"Syren" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deeper, and on silver wings The twilight flutters like a weary gull Toward some sea-island, lost and beautiful, Where a sea-syren sings. ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... that type of character which every age has reproduced, varying externally with climates and conditions, but materially the same from fabled Circe down to Lola Montes, or some less famous syren whose subjects are not kings. The same passions that in ancient days broke out in heaven-defying crimes; the same power of beauty, intellect, or subtlety; the same untamable spirit and lack of moral sentiment are the attributes of all; ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... day, Less towering linnets fill'd the vocal spray, And song-invited pilgrims rose to pray. Here at a pine-press'd hill's embroider'd base I stood, and hail'd the Genius of the place. Then was it doom'd by fate, my idle heart, Soften'd by Nature, gave access to Art; The Muse approach'd, her syren-song I heard, Her magic felt, and all her charms revered: E'er since she rules in absolute control, And Mira only dearer to my soul. Ah! tell me not these empty joys to fly, If they deceive, I would deluded die; To the fond themes my heart so early wed, So soon in life to blooming visions led, So ...
— Inebriety and the Candidate • George Crabbe
... their syren power, To win from fate it's frown away: When Bertram came in luckless hour To ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... down on the damp young bracken and listened to the stillness that was only pierced by the rare wail of a syren far out to sea and the steady moan of the horn from the lighthouse. He felt as dead as the world seemed, as grey, as lost to all rousing; and, ignorant of reactions, wondered why, and whether henceforth he would always be ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... and will, sir. Since you provoke me with your impudence, And laughter of your light land-syren ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors; Through the yelling Channel tempest when the syren hoots and roars— By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail— As the sheep that graze behind us so we know ...
— The Seven Seas • Rudyard Kipling
... of wicked and vicious associates, and strive with all your power to resist the tempter in whatever form he may approach you. It is not force he employs to drag you down to the plane of the convict, but he causes the sweet song of the syren to ring in your ear, and in this manner allures you away from the right, and gently leads you down the pathway that ends in a felon ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... charming eyes, Then is Prometheus ti'de to Caucasus. Away with slauish weedes, and idle thoughts, I will be bright and shine in Pearle and Gold, To waite vpon this new made Empresse. To waite said I? To wanton with this Queene, This Goddesse, this Semirimis, this Queene. This Syren, that will charme Romes Saturnine, And see his shipwracke, and his Common weales. Hollo, what storme is this? ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... of knights errant, in the times of Merlin and the good King Arthur, who, while ranging the world in quest of adventures, were bewitched by lovely wood fairies or were lulled into delicious slumber by some syren's song, or were shut up in pleasant durance in enchanted castles. Accounts of similar character are found, even in the pages of grave chroniclers of modern date, to say nothing of what books of fiction tell, and what we observe with ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... place to discuss whether the destruction of inns tends to promote temperance. We may, perhaps, be permitted to doubt the truth of the legend, oft repeated on temperance platforms, of the working man, returning homewards from his toil, struggling past nineteen inns and succumbing to the syren charms of the twentieth. We may fear lest the gathering together of large numbers of men in a few public-houses may not increase rather than diminish their thirst and the love of good fellowship which in some mysterious way is stimulated by the imbibing of many pots of beer. We may, perhaps, feel ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... strong, good-natured voice, with its slightly protective intonation. They sat there until the luncheon gong rang, and then they rose and walked for a time together. The sun had come out, and the grey sea was changing into blue. The decks were dry. The syren had ceased to blow. The motion of the ship had become soothing, and the spray, which leaped now into the air, sparkled in the ...
— The Governors • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... another—and how they dance to the music of their own chink. This buys all t'other—and this thou shalt have; this, and all that I am worth, for the purchase of thy love. Say, is it mine then, ha? Speak, Syren—Oons, why do I look on her! Yet I must. Speak, dear angel, devil, saint, witch; do not rack me ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... would never have been induced to again commit himself to the surface of the deep, had he not been fully convinced that the deep had now subsided into a shallow. With his breast fortified by this resolution, he therefore fell a victim to the syren tongue of Mr. Bouncer, ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... and then embarked with her niece and Puccia in a boat. But when they were some way out at sea, whilst the sailors were asleep, she threw Marziella into the water; and just as the poor girl was on the point of being drowned there came a most beautiful syren, who took her in her ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... of ballads, not one of them later than 1700, and some of them a hundred years older. I wheedled an old woman out of these, who loved them better than her psalm-book. Tobacco, sir, snuff, and the Complete Syren, were the equivalent! For that mutilated copy of the Complaynt of Scotland I sat out the drinking of two dozen bottles of strong ale with the late learned proprietor, who in gratitude bequeathed it to me by his last will. These little Elzevirs are the memoranda ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... welcome relief to the colony. The Recollect villages and missions being in the very midst of the Moro territory are the worst afflicted by that scourge. Their pitiful petitions for aid fall on deaf ears, for at Manila, self interest rules, and trade is the syren of the hour, not religion. The Recollects, too, are not without their martyrs for the faith as the result of Moro persecutions, while others succumb to the hardships of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... in and out amongst the slower craft, while from one of the lake steamers, decks and rigging outlined in quivering points of light, came the inspiriting strains of a band. Snatches of song drifted across the water, and now and again the melancholy long-drawn hoot of a syren pierced the air. ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... brows there's nought within; They are but empty cells for pride; He who the Syren's hair would win Is mostly strangled in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... with a sort of fascination to the song of the slave syren. And no wonder. For the song of the slave syren was swelling and clashing the while with passionate and imperious energy. South Carolina had led off in this kind of music. In December following the Boston mob Governor McDuffie, pitched ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... Syren sings her song, To old Ocean's sons and daughters; And the mermaids dance along, To the music ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... some holy spell might lend To lure thy Wanderer from the Syren's power; Then bid your souls inseparably blend Like two bright dew-drops meeting ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... but the little boat had not yet appeared in sight again. There was no danger that Tom would think of fatigue while he could sit looking in the face of his syren, listening to her low, sweet songs; nor was there the slightest possibility of her ever remembering that the strongest muscles must at last feel a little need of relaxation. Just as long as it pleased her to float over the sunlit waters, carolling her pretty melodies or talking gay nonsense ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Syren! Yet grant that all the love she boasts were true, Has she not ruined you? I still urge that, The ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... cou'd not live? On whose lips your very being hangs? Whom you so love, as I cou'd you." Her words were attended with such a grace at their delivery, and the sweet sound so, charm'd the yielding air, you wou'd have sworne some syren had been breathing melodies. Thus rapt with every thing so amazing, and fancying a glory shin'd in every part, I ventur'd to enquire what name the goddess own'd? "My maid, I perceive," said she, "has not inform'd you, I am call'd Circe; I would ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... her smiles, her every look's a net. Her voice is like a Syren's of the land; And bloody hearts lie panting ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... traitor pines, you sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales. Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery viols plucked an ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... istius cantibus surdam posthac aurem obversurus.—I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved henceforth not to listen to her syren strains.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... cat, and confined her in Steel Castle. Here Gold Mine came to her rescue with a magic sword, but in his joy at finding her, he dropped his sword, and was stabbed to the heart with it by Yellow Dwarf. All-Fair, falling on the body of her lover, died of a broken heart. The syren changed the dead lovers into two palm trees.—Comtesse D'Aunoy, Fairy Tales ("The Yellow Dwarf," 1682). ALLIN-A-DALE or ALLEN-A-DALE, of Nottinghamshire, was to be married to a lady who returned ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... and in 1788 Messrs. Enderby's ship, the EMILIA, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale-ship SYREN opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North Pacific, afterwards familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average annual catch of 40,000 barrels of oil ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... had he followed a first impulse he would at once have retired from the influence of a command, which under all the circumstances, occurred to him as being of prophetic import. But he had gazed on the witching beauty of the syren, until judgment and reason had yielded the rein to passion, and filled with an ungovernable desire to behold and touch that form once more—even although he should the next moment tear himself from it for ever—he approached and stood at the entrance of the ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... swallowed up Colton's other vices, and becoming involved, he cut the Gordian knot of debt in 1828 by absconding; his living was then seized and given to another. He fled to America, and from there returned to that syren city, Paris, where he is said in two years to have won no less than L25,000. The miserable man died by his own hand at Fontainebleau, in 1832. In the "Lacon" is the subjoined passage, that seems almost prophetic of the miserable author's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... other of his pieces, will hesitate to grant. Sometimes we suspect that it is the very grandeur of his general powers which prevents us from exclusively admiring his poetic genius. We are not lulled by the syren song of poetry, because her melodies are blended with the clearer, manlier tones of serious reason, and ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... never be brought to look in the fair face of their stepmother without crying aloud for fear; and how at last he discovered, to his horror and dismay, that he had wedded a fearful creature, half wolf, half woman, combining the seductions of the syren with the cruel voracity of the brute. There was something about Maud Bruce to remind one of that horrible myth, even now, now at her gentlest and softest, while she clung round a sorrowing father, by the death-bed of one, whom, in their different ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... one thing, uncle you could never have any vulgar, commonplace ideas about her—I mean, she's so peculiarly disinterested, and all that sort of thing. You mustn't fancy she's a dangerous syren, don't you know, or.... For instance, she doesn't care much for dress; she just sticks up her hair anyhow, and parts it in ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... their wreaths and golden combs—an undeniably smart audience—all smoking. The stage was open to the dark blue sky, which was sprinkled with stars. Right above them clanged a temple gong; from far down the river came the hoot of a steamer's syren, and during intervals the soft humming of the wind among the labyrinth of shrines—a complete contrast in every respect was this Eastern scene to the last play he had witnessed ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... treasures. If you find a dove, with a branch of olive in its mouth, engraved in pyrites, and mount it in a silver ring, and carry it with you, everybody will invite you to be his guest, and people will feast you much and frequently. The figure of a syren, sculptured in a jacinth, rendered the bearer invisible. A fair head, well combed, with a handsome face, engraved on a gem, gave to the bearer joy, reverence, and honour. Such were the qualities attached to ancient gems in the ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... did she, the wonder of the east, At least, if it be wondrous faire at all, That staines the morning, in her purple nest, With guilt-downe curled Tresses, rosy drest, Reflecting in a cornet wise, admire, To euery eye whom vertue might appall. And Syren loue, inchant ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... also appeared to him that he was experiencing an altogether unpleasant degree of warmth; while he seemed to hear, ringing in his ears like the echo of something listened to ages ago, the sound of what very strongly resembled a steamer's syren. Added to this, he was conscious that there were many people quite close to him, groaning in varying degrees of agony; and finally, as his faculties resumed their normal condition, he began to realise that he was ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... distant past, when the ancestral stock, disembarking from the rude canoes at nightfall, sought an evening meal on the edge of the palm-forest, bowed beneath the weight of green and yellow nuts a hundred feet overhead. What wonder if in lands of perpetual summer the syren song of some "long bright river" should lure the storm-tossed mariners from the perilous seas to the comparative security of inland life! The stern environment of Northern poverty stands out in terrible contrast with the teeming prodigality of tropical Nature, offering all the richest fruits ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... this wide world," I exclaimed, quite unintentionally quoting Tom Moore; "there never has been, nor can ever be again, so charming a creature. No nymph, or sylph, or winged Ariel, or syren with song and mirror, was ever so fascinating—no daughter of Eve ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... plunge into excess, with the determination to make up for the pleasure lost by years of toil, the brave mountaineers courted merrymaking. From their own accounts, they passed a short time gloriously. This similarity of disposition between trappers and sailors, in regard to pleasure's syren cup and its consequent draft upon their treasures, causing them to forget the risk of life and limb and the expense of their valuable time, is most remarkable. These hardy trappers, like reliable old salts, proved to be as true to the bowl as they had been to their steel; for, most of the party, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... feature, so guileless her nature, A thousand fond voices pronounce her divine; So witchingly pretty, so modestly witty, That sweet is thy thraldom, fair Flower of the Tyne! Thine aspect so noble, yet sweetly inviting, The loves and the graces thy temples entwine; In manners the saint and the syren uniting, Bloom on, dear Louisa, the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... appetite for gain—the voice of avarice—will often whisper that honesty may be violated to advantage. There will be times when it will seem that its dictates may be placed aside—that a little dishonesty will be greatly to your benefit. Believe not this syren song. This is the time you are in the most danger of being deceived to your serious injury. Although there may be occasions when you will seem actually to lose by adhering to honesty, yet you should not shrink a hair's breadth. Whatever ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... feet" must have led him "who knows how," for ere long he found himself seated on a log beside Bluebell. I cannot tell what spell that syren had used to attract his footsteps so unerringly, for, little accustomed as he was to resist female influence, in thought at least Du Meresq was loyal ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... Hereafter! tis a suppos'd infinite That from this point will rise eternally. Fame growes in going; in the scapes of vertue Excuses damne her: they be fires in cities 65 Enrag'd with those winds that lesse lights extinguish. Come syren, sing, and dash against my rocks Thy ruffin gally rig'd with quench for lust: Sing, and put all the nets into thy voice With which thou drew'st into thy strumpets lap 70 The spawne of Venus, and in which ye danc'd; That, in thy laps steed, I may digge his tombe, And quit ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... one—accompanied by an assurance that the dream of fame which her wild imagination had formed should certainly be realized, gave him a large power over her confidence. Her passion was sway—the sway of mind over mind—of genius over sympathy—of the syren Genius over the subject Love. It was this passion which had made her proud, which had filled her mind with visions, and yielded to her a world by itself, and like no other, filled with all forms of worship and attraction; chivalrous faith, unflagging zeal, generous confidence, pure spirits, and ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... 'Blessings on the man who invented Mrs. Taylor at seventy-five cents per—the hock bottle. I catch a glimpse of her long neck, stretching up among the roses and Geraniums: my cologne nature can't resist that sight! I obey the syren's call, though it will leave me a beggar, but with Mrs. T. in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... academician of the Institute, there is sometimes a rich pouting sound, a sort of velvety and oily intonation, that distinguishes the speech of the women of high birth such as I never heard in any other country. It is not to be defined: but whoso has drunk in the golden tones of such a syren, will know what I mean. Moonlight! yes, 'tis a pleasing word, by its signification and its associated ideas, if not by its own innate harmony: yes; I have learned the full influence and sweetness of moonlight, whether in the summer woodland or in the wintry cloister; true, there is both ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... This "new affection"—the love of Christ—in its turn expelled the worldliness and unrest which existed, and gave a tone to her mental and spiritual nature, which, by steady degrees, lifted her up, and caused her to forget the syren song of earth. Not all at once,—in the story of her newborn earnestness we shall find that the habits and associations of her daily life sometimes acted as drawbacks to her progress in faith. But the seed ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... they told the Syren Tales (All ears were open then!) And the harps were afire with plucked desire For the white ash oars again— For oars and sail, and the open sea, High prow against pure blue, The good sea spray on eye and lip, The thrumming hemp, the rise and dip, The plunge and the roll of a driven ship As ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Great refused to dispute the suzerainty of England. This may appear pusillanimous to the enthusiastic patriot, but subsequent events proved the old statesman's wisdom and clearsightedness. His successors were less cautious, were carried away by the patriotism round them and the syren voices of the bards. And to Llywelyn ap Gruffydd the prospect was even more tempting than to Llywelyn ap Iorwerth. The Barons' War weakened the power of England, and the necessities of Simon de Montfort led him to enter into an alliance with Llywelyn. The expansion ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... changing into the likeness of an old fisherman. The deluded merchant, after seeking her awhile, is obliged to set sail and depart without his ware. She returns home to find her lover Petulius being tempted by a 'syren,' who is evidently a mermaid with looking-glass and comb and scaly tail, disporting herself by the shore—the scene being laid, by the way, on the coast of Arcadia. Protea at once changes her disguise to the ghost of Ulysses, and is in time ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... carriages had driven home; the road and the plain were empty. Beyond them the high chimney-stacks of the steamers on the river could still be seen, some with a wisp of smoke curling upwards into the still air; and at times the long, melancholy hoot of a steam-syren broke the ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... the offer as 'monstrous,' and that it was 'inspired by a spirit of revenge.' He would not, he declared, increase his offer, but a little later he writes from Bridge Street to Sydney Owenson as his 'dear, bewitching, and deluding Syren,' and promises the L300. A few months later he gave her a hundred pounds for a slight volume of poems, which certainly never paid for its publication, although Scott and Moore and many another were making ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... Public praise is a syren which the young sailor through life cannot resist. Political life is a fine aim, even when its seeker starts without a shred of real patriotism to conceal his personal ambition. No young man of any character can think, without a thrill of rapture, on the glory of having his ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... life in our calm seclusion flowed on with me, like a smooth stream with a swimmer who glides down the current. All memory of the past, all thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks. The warning that aroused me at last, and startled me into sudden, self-accusing consciousness of ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... will be no fishing in the case," said the naughty little Syren, who felt all the time a secret satisfaction in the consciousness that it was she who had made the temptation irresistible, then adding, to pacify Henrietta and her own feelings of compunction, "Aunt Mary must be satisfied when she hears with what exemplary ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he yelled, and his voice went through the babel of sound like the shriek of a syren through mist. "What sort," he repeated, as men paused in their clamour, startled by the voice. "Let the ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... for the expedition a ketch (the Intrepid) which he had captured a few weeks before from the enemy, and manned her with seventy volunteers, chiefly from his own crew. He sailed from Syracuse on the 3d of February, 1804, accompanied by the United States brig Syren, Lieutenant Stewart, who was to aid with his boats, and to receive the crew of the ketch, in case it should be found expedient to use ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park
... "Syren!" thought Lady Sara, withdrawing her large dark eyes from her face, and turning them full of dissolving languor upon Thaddeus; "here are all thy charms directed!" then drawing a sigh, so deep that it made her neighbor start, she fixed her ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... not dispute this, my beloved, but I confess with a sigh that I am in doubt. I even fear for them and for ourselves. Destiny smiles before us, hope chaunts sweet music—but destiny is a sea—hope but a sea-syren; deceitful is the calm of the one, fatal are the promises of the other. All appears to aid our union—but are we yet together? I know not why, lovely Mary, but a chill penetrates my breast, amid the warm fountains of future bliss, and the idea of our meeting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... persuade a man to do any thing; so I was compelled, somewhat at the expense of my reputation for gallantry, to assure them both, that if Ulysses of old, among his various arts and accomplishments, had piqued himself upon his tandem-driving, his vanity would have stopped his ears effectually, and the Syren might have sung herself hoarse before he would have given up ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the happiness which might have accrued to him from this source was dashed by his thoughts of Marian Leslie. Why had he thrown himself in the way of that syren? Why had he left Mount Pleasant at all? He knew that on his return to Spanish Town his first work would be to visit Shandy Hall; and yet he felt that of all places in the island, Shandy Hall was the last which he ought ...
— Miss Sarah Jack, of Spanish Town, Jamaica • Anthony Trollope
... girl, I have indeed brought you to Cliffmore. I was obliged to come here on a little business trip to look after some of my property, and I took you for sweet company, and because I thought we'd give two very dear people who live at the 'Syren's Cave,' ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... beech-trees opposite the terrace, and listen to the conversation of a young girl in a dark-colored dress, who is walking with another of about her own age dressed in lilac and dark blue. They crossed a beautiful lawn, in the middle of which arose a fountain, with the figure of a syren executed in bronze, and strolled on, talking as they went, toward the terrace, along which, looking out upon the park, and interspersed at frequent intervals, were erected summer-houses, various in form and ornaments. These summer-houses were nearly all occupied. The two young ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... dreadful journey to the realms beneath, To seek Tiresias in the vales of death; How in the doleful mansions lie survey'd His royal mother, pale Anticlea's shade; And friends in battle slain, heroic ghosts! Then how, unharm'd, he pass'd the Syren-coasts, The justling rocks where fierce Charybdis raves, And howling Scylla whirls her thunderous waves, The cave of death! How his companions slay The oxen sacred to the god of day. Till Jove in wrath the rattling tempest guides, And whelms ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... crippled ship, the junior member, gave three defiant shrieks with her syren and slid under the surface with her colours flying. For over two hours the others manoeuvred to get one on each side of the submarines to enable them to get the few shells remaining in their magazines home on ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... sapphire mantle hang. Its Eden home Is in some beauteous place where faces beam In loveliness and joy! To hail the morn, The infant pours it from his rosy mouth, Ere, o'er the fields, with blissful heart he roams, To watch the syren lark, or mark the sun Surround with golden light ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... only older and feebler. And did he communicate his views of Mackarel Lane? I saw him regarding, me as a species of mermaid or syren, evidently thinking it a great shame that I have not a burnt face. If he had only known ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... me, except the mournful muffled hooting of a steamer's syren at intervals; no doubt some wretched collier, nosing her way at half-speed through the fog, in momentary terror ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... often dissolve the spell. If you marry one, such as I describe above, he may continue through the bridal month this delicious repast, but amid growing cares, when busy and anxious, you shall soon find that the syren voice is hushed. It will be you, who must then speak sweet words. To you, will he turn for those kind attentions, which the habit of being caressed and complimented, and never forgetting yourself, will have miserably prepared ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... vain, Seems recompens'd at full;—and so wou'd seem Did not maturer Sons of Phoebus deem My verse Aonian.—Thou, in time, shalt gain, Like them, amid the letter'd World, that sway Which makes encomium fame;—so thou adorn, Extend, refine and dignify thy lay, And Indolence, and Syren Pleasure scorn; Then, at high noon, thy Genius shall display The splendors promis'd in its ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... lingers on the pavement of a summer night, the melodies which float upon the air from the open balconies above him. A vague sense of unknown sweetness comes upon him, mingled with an irritating feeling of envy that some favoured son of Fortune should be able to stand over the shoulders of that singing syren, while he can only listen with intrusive ears from the street below. And so he lingers and is envious, and for a moment curses his fate,—not knowing how weary may be the youth who stands, how false the girl who sings. But he does ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... thy soft hand I hung, And heard the tempting syren in thy tongue, What flames, what darts, what anguish I endured! But when the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... loosed itself from the clinging gondolas, and slowly glided out and away. And all the gondolas followed, with the soft plash of many oars, on and on, after the swinging lanterns and the syren voice. ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... harbour reached him where he sat. He listened dully to the hooting of a syren—that of some vessel coming out ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... Abruzzi, Province of Aquila (1866), is essentially a Neapolitan, and rarely remains long absent from the city, on the shore of that magical sea, where once Ulysses sailed, and where sometimes yet (near Amalfi) we may hear the Syrens sing their song. But more wonderful than the song of any Syren seems to me the Theory of Aesthetic as the Science of Expression, and that is why I have overcome the obstacles that stood between me and the giving of this theory, which in my belief is the truth, to the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... and gramophones, The noise of boot on stone, The noise of women bargaining their flesh, The noise of singers in the ships, Sounds of threat and sounds of fear, Blasts of hammer and steel and iron, The scream of syren, the wail of hooter, The clangour of angry bells, The boom of guns, the clatter of factories, The panic of feet, ...
— Song Book of Quong Lee of Limehouse • Thomas Burke
... the sweet Syren," she said, "who made the mariners turn pale for pleasure in the sea. I drew Ulysses out of his course with my song; and he that harbours with me once, rarely departs ever, so well I pay ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... yer mean it, Betsy? Are yer relentin'? Are yer goin' ter say the 'appy word as splices us from keel to topsail? Yer ain 't jest a cruel syren are yer, wavin' me on, hopin' I 'll smash meself? Are yer winkin' at me like ol' Flint's lantern—me thinkin' it 's love I see, ...
— Wappin' Wharf - A Frightful Comedy of Pirates • Charles S. Brooks
... that involuntarily rushed upon the mind of Charlotte as she perused the fatal note, yet after a few hours had elapsed, the syren Hope again took possession of her bosom, and she flattered herself she could, on a second perusal, discover an air of tenderness in the few lines he had left, which at first had ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... the business of the poet; he walked the room, sighed, tore his mouchoir, oscillated between honor and temptation—the angel form and syren tongue of the woman triumphed. In course of a dozen hours, Bertha, the lovely, enchanting spy, opened the secret drawers of the poet's secretary, and amid carefully-packed literary rubbish, the dreaded memorial was found—clutched with the eagerness of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... eyes were veiled in slumber, will restore him to my vision when they are closed in eternal sleep. Aspasia will tell you I have been a beautiful but idle dreamer all my life. If you listen to her syren tongue, the secret guiding voice will be heard no more. She will make evil appear good, and good evil, until your soul will walk in perpetual twilight, unable to perceive the real size and character of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... Miss Falkner, it is not quite so vulnerable. A lovely face and graceful form alone, will never win it: even with the addition of such a syren's voice as Miss Willoughby possesses; she sings, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... discussion, and there is nothing like good, healthy controversy. Sir Frederick Young is greatly concerned that there should be a settled policy for South Africa. All I can say is, in Heaven's name, don't listen to a syren voice of that kind. So surely as you have a settled policy—some great and grand scheme—so surely will follow disaster and disgrace. The people of South Africa may be very stupid, but they are very much like other ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... was necessary to diversify frequently her character, and the spirit of her character. Twenty times a day would she change her dress, her appearance, and even her manner of walking and speaking; passing from gayety to gravity, from songs and smiles to love and sentiment. With syren-like voice, and a heart as light as the bird of the air, she would invent a thousand graceful blandishments for the amusement of her royal lover. Her beauty, which was marvelous, served her well in all these metamorphoses. She ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... with other bands; Yet not anew to war on Lombardy; But to deliver from rapacious hands The Church's head and limbs, already free, So slowly he performs the king's commands. Next, overrun by him the kingdom see, And his strong arms against the city turned, Wherein the Syren's ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... himself, the duke of Norfolk had not acquired, even from the severe admonition of a long imprisonment, resolution sufficient to turn a deaf ear to the enchantments of this syren. His situation was indeed perplexing: He had entered into the most serious engagements with his sovereign to abstain from all further intercourse with the queen of Scots: at the same time the right of Elizabeth to interdict him an alliance so flattering ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... disarmed by making her mother a Frenchwoman. The construction of this little clever monster is diabolically French. Such a lusus naturae as a woman without a heart and conscience would, in England, be a mere brutal savage, and poison half a village. France is the land for the real Syren, with the woman's face and the dragon's claws. The genus of Pigeon and Laffarge claims it for its own—only that our heroine takes a far higher class by not requiring the vulgar matter of fact of crime to develop her full powers. ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... schooner Syren had captured His Majesty's cutter Landrail while crossing the Irish Sea with dispatches; when the Governor Tompkins burned fourteen English vessels in the English Channel in quick succession; when the Harpy of Baltimore ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... the cold world apart, He holds me so close to his fast beating heart; More enchanting his voice than the syren-wrapt song, O'er the wind-dimpled ocean soft floating along, As he whispers his love in love's low passioned tone, Such home, and such lover, no other has ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... child called her Milto. Her lips were red, teeth whiter than snow, small insteps, such as of those women whom Homer calls {greek text: lisphurous}. Her voice sweet and smooth, that whosoever heard her might justly say he heard the voice of a Syren. She was averse from womanish curiosity in dressing: such things are to be supplied by wealth. She being poor, and bred up under a poor father, used nothing superfluous or extravagant to advantage her beauty. On a time Aspasia ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... youth was at that time, and dull as he was at all others, he was not without the instinctive penetration with which all human bipeds watch over their individual goods and chattels. He sprung aside from the endearments of the syren, grasped her arm, and in a voice of querulous indignation, accused her ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... line 192. Scott writes:—'Were accuracy of any consequence in a fictitious narrative, this castellan's name ought to have been William; for William Heron of Ford was husband to the famous Lady Ford, whose syren charms are said to have cost our James IV so dear. Moreover, the said William Heron was, at the time supposed, a prisoner in Scotland, being surrendered by Henry VIII, on account of his share in the slaughter ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... with instant ardour hail'd. The syren Pleasure caroll'd and prevail'd; Soon the deep dell appear'd, and the clear brow Of ULEY BURY [A] smil'd o'er all below, [Footnote A: Bury, or Burg, the Saxon name for a hill, particularly for one wholly or partially formed by art.] Mansion, and flock, ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... "Little syren of the stage, Charmer of an idle age, Empty warbler, breathing lyre, Wanton gale of fond desire, Bane of every manly art, Sweet enfeebler of the heart; O! too pleasing is thy strain, Hence, to southern climes again, Tuneful mischief, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... 16th of July we arrived at Malta, where we were detained by contrary gales until the 21st, when we left it, and arrived in sight of Tripoli the 25th, and were joined by the Syren, Argus, Vixen and Scourge. Our squadron now consisted of the Constitution, three brigs, three schooners, two bombs, and six gun-boats, our whole number of men one thousand and sixty. I proceeded to make the necessary arrangements for an attack on Tripoli, a city ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... to discern what sort of humanity our government is to learn from these syren singers. Our government also, I admit with some reason, as a step towards the proposed fraternity, is required to abjure the unjust hatred which it bears to this body, of honour and virtue. I thank God I am neither a minister nor ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... there by; For, as they chaunced to breathe on neighbouring hill, The freshness of this valley smote their eye, And drew them ever and anon more nigh, Till clustering round th' enchanter false they hung, Ymolten with his syren melody. While o'er th' enfeebling lute his hand he flung, And to the trembling ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... just what he had told a few hours earlier to those two young men in Salt Cellar. Not knowing that his words had already been spread throughout Oxford, he was rather surprised that they seemed to make no sensation. Quite flat, too, fell his appeal that the syren ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... period of inaction was ended. Captain Charles Douglas, H.M.S. Syren, who was cruising off Cape Race, received information that a squadron of four French ships of the line, having some 1500 picked troops on board, had made a descent on Newfoundland, and had captured St. John's, the capital, which had been most shamefully neglected, ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... you she's the wickedest of creatures; Oh, gaze not on the Syren's fatal features, More baneful than the ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... has always had a strong attraction for me, and originality is at least not commonplace. (The syren of a steamer ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... whose lovely modest mien, Cheers the gay banquet with unconscious wiles, Long mayest thou grace it with affection's smiles, The vocal syren of this sylvan scene. Warbling thy sweetest notes ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... serpents doe resemble thee; That daungerous eye-killing Cockatrice, Th' inchaunting Syren, which doth so entice, The weeping Crocodile; these vile pernicious three. The Basiliske his nature takes from thee, Who for my life in secret wait do'st lye, And to my heart send'st poyson from thine eye: Thus do I feele the paine, the cause yet cannot see. Faire-mayd no more, ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... What syren spell has been on me!" Such were the words that fell from his lips, marking the ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... of her favourite novelettes of a heroine who had never appreciated the goodness and worth of the man to whom she was married until another woman—a "syren" she had been called in the story—had stolen him from her, and with a wild flight of sentimental imagination she already saw herself nicely fitted ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... syren, faire enchanting good, Sweet silent rhetorique of perswading eyes, Dumb eloquence, whose power doth move the blood More than the words or wisedome of the ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the Poem Expostulations of M. Dumon Jasmin's Defence of the Gascon Dialect Jasmin and Dante 'Franconnette' dedicated to Toulouse Outline of the Story Marshal Montluc Huguenots Castle of Estellac Marcel and Pascal The Buscou 'The Syren with a Heart of Ice' The Sorcerer Franconnette accursed Festival on Easter Morning The Crown Piece Storm at Notre Dame The Villagers determine to burn Franconnette Her ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... presence, and until she marries, lend a new brightness, a new distraction to my life. Jove! now I come to think of it she will surely marry next season, and I shall not have her long; with her face, form, colouring, eyes and the sweet syren voice that the men are raving of, some one of them will make her say him yea; then the spice of originality about her is refreshing, also having had so much of the companionship of Lady Esmondet, she is a woman of common-sense and of the world, ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... on the water, Under the glossy umbrage of her hair, Like pearly Amphitrite's fairest daughter, Naiad, or Nereid,—or Syren fair, Mislodging music in her pitiless breast, A nightingale within ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... arbitrarily, out of the order in which they stand in the original poems. There is a short poem by Philips in the same metre, addressed to Signora Cuzzoni, and dated May 25, 1724, beginning, "Little syren of the stage;" but none of the verses quoted in the Treatise on the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... wayward child of genius in his hour of sore need, when temptations gathered thick around his pathway and there was no one to steer him into safer waters; no one to restrain his feet from their first blind steps toward that Disaster to which ruinous companionship invited him, with syren voice? ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... whom chance may bring To this sequester'd spot, If then the plaintive Syren sing, Oh! softly tread beneath her bower, And think of heaven's disposing power, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... approaching storm. The tender, melancholy strains and the singular clearness of the innumerable modulations charm the ear of the astonished traveller, who, as if arrested by an invisible power, stops to listen to the syren, unmindful of the danger of the threatening storm. On old decayed stumps of trees the busy creeper[84] and the variegated woodpecker are seen pecking the insects from under the loose bark, or by their tapping ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... of London; and it is only quite occasionally, when you catch a glimpse of tawny rock and of white breakwater against the blue sea, that by a reminiscence of Naples you can persuade yourself it is as immoral as they say. For, not unlike the Syren City, Cadiz lies white and cool along the bay, with gardens at the water's edge; but it has not the magic colour of its rival, it is quieter, smaller, more restful; and on the whole lacks that agreeable air of wickedness which the Italian town possesses to perfection. It is impossible to be a day ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... no less than thirty-six of them waiting to be "hooked." The first place to which she went on this errand was Baden, where, according to Ferdinand Bac, she "bewitched the future Emperor William I. The Prince, however, being warned of her syren spell, presently smiled and ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... spite of himself. He knew that she put on the same air for whomsoever she chose to charm; but it had a power which he could not resist all the same. "But perhaps you don't care to be taken into my confidence," she added, smiling, too, as if willing to admit all he could allege as to her syren graces. She had a delightful air of being in the joke which ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the wake of the German army, and taken by and large they must have been retiring in good order, for they left little behind. Our first night we spent at the village of Syren, eight kilometres from the capital of the Duchy. Billeting was not so easy now, for we were ordered to treat the inhabitants as neutrals, and when they objected we couldn't handle the situation as we ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... all the years of our friendship. The look and the tone of her voice moved me. I expressed my sympathy and my readiness to do anything in my power to snatch the infatuated boy from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely passed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering round an undesirable candle. Till ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... a continual murmur of well-tuned voices. On bare white throats jewels shone as if in each a soul were imprisoned, and voluptuously rustled the silk that clung to the fair slim forms of its bearers in an undulating caress. Subtle perfumes emanated from the hair and the hands of syren women, commingling with the soft plump scent of their flesh. Fragrant tapers, burning in precious crystal globules stained with exquisite colours, sprinkled their shimmering light over the fashionable assemblage and lent a false radiance to the faces of the men, while in ...
— The House of the Vampire • George Sylvester Viereck
... that she doth me fly, Or was I hatched in the river Nile? Or doth my Chloris stand in doubt that I With syren songs do seek her to beguile? If any one of these she can object 'Gainst me, which chaste affected love protest, Then might my fortunes by her frowns be checked, And blameless she from scandal free might rest. But seeing I am no hideous monster ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... an angel's shape, But yet I know thee by thy course of speech: Thou gett'st an apple to betray poor Eve, Whose outside bears a show of pleasant fruit; But the vile branch, on which this apple grew, Was that which drew poor Eve from paradise. Thy Syren's song could make me drown myself, But I am tied unto the mast of truth. Admit, my husband be inclin'd to vice, My virtues may in time recall him home; But, if we both should desp'rate run to sin, We should abide certain destruction. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... of the gulf, a hill wooded with orange trees and oleanders, and crowned at the summit by a marble castle. All around extends the fairy-like prospect of that immense amphitheatre, one of the mightiest wonders of creation. There lies Naples, the voluptuous syren, reclining carelessly on the seashore; there, Portici, Castellamare, and Sorrento, the very names of which awaken in the imagination a thousand thoughts of poetry and love; there are Pausilippo, Baiae, Puozzoli, and those vast plains, where the ancients fancied ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... have said, profanation."—"What is it I hear? You talk in the language of romance; and from the housekeeper to the head of the house, you're all stark staring mad. Nephew, I wish, for thy own credit, thou wert—But what signifies wishing?—I hope you'll not bring your syren into my company." ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... affection? I have discovered when too late that she has flattered my fond heart with her insidious wiles. I loved her once, I despise her now. She has got rid of her child, and she is now trying to dispose of me also. Ah! the syren that she is! No longer shall I breathe her name but with feelings of hatred and disgust. Ah! that villain too, who is leading her headlong to her own ruin! I hate him also. His affection towards me as a friend and companion ...
— The Black-Sealed Letter - Or, The Misfortunes of a Canadian Cockney. • Andrew Learmont Spedon
... deterred also by a conviction that Violet, if driven to reply in writing, would undoubtedly reply by a refusal. Fifty times he rode again in his imagination his ride in Saulsby Wood, and he told himself as often that the syren's answer to him,—her no, no, no,—had been, of all possible answers, the most indefinite and provoking. The tone of her voice as she galloped away from him, the bearing of her countenance when he rejoined her, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... and passions of men reappeared, but transformed by the magic influence of the drug, made monstrous or fairylike, intensified or turned to voluptuous languors, through which the Ouled Nail floated like a syren, promising ecstasies unknown even in Baghdad, where the pale Circassian lifts her lustrous eyes, in which the palms were heavy with dates of solid gold, and the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... adviser. This young lady was alone in the world. She had been fearfully wronged, and to her stricken heart came a brilliant offer of love, home, and social position. But she bound her heart to the mast of duty, closed her ears to the syren song, and could not ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... dear-one the Syren's song. No engagement, no duty, no interest, can withhold her from a sale, from which she always returns congratulating herself upon her dexterity at a bargain; the porter lays down his burden in the hall; she displays her new acquisitions, and spends the rest of the day in contriving where ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... to enchant you more, view everywhere [ye About the roof a Syren in a sphere, As we think, singing to the din Of many a warbling cherubin: List, oh list! how Even heaven gives up his soul between you now, [ye Mark how thousand Cupids fly To light their Tapers at the Bride's bright ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and where are they? Those golden times by memory cherished? O, Syren, sing no more that lay, Or sing till ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... of his finest, awkwardest, most disconcerting slows. The cautious batsman was proof against its syren-like allurements, and stepped back to block what any one else would have stepped forward to slog. The ball broke up sharp against his bat, and Grandcourt began to breathe again as they ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... of gold with gold, transporting sound! Exceeds the Timbrel, or the Syren's voice Harmonious, when collective plates go round, And Hock and Turtle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... comment could not be made on what is required to perfect Man, and place him in that superior position for which he was designed, than by the interpretation of Bacon upon the legends of the Syren coast "When the wise Ulysses passed," says he, "he caused his mariners to stop their ears, with wax, knowing there was in them no power to resist the lure of that voluptuous song. But he, the much experienced man, who ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... respecting this perfection of loveliness is no fiction, neither have I at all exaggerated either her perfections or her beauty, and I trust by her aid we shall obliterate from the king's mind every recollection of the syren of the ." "Heaven grant it," exclaimed I. "My dear sister," replied comte Jean, "heaven has nothing to do with such things." Alas! he was mistaken, and Providence only employed the present occasion ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... they are brothers' children, you know: the voice in all that connexion is remarkable. Pendennyss, though a degree further off in blood, possesses it; and Lady Harriet, you perceive, has the same characteristic; there has been some syren in ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... made clear and, at last and at length, the soul will find comfort, and happiness, and peace. And the things which drag you away from this inner-vision—they are the things which hurt, which age you before your time, which rob you of joy and contentment. As a syren they seem to beckon you into the valleys where all is sunshine and liveliness, and if you go . . . if you go, alas! it is not long before once more you must set your face, a lonelier and a sadder man, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... a death for me design!" But the rapt sense, by such enchantment bound, And the strong will, thus listening to possess Heaven's joys on earth, my spirit's flight delay. And thus I live; and thus drawn out and wound Is my life's thread, in dreamy blessedness, By this sole syren ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... angel; but reflect that she is an heiress—the inheritress of immense property—and that, as a matter of course, the temptations are a thousand to one against him. He will yield, I tell you, to the heretic syren; and as a passport to her father's favor and her affection, he will, like too many of his class, abandon the faith of his ancestors, and become an apostate, for the sake ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... sweet syren, breathe again That deep, pathetic, powerful strain; Whose melting tones, of tender woe, Fall soft as evening's summer dew, That bathes the pinks and harebells blue, Which in the vales of ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... and read it partially. He saw her longing gaze outwards upon the free, broad world, and thought that the syren waters, whose deadly music yet rang in her ears, were again tempting her. He called her to him, praying that his feeble voice ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... urging his friend to emigrate and speak to more appreciative audiences in the States; but the London lectures, which had, with the remittances from over sea, practically saved Carlyle from ruin or from exile, had made him decide "to turn his back to the treacherous Syren"—the temptation to sink into oratory. Mr. Froude's explanation and defence of this decision may be clenched by a reference to the warning his master had received. He had announced himself as a preacher and a prophet, and been taken at ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... flattering promise of his future joy: He soothed and menaced, anxious to reclaim This hopeless passion, or divert its aim: Oft led the youth where circling joys delight 280 The ravish'd sense, or beauty charms the sight. With all her powers enchanting music fail'd, And pleasure's syren voice no more prevail'd: Long with unequal art, in vain he strove To quench the ethereal flame of ardent love. The merchant, kindling then with proud disdain, In look and voice assumed a harsher strain. In absence now his only hope remain'd; And such the stern decree his will ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the Corsair had found them, and made preparations for a grand sacrifice to the fairies, for their protection and guidance. They were about to immolate a turtle-dove, but the Princess saved its life, and let it fly. At this moment a syren issued from the water, and said, "Cease your anxiety, let your vessel go where it will; land where it stops." The vessel now sailed more quickly. Suddenly they came in sight of a city so beautiful that they were anxious their vessel should enter the port. ...
— The Frog Prince and Other Stories - The Frog Prince, Princess Belle-Etoile, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp • Anonymous
... the war in 1865 I enlisted in Cincinnati, on October 12, in the California Rocky Mountain service. Before this, however, I had shipped in the Ram Vindicator of the Mississippi Squadron and after being transferred to the gunboat Syren had helped move the navy yard from Mound City, Ill., to Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis, Mo., where ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... Consumption, that awful syren, had entered the joyous home of Mr. Woodman, and marked his lovely wife for its prey; and although many years elapsed before it effected its work, yet he well knew ...
— Fostina Woodman, the Wonderful Adventurer • Avis A. (Burnham) Stanwood
... and a better evidence it is than any that can be given by the human tongue. Here is a warm, rapturous, lascivious letter under the hypocritical syren's ain ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... was a loud shout, followed by a yell, the report of a revolver, succeeded by the deep booming roar of a fog-syren which had been set going by the funnel, and then as Fitz Burnett felt that the crash was upon them, the roar of the fog-horn was behind, for the Teal had as nearly as possible scraped past the gunboat's stern, and was flying onward towards ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... roses in the south. O mine to guide thee far From ruddy coral bar, From horizon to horizon thou shalt glimmer like a star; Thou shalt lean upon my breast, And I shall rest, And murmur in thy sails, Such fond tales, That thy finest cords Will, syren-like, chant back my mellow words With such renew'd enchantment unto me That I shall be, By my own singing, closer ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... the gun, when luckily Alten took a good sweep round with the skyscraper and discovered one of those wretched little airships about a mile away, coming towards the steamer, which was wailing piteously, on her syren. ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... they closed with her, and came within earshot of her syren, which was sending frightened useless blares across the churning waters, there was no being blind to the true facts any longer. This was no cargo boat, but a passenger liner; outward bound, too, and populous. And as they came still nearer, they saw her after-decks ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... of this latter age; SYDNEY, the blasing-starre of England's glory; SYDNEY, the wonder of the wise and sage; SYDNEY, the subject of true vertues story: This syren, starre, this wonder, and this subject, Is dumbe, dim, gone, and mard by ...
— The Affectionate Shepherd • Richard Barnfield
... Head a little recovered himself, than we find him cheated again by the syren alurements of pleasure and poetry, in the latter of which, however, it does not appear he made any proficiency. He failed a second time, in the world, and having recourse to his pen, wrote the first part of the English Rogue, which being too libertine, could not ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... wood. As palmetto wood is soft and does not splinter, it was especially suited for the purpose. The squadron, under Sir Peter Parker, consisted of the Bristol, Experiment, Active, Solebay, Actaeon, Syren, and other smaller craft. While Sir Henry Clinton landed his troops on Long Island Sir Peter undertook to attack the fort, which was commanded by Colonel Moultrie. General Lee, however, with a large force, had by rapid marches ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... been mentioned, that Annatoo took her turn at the helm; but it was only by day. And in justice to the lady, I must affirm, that upon the whole she acquitted herself well. For notwithstanding the syren face in the binnacle, which dimly allured her glances, Annatoo after all was tolerably heedful of her steering. Indeed she took much pride therein; always ready for her turn; with marvelous exactitude ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Some wished mean of quick and good proceeding, She thought to strike the iron that was hot, For every action hath his hour of speeding: Medea or false Circe changed not So far the shapes of men, as her eyes spreading Altered their hearts, and with her syren's sound In lust, their minds, their hearts, in love ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... authentic record of the date of this fair syren's birth. It is popularly supposed, however, that she was contemporaneous with POCAHONTAS. POKY (as she was playfully called by her playmates at boarding-school) is now dead. LOGY (another playful appellation of the gushing miss ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... wounded's stifling breath, The tyrant's plume in dust lies low— Th' oppressed has triumphed o'er his foe. But ah! the lull in the furious blast May whisper not of ruin past; It may tell of the tempest hurrying on, To complete the work the blast begun. With the voice of a Syren, it may whisp'ringly tell Of a moment of hope in the deluge of rain; And the shout of the free heart may rapt'rously swell, While the tyrant is gath'ring his power again. Though the balm of the leech may soften the ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... cultivate the intelligence. Man, knowing he is to die, will not sacrifice the present enjoyment for a greater one in the future. The love of woman cannot die out; and it has a terrible and uncontrollable fate, increased by the refinements of civilization. Woman is the veritable syren or goddess of the young. But society can be improved; and free government is possible for States; and freedom of thought and conscience is no longer wholly utopian. Already we see that Emperors prefer to be elected by universal suffrage; that States are conveyed to Empires by vote; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike |
