"Serenade" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... entertained, however, during those waking hours with a serenade such as few civilized ears ever listen to. This was nothing else than a vocal concert performed by all the dogs of the village, and as they amounted to nearly two thousand the orchestra was a ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... a little impertinent Honour, we may chance to lose, 'tis true; but our down-right Honesty I perceive you are resolv'd we shall maintain through all the dangers of Love and Gallantry; though to say truth, I find enough to do, to defend my Heart against some of those Members that nightly serenade us, and daily show themselves before our Window, gay as young Bridegrooms, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... plus froid et plus pale, C'est la ville du gaz, des marins, du brouillard; On s'y couche a minuit, et l'on s'y leve tard; Ses raouts tant vantes ne sont qu'une boxade, Sur ses grands quais jamais echelle ou serenade, Mais de volumineux bourgeois pris de porter Qui passent sans lever le front a Westminster; Et n'etait sa foret de mats percant la brume, Sa tour dont a minuit le vieil oeil s'allume, Et tes deux yeux, Zerline, illumines bien plus, Je dirais que, ma foi, des romans que j'ai ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Summer The Sea of Death To an Absentee Lycus the Centaur The Two Peacocks of Bedfont Hymn to the Sun Midnight To a Sleeping Child To Fancy Fair Ines To a False Friend Ode—Autumn Sonnet—Silence Sonnet Sonnet—to an Enthusiast To a Cold Beauty Sonnet—Death Serenade Verses in an Album The Forsaken Song Song Birthday Verses I Love Thee Lines False Poets and True The Two Swans Ode on a Distant Prospect of Clapham Academy Song The Water Lady Autumn I Remember, I Remember! ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... The Rose Richard Lovelace Song, "See, see, she wakes! Sabina wakes" William Congreve Mary Morison Robert Burns Wake, Lady Joanna Baillie The Sleeping Beauty Samuel Rogers "The Young May Moon" Thomas Moore "Row Gently Here" Thomas Moore Morning Serenade Madison Cawein Serenade Aubrey Thomas De Vere Lines to an Indian Air Percy Bysshe Shelley Good-Night Percy Bysshe Shelley Serenade George Darley Serenade Thomas Hood Serenade Edward Coote Pinkney Serenade Henry ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... disembarked with his family. They found Mons. and Madame Quesnel, with a few friends, seated on sofas in the portico, enjoying the cool breeze of the night, and eating fruits and ices, while some of their servants at a little distance, on the river's bank, were performing a simple serenade. Emily was now accustomed to the way of living in this warm country, and was not surprised to find Mons. and Madame Quesnel in their portico, ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... had been served in the drawing-room, Hood, again dominating the company (much to Deering's disgust), suggested music. Pierrette contributed a flashing, golden Chopin waltz and Pantaloon Schubert's "Serenade," which he played atrociously, whereupon Hood announced that he would sing a Scotch ballad, which he proceeded to do surprisingly well. The evening could not last forever, and Deering chafed at his inability to detach Pierrette from the piano; but she was most provokingly submissive ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... Christendom. As they went up the river the canoe men spoke to their priests, who were invisible to them, in a most sepulchral tone of voice, and were answered in the same unearthly and doleful manner. These sounds formed their nocturnal serenade. Notwithstanding the novelty of their situation and the interest they took in the objects, which surrounded them, they were so overcome with fatigue, that they wrapped a flannel around them, and fell ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Count, and he began thrumming on his arm for an accompaniment. 'Well, when I was with the Duc d'Angouleme in Spain, we sometimes indulged in a serenade at Seville. I will try ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... played a serenade on the guitar, and a member of the orchestra played a waltz for violin, and both ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... the night, we hear the note of the Italian Cricket, the OEcanthus pellucens, Scop. One diurnal and one nocturnal, between them they share the kindly half of the year. When the Field-Cricket ceases to sing it is not long before the other begins its serenade. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... reflections! but my master expects thee, honest Lopez, to secure his retreat from Donna Clara's window, as I guess.—[Music without.] Hey! sure, I heard music! So, so! Who have we here? Oh, Don Antonio, my master's friend, come from the masquerade, to serenade my young mistress, Donna Louisa, I suppose: so! we shall have the old gentleman up presently.—Lest he should miss his son, I had best lose no time in getting to my ...
— The Duenna • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... there were every winter. There was also a small band of music in the village, and serenades were not uncommon. We, boys used to give them on the flute to our favorites. But when the band came to serenade us, I shall never forget the commotion it made in the house, and the delight we had in it. We children were immediately up in a wild hurry of pleasure, and my father always went out to welcome the performers, and to bring them into the house ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... continued closed and dark; and at last the man, compelled to content himself with an invisible auditory,—in spite of the Spanish proverb, which says, no woman sleeps so soundly that the twang of a guitar will not bring her to the window,—began to sing in a strong Andalusian accent. The serenade consisted of a dozen verses, in which the singer celebrated the charms of a cruel mistress, vowed inextinguishable love, and denounced fearful vengeance upon all rivals. The menaces, however, were far more abundant, in this rude ditty, than the praises ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... whispering of the trees, and hushing the melancholy of a night-bird's song, came the wild low note of the Romany epic of vengeance. It had a thrill of exultation. Something in the voice, insistent, vibrating, personal, made every note a thrust of victory. In spite of her indignation at the insolent serenade, she thrilled; for the strain of the Past was in her, and it had been fighting with her all night, breaking in upon the Present, tugging at the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... like him, he might behold his own burial. But heaven smiled with her thousand lights, and invited to love; the stars looked at each other with love; the nightingales sang of love; even the crickets amorously vibrated their sonorous elytra, as troubadours the plectrum, in a serenade; all the earth on this tranquil and beautiful night seemed given up to love. There was no warning; there was no sign; there was no funeral pomp; all ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... for the renter on the Mexican side. The setting moon was at its back, and the open doorway showed only as a darker splotch. He lifted the fiddle again. "Chinaboy, Jap, Hindu, Poor Man, Rich Man, Beggar Man or Mexican—I'll give you a serenade all ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... difficulty; but the evening passed, and we retired undisturbed. Not long afterward a series of indescribable sounds broke the stillness of the night, and the tramp of feet was heard outside the house. Mr. R. called out, "It's a serenade, H. Get up and bring out all the wine you have." Annie and I peeped through the parlor window, and lo! it was the company of volunteers and a diabolical band composed of bones and broken-winded brass instruments. They piped and clattered and whined for some time, and then ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... country, abounding with deer and turkeys and prairie chickens. Village after village they entered. Tribe after tribe they met. But everywhere they encountered the same invariable hospitality. On one occasion a group of singers came to their cabin, and treated them with a serenade of plaintive music. At the same time one of their number crowned M. Chevalier with a ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... by, on a less sombre subject. He dashed in upon Sir George, crying, 'Sir, I have seen the Old Gentleman,' and with his frame shaking as if he had. It was the Australian bat on midnight circuit, a strange serenade to the European. Another of nature's creatures was to figure amid circumstances which did hold cause ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... I recalled Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that "serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks;" that singing, "in bad accord," of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... to serenade us," cried Phil. "That's Mr. Sparling all over. What do you think of that, Mrs. Cahill? You never were serenaded by a circus band before, ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... Mary's first good-night in Edinburgh: that 'serenade of 500 rascals with vile fiddles and rebecks'; that singing, 'in bad accord,' of Protestant psalms by the wet crowd beneath the palace windows, while the fires on Arthur's Seat shot flickering gleams of welcome through the dreary fog. What a lullaby for poor ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the Serenade. Part one: The Spanish lover with bow-knot shoes, pointed hat, and mantle over shoulder, stands, with his lute, on the covered water-butt, while at the casement above is his lady's charming face. Part two: The head of the water-butt has given ...
— Five Hundred Dollars - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... money which I retained for my own exigencies enabled me to make friends with the porter, and I obtained egress or ingress at any hour. I was a proficient on the guitar; and incongruous as it may appear with my monastic vows, I often hastened from the service at vespers to perform in a serenade to some fair senora, whose inamorato required the powers of my voice to soften her ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... arms," Ned grinned. "Here. I'll put these cuffs on again, with one arm locked carelessly. You can draw the bar out when you pull right hard. Now, eat what you need and take a run up the slope. We'll follow you with a serenade of bullets. When you join the outlaws down in the ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... top step he felt himself on a level floor. Shafts of light, escaping from between tall objects before him, invaded the darkness. A stringed orchestra was playing something soft, plaintively sweet. He recognized the music as Schubert's "Serenade." He stumbled over a sawhorse and his guide turned upon him with a quick admonition to be more careful. Except for the music there ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... air; melody &c. 413; aria, arietta[obs3]; piece of music[Fr], work, number, opus; sonata; rondo, rondeau[Fr]; pastorale, cavatina[obs3], roulade[obs3], fantasia, concerto, overture, symphony, variations, cadenza; cadence; fugue, canon, quodlibet, serenade, notturno [Italian], dithyramb; opera, operetta; oratorio; composition, movement; stave; passamezzo [obs3][Italian], toccata, Vorspiel [German]. instrumental music; full score; minstrelsy, tweedledum and tweedledee, band, orchestra; concerted piece[Fr], ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Benicia to sing at a concert given by the Methodist Church. I sang in the same old Courthouse Hall where so often we had our closing exercises. It was in this hall, June 12, 1856, that I sang Schubert's Serenade for the first time with Johanna Lapfgeer, soprano, afterwards Mrs. Dr. Bryant of San Francisco. I still have the programme which today is fifty-five years old. My return was in 1898. After the concert I hoped to see many of my old friends of Benicia, but there were but ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... and whirled and blew around the Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," or the "Skylark," or one of Colcott's glees, or one of Mendelssohn's two-part songs, or Schubert's "Serenade," or Beethoven's "Adelaide"; or maybe an interlude of piano, one of Mozart's Sonatas, or "Der Freyschutz," and then a Kyrie, Dona Nobis, Gloria, or Agnus Dei, one or all, until it was time to retire. And ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... were not yet ready, posts himself at night before the window of the maiden and sings his song as a test, for it is important to gain her vote upon which rests the final decision when the prize is bestowed. Sachs, whose workshop lies opposite the house for which the serenade is intended, when the Marker opens, begins to sing loudly also because as he declares to the irate serenader, this is necessary for him, if he would remain awake while at work so late, and that the work is urgent ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... and hear it! The very rudeness of Mrs. Martha's words, so often repeated, gave her a feeling in favour of their object. She had known Mrs. Martha unjust before. Poor Tom! if he had only been a Spaniard, he would have sung about the white dove—his pretty thought—in a serenade, but then he might have poignarded Mr. James in his passion, which would have been less agreeable—she supposed he had forgotten her long ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fact that Gatti, the ass, begged the Archbishop for permission to compose a serenade shows his worthiness to wear the title, which I make no doubt he deserves ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... "Gradually," said my friend to me, "I discovered a process by which I might execute a deed of separation. First, I rattled my stick against the area railings, and I saw him wince; then I whistled an Ethiopian serenade, and 'o'er his face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced'; but when I set my hat well on the back of my head, and gorped with open mouth at six legs of pork in a butcher's shop, he fled, and I saw ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... rich voice floats down the glade, In soft, unwonted tones Like gentle winds through pine-tree cones; He sings the Warrior's Serenade; While at the end of every strain— With more effect his cause to plead— He plays a wild and shrill refrain Upon a flute ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... words obtrude a meaning which the music may not suggest, though the capacity of fine music is equal to any words. The beauty of Schubert's songs is their completeness. They are lyrics, and the words are only an addition. Those who heard Rakemann play the translated serenade will remember that the instrumentation produced the whole effect of the song. If the music be fine, it gives all the sentiment of the words in its own way. It is like painting a statue to unite them. Sometimes, indeed, one feels that both are written from the same mood in the grandest minds. ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... from directly beneath the open window by which they had gathered, like the midnight serenade of a romantic lover, sounded the well-known foghorn voice of T. Haviland Hicks, Jr., as to the plunkety-plunk of a banjo ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... itself to me! Ay, young Colonna, many a night has my boat been moored beneath the starlit Sorgia that washes her proud father's halls, and my voice awaked the stillness of the waving sedges with a soldier's serenade. Sweet memories! ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... himself said, to represent the President Lars: they had had the "Wandsbecker Boten" half a year in the house, and it would certainly please Miss Sophie if they betrayed some acquaintance with books. This Lars and the flowers, here, meant quite as much as in the south a serenade under the windows of ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... castanets; blending, at this lofty height, in a faint but general concert. 'Enjoy the moment' is the creed of the gay and amorous Andalusian, and at no time does he practice it more zealously than on the balmy nights of summer, wooing his mistress with the dance, the love-ditty, and the passionate serenade." ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... Lincoln's re-election to the Presidency, in an off-hand speech, delivered in response to a serenade by some of his admirers on the evening of November 10, 1864, he ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... everything Richard did was right, and that his way of looking at things was the one and only way. So there was no room for discord between them. By this time Polly could laugh over the dismay of her first homecoming: the pitch-dark night and unfamiliar road, the racket of the serenade, the apparition of the great spider: now, all this might have happened to somebody else, not Polly Mahony. Her dislike of things that creep and crawl was, it is true, inborn, and persisted; but nowadays if one of ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... THE PIRATE, the figure of Cleveland - cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness - moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple islanders - singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... back to us in the month of September, will you not? Try to let us know the day as we have resolved to give you a serenade (or charivari). The most distinguished artists of the capital—M. Franchomme (present), Madame Petzold, and the Abbe Bardin, the coryphees of the Rue d'Amboise (and my neighbours), Maurice Schlesinger, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... concluded with Austria, the greater part of the inhabitants of Paris gathered under the windows of the Pavilion of Flora. Blessings and cries of gratitude and joy were heard on all sides; then musicians assembled to give a serenade to the chief of state, and proceeded to form themselves into orchestras; and there was dancing the whole night through. I have never seen a sight more striking or more joyous than the bird's-eye ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... later. After the heady Pramnian at the tavern, he roved away with Cimon and others to serenade beneath the lattice of a lady—none too prudish—in the Ceramicus quarter. But the fair one was cruel that night, and her slaves repelled the minstrels with pails of hot water from an upper window. Democrates ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... A soft serenade rendered by violins, with a harp accompaniment, was followed by a gay mazurka, played by all the instruments together,—and this ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... most interesting locality. The earth was torn up everywhere—a few lucky hits had sufficed to re-collect a good many diggers there, and they were working vigorously. At dusk the labour ceased—the men returned to their tents, and for the last time our ears were assailed by the diggers' usual serenade. Imagine some hundreds of revolvers almost instantaneously fired—the sound reverberating through the mighty forests, and echoed far and near—again and again till the last faint echo died away in the distance. ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... watchman bawled in hoarse voice a long and doleful "All's well!" A deep sleep had already fallen upon this primitive little burgh; nothing disturbed this awful silence, excepting now and then the bark of some profligate night-walking dog, or the serenade of some romantic cat. It is true, Wolfert fancied more than once that he heard the sound of a stealthy footfall at a distance behind them; but it might have been merely the echo of their own steps echoing ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... at the Occidental Hotel and the very first evening Madam Urso was honored by a serenade, though no announcement of her arrival had been made. Certainly, the musical people of the Pacific Slope were eager to welcome her. It seemed so, for on announcing a concert at Platt Hall, there was a greater demand ...
— Camilla: A Tale of a Violin - Being the Artist Life of Camilla Urso • Charles Barnard
... not prevent themselves from rustling as they pressed about this exhibition of a latter-day apostle. The Prophet and Lady Enid were close to the armchair, and the Prophet, who had never before been present at any such ceremony—it was accompanied by the twenty guitars, now tearing out the serenade, "From the bull-ring I come to thee!"—was so interested that he completely forgot Mr. and Madame Sagittarius, and lost for the moment all memory of Sir Tiglath. The silly life engrossed him. He had no eyes for anyone but Mrs. Harriet, who, as she leaned forward in the chair with ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... their orbits to glare with the municipal fireworks on a holiday night, and advertise in all towns, "Very superior pyrotechny this evening"? Are the agents of nature, and the power to understand them, worth no more than a street serenade, or the breath of a cigar? One remembers again the trumpet-text in the Koran,—"The heavens and the earth and all that is between them, think ye we have created them in jest?" As long as the question is of talent and mental power, the world ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... had songs and music of every description. Barty's taste had improved. He could sing Beethoven's "Adelaida" in English, German, and Italian, and Schubert's "Serenade" in French—quite charmingly, to his own ingenious ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... "What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say. Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... when he doesn't know a single human woman nearer than Paris.' To make matters worse, the day ended in a fiery sunset, and then there was a full moon; and in the rosery a nightingale performed its sobbing serenade. 'Please go out and give that bird a penny, and tell him to go away,' Paul said to a servant. It was all very well to jest, but at every second breath he sighed profoundly. I'm afraid he had become sentimental. It seemed a serious pity that what his heart was full of should spend itself on the ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... without heeding her). That's a sweet voice for a serenade. Round, full, high-shouldered, and calkilated to fetch a man every time. Only thar ain't, to my sartain knowledge, one o' them chaps within a mile of ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenade which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... the joy of living which made his young blood tingle in his veins. Even the heavy John was not unmoved by the beauty of their road, while the bowman whistled lustily or sang snatches of French love songs in a voice which might have scared the most stout-hearted maiden that ever hearkened to serenade. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... song, or serenade, My first requires my second's aid. To those residing near the pole I would not ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... was rather officious than official, and whether he had commission or not, he held, as is well known, serious communications with the enemies of the Pope. Lord Minto was enthusiastically received by the secret societies of Rome. The people, forgetting at the time the way to the Quirinal, went to serenade him. Lord Minto frequented "the popular circle" (a band of three hundred chosen agitators, whose office it was to carry the torch of discord into all the cities of the Papal States and of Italy) and the offices of the Socialist newspaper. He went so far as to receive courteously Cicervacchio, and ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... an Italian and a tall American of stern and unbending nature. Our guests were two Russians and two Scotchmen, all we could muster, but excellent in quality. After a jovial repast we sallied forth on to the bund, and being a bright moonlight night, romance entered into our souls, and we started to serenade the various ladies of the port. First to the Consulate, where we drew up in line on the lawn, the time being 2 a.m., and rendered "God Save the Queen" with great execution and considerable pathos, notwithstanding ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... Mary's father, "this is the eve of May, I need not ask if you intend to offer to Mary the homage of a serenade. It is the custom of your countrymen to pay this attention to young girls, and you would not omit this opportunity were it not for the advice of a man of experience. Geronimo, listen to the words of calm reason: do not rashly expose yourself to ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience
... had seen realized her most beautiful dream,—the dream of her whole life,—for which she might scorn the fond illusions of her youth and even the promises of love that Capitan Tiago had in other days whispered in her ear or sung in some serenade. Late, it is true, had the dream been realized, but Dona Victorina, who, although she spoke the language badly, was more Spanish than Augustina of Saragossa, [115] understood the proverb, "Better ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the fact this is to be a farewell serenade for Kara? Yet Don has read 'Seventeen'! They are half a dozen of ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... in anguish. The serenade was bad enough, but this unmerciful mocking derision of her adored ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... river, a lake steamer whistled a prolonged tenor note. Somewhere from an open window in one of the neighbouring houses a violin, accompanied by a piano, began to elaborate the sustained phrases of "Schubert's Serenade." Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing along the sidewalks, and their staccato gaiety was part of the quiet ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... was writing the word music, the sounds of a guitar attracted me to the window, which looks into a narrow back street, and is exactly opposite a small white house belonging to a vetturino, who has a very pretty daughter. For her this serenade was evidently intended; for the moment the music began, she placed a light in the window as a signal that she listened propitiously, and then retired. The group below consisted of two men, the lover and a musician he had brought with him: the former stood looking up at the window with his hat off, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... appearance be concluded was of high rank, spoke so familiarly to him, and, being a good-natured man, he was sorry to see him look so melancholy; and to amuse his young guest he offered to take him to hear some fine music, with which, he said, a gentleman that evening was going to serenade his mistress. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... two-step on the loose-jointed old piano. A young man sang a serenade in Italian, and two girls, after much coaxing, consented to join in ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... been her swoon that, for the time, she had utterly lost her memory, and now found difficulty in trying to recover it. Bewildered, she looked about, and listened to the strange, wild music sounding under her window—a sort of morning serenade or ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... night to discuss the amazing events of the day and swap guesses as to when Tom's trial would begin. Troop after troop of citizens came to serenade Wilson, and require a speech, and shout themselves hoarse over every sentence that fell from his lips—for all his sentences were golden, now, all were marvelous. His long fight against hard luck and prejudice was ended; he was a made man for good. And as each of these ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that heard this melody, Now poketh John, and said, "Why sleepest thou? Heardest thou ever sic a song ere now? Lo, what a serenade's among them all! A wild-fire red upon their bodies fall! Wha ever listened to sae strange a thing? The flower of evil shall their ending bring. This whole night there to me betides no rest. But, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... the clergy had a quaintness all its own. The archbishop's discourse was invariably and utterly inaudible. Whether by accident, or by an unlucky coincidence, it was always drowned by the noise of the tremendous morning serenade given in the courtyard by the twelve or fifteen hundred drums of the National Guard and the Paris garrison, all beating in unison under the guidance of ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... pipe—giving forth a sonorous moan, now cooing and crooning, now bold and confident, and again irresolute and unschooled. Not too sure of instrumentalism, oft the note was hesitating, soliciting a compliant ear as became a modest wooer of the muses, polishing his unceremonious serenade to some, shy mermaid, or hooting at ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... "A serenade! Did you ever!" she whispered. "Do you suppose it can be he?" She extinguished the lamp and knelt upon the floor, peering eagerly forth into the brilliant moonlight. "Why, Naida, what do you think? It's Mr. ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... celebrate desecrate supplement liquefy petroleum rarefy skeleton telescope tragedy gayety lineal renegade secretary deprecate execrate implement maleable promenade recreate stupefy tenement vegetate academy remedy revenue serenade ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... song of the princess. 'This is the day; she was born to-day; Nei Kamaunave was born to-day—a beautiful princess, Queen of Butaritari.' So I was told it went in endless iteration. The song was of course out of season, and the performance only a rehearsal. But it was a serenade besides; a delicate attention to ourselves ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... aggravating Is the cool and calculating Way in which he tunes his harpstring To the melody of sharp sting; Then proceeds to serenade you, And successfully ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... whole afternoon and well into the night, and then the picnickers went home through the starlight, leading the little ones, or carrying them when they were too little or too tired. But first they came down to our van with us, and sang us a serenade after we had disappeared into it, and then left us, and sent their voices back to us out of ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... her tripod, possesses her soul in peace. Whereas the love-fury, when once it has really seized on a man and inflamed him, can be laid by no Muse, no charm or incantation, no change of place; but present they burn, absent they desire, by day they follow their loves about, by night they serenade them, sober call for them, and drunken sing about them. And he who said that poetic fancies, owing to their vividness, were dreams of people awake, would have more truly spoken so of the fancies ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... happy we were in the garden bower? How we sang together the old-fashioned canzonet, 'Love in thine eyes forever plays'? And how the mocking-bird imitated your guitar, while you were singing the Don Giovanni serenade? ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... best women as officers. What is more and most of all I received a letter from a gentleman, enclosing testimonials from half a dozen of the prominent men of the city, asking an interview looking to marriage! I also received a serenade from a millionaire at Olympia. If any of the girls want a rich widower or an equally rich bachelor, here is decidedly the place to get an offer of one. But tell brother Aaron I expect to survive them all and reach home ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... being poison'd by some wicked Indians, and was therefore very earnest with me, to promise him to revenge his Death, if it should so happen. He brought some of his chief Men into his Cabin, and 2 of them having a Drum, and a Rattle, sung by us, as we lay in Bed, and struck up their Musick to serenade and welcome us to their Town. And tho' at last, we fell asleep, yet they continu'd their Consort till Morning. These Indians are fortify'd in, as the former, and are much addicted to a Sport they call Chenco, which is carry'd on with a Staff and a Bowl made of Stone, which they trundle upon ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... was the fact that on the night the murder was committed he arrived at his father's house in Truro, and was kept awake for some time by the softest and sweetest strains of music he had ever heard. At first he fancied it might be a serenade got up by some of the family to welcome him home, but not being able to discover any trace of the musicians, he came to the conclusion that he was deceived by his own imagination. Shortly afterwards, however, he learnt that ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... de live-oak shade, A secon'-hand chant or a serenade; He'll take off a pa'tridge, a robin, or a jay, But he'd nuver make a name no other way. But he ain't by 'isself in dat, in dat— But he ain't ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... soil. In the background is a large flower-garden, enclosed with a hedge and some every handsome trees. Venerable oaks and broken ground covered with wild shrubs surround me, giving a natural beauty to the spot which is truly enchanting. A lovely variety of birds serenade me morning and evening, rejoicing in their ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... Chant, the Vermicelli Waltz, the Mush and Milk March, the sad and touchful Pumpkin Pie Refrain, the gay and rollicking Oxtail Soup Gallop, and the melting Ice Cream Serenade will yet be common ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... thought. "No, I'll never care for him again; the dream is over. What a fool I've been! And yet—why did he send his horses down to Muddlebury? Why did he serenade me that night from the Park? Why is he not now with his dear Lady Scapegrace at Scamperly, where I see by the Morning Post Sir Guy is 'entertaining a party of fashionables during the frost'? No! I will not give him up ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... enjoyed my serenade. Come along! There's no time to waste. Jakko turned red some minutes ago. ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... get a 'consort' (probably of viols) to play a 'dump' under Silvia's window. He goes to arrange for some of his friends to attend for this purpose. The serenade takes place in the next Act, where, in the 2nd scene, line 17, it is called 'evening music,' but does not include the 'dump,' for Thurio has 'a sonnet that will serve the turn,' so ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... appears on the balcony, and the character of the music changes at once: all now is sweetness and light. Her serenade (to herself) is a simple and very lovely thing, making full half of its effect through its contrast with the harshness, agitation and gloom of all that has gone before. There is a master-touch when Ortrud calls softly, "Elsa": by one stroke, an abrupt strange chord, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... Antonio, Texas, on the first day of May, 1856, and took the road to El Paso, or Paso del Norte, on the Rio Grande, 762 miles by the itinerary. The plains of Texas were covered with verdure and flowers, and the mocking birds made the night march a serenade. ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... to the nightly serenade of hyena and jackal—also to breakneck steeps, and crashing jolts, and ugly tumbles. But they were all hopeful, and most of them were young, and all, or nearly all, were disposed ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... when I found lodgings in the picturesque village of Manitou, nestling at the foot of the lower mountains that form the portico to Pike's Peak. Early the next morning I was out for a stroll along the bush-fringed mountain brook which had babbled me a serenade all night. To my delight, the place was rife with birds, the first to greet me being robins, catbirds, summer warblers, and warbling vireos, all of which, being well known in the East, need no description, but are mentioned here only to ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... toom" a smooth trombonic sound, "hollow to the reverberate hills," which his consort answers with a series of "Tum! tum tum! tum!" on a higher but still harmonious key, and in accelerated tempo. This, I fancy, is the lover's serenade, and the soft assenting answer; almost invariably the loud hollow sound is the opening phrase of the duet. "Sole or responsive to each other's note," the birds make the forest resound again during the day, especially in the ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... when she had finished her "Serenade." "I believe you've really got some music in you! You brought out that crescendo passage very well indeed. We want a little more delicacy in these arpeggios, and then it will do. Your touch has ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... manifestation, and every one was deeply moved. At the end of the third act all the young men were sent off by the ladies to find all the musicians they could get together, and to my surprise and delight on arriving at my hotel a charming serenade was played for me while I was at supper. The crowd had assembled under my windows at the Albemarle Hotel, and I was obliged to go out on to the balcony several times to bow and to thank this public, which I had been told I should find cold and prejudiced ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... believe he intends to serenade those children," said a handsome woman, to her friend who sat beside her; "he is a brilliant man, and one who is blessed with many talents, and one of his greatest charms is his love of children. He will go far out of his way to afford them a ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... shafts employs; here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings: Reigns here, and revels not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendear'd, Casual fruition; nor in court amours, Mix'd dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball; Or serenade, which the starv'd lover sings To his proud fair, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... author did, to please you, let his wit run, Of late, much on a serving man and cittern; And yet, you would not like the serenade,— Nay, and you damned his nuns in masquerade: You did his Spanish sing-song too abhor; Ah! que locura con tanto rigor! In fine, the whole by you so much was blamed, To act their parts, the players were ashamed[2]. Ah, how severe your malice was that day! To damn, at once, the poet and his play[3]: ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... short notes, "commencing loud, and rapid, and full, and by almost imperceptible gradations for six or eight seconds until they seem hardly articulated, as if the little minstrel were unable to stop, and, after a short pause, beginning again as before." Baskett says that in cases of serenade and wooing he may mount the tip sprays of tall trees as he sings and abandon all else to melody till the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... tree, was downright bewildered, and gazed fixedly at the castle; a circle of tall torches upon the steps of the entrance cast a strange glare upon the glittering windows and deep into the garden; the assembled servants were to serenade their master. In the midst of them stood the gorgeous Porter, like a minister of state, before a music-stand, working away busily ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Hempel insisted on retiring. Left to himself, the young man with the handsome profile and the finely-set head played a few bars of prelude, and then, in a remarkably clear and resonant voice, sung Braga's mystical and tender serenade, the "Legende Valaque," amidst a silence now quite secured. But what was this one voice or that to all the passion of music demanding utterance? Soon there was a call to the young gentleman to play an accompaniment; and a huge black-a-vised ...
— Sunrise • William Black |
