, since I am in the vein for criticising, let me ask why you call your "Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman"—"Caprice grotesque?" Apart from ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... to have dinner in the Garden Grill, for the place itself was a romantic dream of beauty with its palm trees and boxes of shrubs. And the music—the music carried them far away from the present on golden wings of melody and made them forget that there was anything sordid or unpleasant in all ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... ancient majesty of woods Adorn'd, or lifting high its rocks sublime. The river's liquid radiance roll'd beneath, Beside the bower of Madelon it wound A broken stream, whose shallows, tho' the waves Roll'd on their way with rapid melody, A child might tread. Behind, an orange grove Its gay green foliage starr'd with golden fruit; But with what odours did their blossoms load The passing gale of eve! less thrilling sweet Rose from the marble's ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... could never be said of the boom from a Buddhist temple, even though it pour waves of sound through sunny leagues. There is a vast difference between the peal and play of the chimes of Europe and the liquid melody which floods the landscape of Chinese Asia. The one music, high in air, seems ever to tell of faith, triumph and aspiration; the other in minor notes, from bells hung low on yokes, perpetually echoes the pessimism of despair, the folly of living ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... must be obeyed, even if some of the rules were broken, and Ben and Paul were ordered by the author, who had taken upon himself the position of sole manager, to raise the curtain. Then Nelly came out and sang a melody that all were familiar with, being assisted by the audience in the chorus, until Mrs. Green was obliged to cover her ears with her hands, lest the great volume of music should give her ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis
... till the sounds ceased. Then came the soft sweet notes of a melody which she knew well, played by Herr Wildermann alone; and a few minutes after she saw among the trees the tall thin figure of the young German, laden with but two violins this time as he made his way ...
— A Christmas Posy • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... bird and bee, The chorus of the breezes, streams, and groves, All the grand music to which Nature moves, Are wasted melody To her; the world of sound a tuneless void; While even Silence ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... attention or encouragement. The effect of this was probably felt when that extraordinary love of culture and admiration for art manifested itself amid the courts of her princes, about the middle of the fifteenth century. The love of melody then, as now, was deeply rooted in the nature of her people. Musical composition, however, of a high order, and able executants, were to be found elsewhere, and in Flanders in particular, and there the principal music ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... for us, with all the tenderer love and finer genius, now that man's enterprise is wrecked abroad? Shall we have no Music? Has the universal "panic" griped the singers' throats, that they can no longer vibrate with the passionate and perfect freedom indispensable to melody? It must not be. The soul is too rich in resources to let all its interests fail because one fails. If business and material speculation have been overdone, if we are checked and flung down in these mad endeavors to accumulate vast means of living, we shall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... continued Glenn, "although beyond human consciousness, there may be heavenly sounds in the air—the melody of aerial harps and fairy voices—to which our ears may be sealed, when, perchance, our vicinity to their presence may inspire the peculiar sensation I ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... the Salvation Army soldiers; "sing with us! It is good to sing." They started a well-known melody. They struck their guitars and repeated the same verse over and over. They got one or two of those sitting nearest to join in, but now sounded down by the door a light street song. Notes struggled against notes, words against words, guitar against whistle. ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... sad little love lyric which Baroni himself had set to music specially for the voice of his favourite pupil, and as Diana's low rich notes took up the plaintive melody, the audience settled itself down with a sigh of satisfaction to ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Sense and Apprehensions we have of his Essential Glories; and what notice we take of his Works of Wisdom and Power, Vengeance and Mercy; 'tis to vent the inward Devotion of our Spirits in Words of Melody, to speak our own Experience of divine Things, especially our religious Joy; 'twould be tiresom to recount the endless Instances out of the Book of Psalms and other divine Songs, where this is made ...
— A Short Essay Toward the Improvement of Psalmody • Isaac Watts
... Monthly, The World's Work, the Dial, The New World, and the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Before each chapter, as now printed, stands a bar of the Sorrow Songs,—some echo of haunting melody from the only American music which welled up from black souls in the dark past. And, finally, need I add that I who speak here am bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of them that ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... is desired to sing this as a simple Hymn, the Melody of the 3rd verse should be omitted and the words sung to the opening eight bars, as in the ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... truth he was at peace. The rain falling in the street sounded natural and pleasant. Presently, on the other side, the notes of a piano were wakened to the music of a hymn, and the voices of many children took up the air and words. How stately, how comfortable was the melody! How fresh the youthful voices! Markheim gave ear to it smilingly, as he sorted out the keys; and his mind was thronged with answerable ideas and images; church-going children and the pealing of the high organ; children afield, bathers by the brookside, ramblers ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... planets sound forth the deep bass tones and rich tenor, while angelic races take the silvery treble of the Divine melody, octave upon octave, by more and ever more ethereal system upon system, to the very throne of Deity—the Infinite, Eternal source of Light, Life and Love. Let us learn, through the knowledge of the stars, to attune our souls to vibrate to the Divine harmony, ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... said that the license formerly accorded by composers to singers—particularly operatic singers—manifested itself in a twofold form. The second of these phases was the introduction in the body of a theme or melody, and also at its close, of embellishments. Sometimes the composer briefly sketched these ornaments; at other times their places only were indicated. The ornaments in the body of an air are known as abbellimenti or fioriture; those at its ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... were these—to be sung at a mixed concert in a summer hotel in the primitive village of St. Ignace? Ringfield knew enough French to follow them, and as the minor plainsong of the melody floated through the hall, he saw Miss Clairville's eyes filling with tears where she sat in the front at one side awaiting her turn. She had often spoken to him of the beautiful national music of her ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... author has succeeded better in copying the melody and misanthropic sentiments of Childe Harold, than the nervous and impetuous diction in which his noble biographer has embodied them. The attempt, however, indicates very considerable power; and the flow of the verse and ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... dancers' feet were tingling to begin. Michael Walsh, who always played at the Wankelo dances, sat down at the piano and struck two loud arresting bars, then gently caressed from the keys the crooning melody of the Wisteria Waltz. Two by two, the dancers drew into the maze of music and movement, and became part of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... instant a little bird on a tree near the door poured forth his joy in a gush of glad melody, and Elsie, again running her fingers lightly over the keys, sang with ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... brass band, now that of a single unknown instrument—as though the composer had had at his command every overtone capable of being produced by any possible instrument, and with them had woven a veritable tapestry of melody upon an incredibly complex loom of sound. As went the harmony, so the play of light accompanied it. Neither music nor illumination came from any apparent source; they simply pervaded the entire room. When the music was fast—and certain passages were of a rapidity impossible ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... in despite of empty stomach and aching limbs, amused himself and annoyed all others by singing a line of one and a verse of another, of all the old songs he could recollect from his earliest boyhood; dispensing his croaking melody with such untiring zeal as to keep the most weary awake had they been inclined ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... self-revealment. Nor shall we ever be able to foretell just how small a circumstance, just how slight an exigency, will suffice to bring on the great change. The shifting of a smile to the gloom of a frown, the snap of a string on the lute of our imagination, just at the point when a rich melody is culminating; the waving of a hand, a vanishing face—any eclipse of tender, joyous expectation—dashes a nameless sense of despair into the soul. And a young girl's soul—who shall uncover its sacred depths of sensitiveness, or analyze ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... yonder city's wall That shields her, looks far distant; but this ground Is surely sacred, thickly planted over With olive, bay and vine, within whose bowers Thick-fluttering song-birds make sweet melody. Here then repose thee on this unhewn stone. Thou hast travelled far to-day ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... sank away in silence, and a strange golden light that had shone on the great stove faded away; so also the light died down in the silver candelabra. A soft, pathetic melody stole gently through the room. It came from the old, old spinet that was covered ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)
... on to sing, which he did of Norway with tremendous enthusiasm and noise but little melody. Then another man sang a love-ditty in a very gruff voice and much out of tune, which, nevertheless, to the man's evident satisfaction, was laughingly applauded. After him a sentimental youth sang, in a sweet tenor voice, ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... added she, with a musical laugh, which made Tom think of the melody of the spheres, or some ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... musicians slowly, with shuffling steps. The quiet is broken by a note on a gong, struck softly, and there is an almost inaudible flute melody on reeds, and liquid notes struck on empty bamboos. These dusky figures are Kachin men, with red turbans, and short, white, very loose kilts and bolero jackets. Some of the reflected light from the sand shows their curious, serious, boyish ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the plaining whippoorwill Cries faint and far away; more distant still The hoopoe, hid his marshy haunts among, Wails with the cry of some lost soul in pain; The nightingale engilds the pulsant dark With golden-throated melody—but hark! The night-jar's ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... gallery, balls have been given, each costing, it is said, $100,000. In cream and gold the picture gallery spreads; the walls are profuse with costly paintings, and at one end is a gallery in wrought iron where musicians give out melody on festive occasions. The dining rooms of these houses are of an immensity. Embellished in old oak incrusted with gold, their walls are covered with antique tapestries set in huge oak framework with margins thick with gold. Upon the diners a luxurious ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... sure, remembers it, too, so longingly did she regard it as the crisp, starchy breadths of it slid between her fingers. But whatever were her longings, she said nothing of them; she bent over the sewing-machine humming an Old-World melody. In every straight, smooth seam, perhaps, she tucked away some lingering impulse of childhood; but she matched the scrolls and flowers with the utmost care. If a sudden shock of rebellion made her straighten up for an instant, the next instant she was bending ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... as sculptors design beauty, as musicians create melody; that is to say, endowed with an exquisite nervous organization, they gather up with discerning ardor the purest elements of life, the most beautiful lines of matter, and the most harmonious voices of nature. There lived, it ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... distinguished by its melody, as it has no broad or hissing consonants. The pronunciation is rendered difficult by its ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... began lightly and delicately, creeping up through the varied registers of the noble instrument, blending the beautiful sounds into wonderful combinations, now and then working in a sweet melody, and then again upward until the grand harmonies of the full organ rolled forth. There was something mysterious and awe-inspiring in the effort. It seemed to the people that they ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... piano was playing the melody my mother most often played. My agony was beyond bearing. Repentance again swept over me, and eased me. It had been many years since I had heard that old-fashioned tune. At the first chord on the piano a flood of memories rushed ...
— Futurist Stories • Margery Verner Reed
... tragico vilem certavit ob hircum, Mox etiam agrestes Satyros nudavit, et asper Incolumi gravitate jocum tentavit: eo quod A richer stream of melody is known, Numbers more copious, and ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... Master left the cooks and joined the artists. The melody was heard again, this time ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the time of this ecstatic Amateur was most erratic, And he only hit the key Once in every melody. ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... enunciation, first of all; he heard them, it is true, whenever she spoke; but now the utterance sounded sweeter than usual, as if there were a vibration from some fuller than usual mental harmony, and the voice was of a silvery melody. It contrasted with the other voices, which were more or less rough or grating or nasal, too high pitched or low, and rough-cadenced, as uncultured voices are apt to be. From the voices, Mr. Dillwyn's attention was drawn to what the voices said. And here ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... form, and face she never demanded immediate homage by the sudden flash of her beauty. But when her spell had once fallen on a man's spirit it was not often that he could escape from it quickly. When she spoke a peculiar melody struck the hearer's ears. Her voice was soft and low and sweet, and full at all times of harmonious words; but when she laughed it was like soft winds playing among countless silver bells. There was something in her touch which to men was almost ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... him more as a man of study than of practice and experience, they were glad to make use of it. His versatile genius found another employment. Besides his affluence in topics, he had the liveliest fancy and most active imagination. But that he wanted the sense of poetic fitness and melody, he might almost be supposed, with his reach and play of thought, to have been capable, as is maintained in some eccentric modern theories, of writing Shakespeare's plays. No man ever had a more imaginative power of illustration ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... reminds me," added young Harmar, "that I've a song here, which I wrote for one of the papers, in relation to Lafayette. It is arranged in the measure of the feeling melody of 'Auld Lang Syne.'" ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... resumed its usual melody and power, and we sat down while he turned the pages of Prof. Bain's little work entitled "Mind and Body." He read (I marked at the time the passage): "The memory rises and falls with the bodily condition; being vigorous in our fresh moments and feeble ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... in a large flower it is sucking out the juice. Its nest is very curious, and discovers amazing art and contrivance. These are some of the feathered inhabitants of this forest, among which there is little melody, and, were it otherways, the music would all be lost, by the continual croaking of frogs, which swarm in millions over ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness; Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken The dreary melody of bedded reeds— In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds 240 The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth; Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx—do thou now, By thy love's milky brow! By all the trembling mazes ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... The words and melody harmonised with our feelings and lent them a deeper tone as our united voices floated out upon ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... Elma cried enthusiastically, as the composer looked up at her with an inquiring glance. "I never heard anything in my life before that went so straight through one, with its penetrating melody. Such a lovely gliding sound, you know! So soft and serpentine!" And even as she said it, a deep flush rose red in the centre of her cheek. She was sorry for the words before they were out of her mouth. They recalled ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen |
