"Chirp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at nightfall, when the sun has sunk under the hills, and the crickets chirp,—"gone." Say it to yourself when the night is far over, and you wake with some sudden start from pleasant dreams,—"gone." Say it to yourself in some country churchyard, where your father, or your mother, sleeps under the blooming ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... great effort, and making a start away from the rail managed to drag his slippers as far as the binnacle. There he stopped again, exhausted and bored. From under the lifted glass panes of the cabin skylight near by came the feeble chirp of a canary, which appeared to give him some satisfaction. He listened, smiled faintly muttered "Dicky, poor Dick—" and fell back into the immense silence of the world. His eyes closed, his head hung low over the hot brass of the binnacle top. Suddenly ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... throughout the day, and at times was very heavy; but just before sunset it died away to a faint sputter and crackle of rifles, and at dark ceased altogether. The moon rose in an unclouded sky over the dark tree-tops east of the camp; the crickets began to chirp in the thicket across the brook; sounds like the rapid shaking of a billiard-ball in a resonant wooden box came from nocturnal birds or tree-toads hidden in the depth of the forest; and the teeming life of the tropical wilderness, frightened into silence for a time by the uproar of ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... till later than the time of rising for the crows, and sparrows, and hotel servants, but to sleep after sunrise is almost impossible; these abominable hoody crows and sparrows sit on the jalousies and verandah and caw and chirp most harshly. "If I were viceroy," I'd put forth a word to have the whole lot exterminated. It could be done in two seasons, then the harmless, and game birds, would have a chance. It was once done in our country in the reign of James the IV. The tree in which a crow built for ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... priest stopped by the outcropping rock. He stood silent a few minutes—quite motionless—as if he were listening to the forest and the night. But there was utter stillness. There was not even a breeze to stir a leaf, or a half-wakened bird to sleepily chirp. ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... awakened a whole city household; but slumber in the country has a slumber of its own: in summer time a slumber born of night-air, laden with the odors of vegetation, and silent except for the drowsy chirp of birds that stir in vine and tree. The wife awoke first, listened for a second, and aroused her husband, who went to the window. He raised the screen and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... have been two happier and more excited girls somewhere in Canada or the United States at that moment, but I doubt it. Every snip of the scissors, as rose and peony and bluebell fell, seemed to chirp, "Mrs. Morgan is coming today." Anne wondered how Mr. Harrison COULD go on placidly mowing hay in the field across the lane, just as if nothing were ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... September, when they were idling along by the woods, about noon, the heat was so great and the air so still that the smoke of their little fire, instead of rising straight into the air, fell like water and crept among the briars. The grasshopper had ceased its dull monotonous chirp, not the buzzing of a fly was to be heard, nor the warbling of a bird. The oxen and the cows, with sleepy eyes half-closed, their knees bent under them, were resting together under a spreading oak in the meadow, now and then lowing ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... protuberance at yer, an' go cayvortin' 'round after ther same old style, seekin' whomsoever he kin sock a bullet inter. Then you'll hate yerself, an' wish ye'd tooken my advice ter hang ther whelp, sheriff or no sheriff. You hear me chirp!" ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... gave a cheerful chirp. Everybody knew that Grandfather Mole was the champion digger of Pleasant Valley. And if he couldn't answer Mrs. Robin's question, ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... backing Munchausen in a corner and dragging his medals away from him, "that's the answer, You for the Burbs! You for the chateau up the track! Henceforth, you for the cage in the country where the daffydowndillys sing in the treetops and buttercups chirp from ...
— Back to the Woods • Hugh McHugh
... the nightingale's origin would, of course, in classical times, give the character of melancholy to its song; and it is rather remarkable that AEschylus makes Cassandra speak of the happy chirp of the nightingale, and the Chorus to remark upon this as a further proof of her insanity. (Shakspeare makes Edgar say, "The foul fiend haunted poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale."—King ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 182, April 23, 1853 • Various
... going to send father some books to read, and some papers, and father said he was more comfortable than downstairs, as I did not mind his pipe, and Tom has hung my linnet there,' pointing to the window, 'and if you open the cage, miss, you will see him hop all over the bedclothes, and chirp in the ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Each least chirp that rings from every nest, Each least touch of flower-soft fingers pressing Aught that yearns ...
— A Century of Roundels • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the little sparrows chirp, An' answers th' raven's call; He'll never see one want for owt, ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... with us both all the wood through, The lark, linnet, throstle, and nightingale too; Winds over us whispered, flocks by us did bleat, And chirp went the grasshopper under our feet. But now she is absent, though still they sing on, The woods are but lonely, the melody's gone: Her voice in the concert, as now I have found, Gave everything else its ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... went with us both all the Wood thro', The Lark, Linnet, Throstle, and Nightingale too; Winds over us whisper'd, Flocks by us did bleat, And chirp went the Grasshopper under our Feet. But now she is absent, tho' still they sing on, The Woods are but lonely, the Melody's gone: Her Voice in the Consort, as now I have found, Gave ev'ry ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the chickens, one and all, Crowd around her at her call! One chick, missing, peeps to say: "Chirp, chirp, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... without any regard for the others, but apparently the score had been written for them all, since the innumerable strains made one divine harmony. From the full-orbed song from the maple by my window, down to the faintest chirp and twitter, there was no discord; while from the fields beyond the village the whistle of the meadow-larks was so mellowed and softened by distance as to incline one to wonder whether their notes were real or mere ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... A cricket began to chirp upon the hearth, then the branch of a sycamore, moved by the wind, struck violently against the low eaves of the house. Rand arose, put his hands to his temples, and ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... long-familiar, chanting monotones fainted and died in the portals of her ears like a nurse's song, while her sinking eyelids shut not out, but in, one tallish Rosemont senior who had risen in prayer visibly heavy with the sleep he had robbed from three successive nights. The chirp of a lone cricket somewhere under the floor led her forth in a half dream beyond the town and the gleaming turnpike, across wide fields whose multitudinous, tiny life rasped and buzzed under the vibrant heat; ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... Sammy Chirp passed a few things from his right to his left hand and searched a few pockets; passed a few things from his left to his right hand, dropped the lady's handkerchief and picked it up, smiled feebly upon everybody, and then at last produced ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... the soft twilight of a summer's morning, and the little birds had begun to chirp their matins, and the lark to brush the dew from her speckled breast, waiting for the first gaze of the sun. The old man pressed the infant closer to his bosom as he drew nigh to the steep acclivity, the solitary dwelling of the eagle. He kissed the babe; then ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... such extraordinary luxuriance that few of the sun's rays could penetrate the massy net-work of leaves and branches forming the roof of our fairy passage. Not a single bird could be seen, either seated or on the wing; nor was even a chirp distinguishable above the dreamy hum of millions of mosquitoes floating about, in a calm so profound, that it seemed as if the surface of the water had never been disturbed since the Creation. The ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set the ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... her hands, and the party again ranged themselves on the sward. Each lady beside each gallant. "You, Mariana, if not fatigued," said the Queen, "shall take the lute and silence these noisy grasshoppers, which chirp about us with as much pretension as if they were nightingales. Sing, sweet subject, sing; and let it be the song our dear friend, Signor Visdomini, (I know not if this be the same Visdomini who, three years afterwards, with one of the Medici, conducted so gallant a reinforcement to Scarperia, ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... mock other birds. Sometimes I warble and chirp at the same time. Then it sounds like two birds singing. My tongue is short and thick, and this helps me to talk. But I have been talking too much. My ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all the land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at nightfall, so then by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket's chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... hats were turned sociably towards one another, now and then, as they exchanged a syllable or two, and there was a mild luminousness of pleasure in the recesses of their pale-blue eyes. The evening darkened fast into night. The plaintive half-chirp, half-whistle of a tree-toad fell in monotonous repetition ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... distinguished from Father Dan's, there comes first the recollection of a big room containing a big bed, a big wardrobe, a big dressing table, a big praying-stool with an image of Our Lady on the wall above it, and an open window to which a sparrow used to come in the mornings and chirp. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... might have sent a couple of his lazy negroes. Or, if he had only fired a shot or two as a signal. I stopped and listened, in hopes of hearing the crack of a rifle. But the deepest stillness reigned around, scarcely the chirp of a bird was heard—all nature seemed to be taking the siesta. As far as the eye could reach was a waving sea of grass, here and there an island of trees, but not a trace of a human being. At last I thought I had made a discovery. The nearest clump of trees was undoubtedly the same which I had ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... their trail. They came to more rocky ledges and walked along them for a long distance, then found and went up a wide and shallow stream. Slowly the pale light of dawn diffused itself through the forest. In the branches overhead myriads of birds began to flutter and chirp, the squirrels commenced their ceaseless chattering, and through the white mist, at bends of the stream, they saw deer coming from the fern of the forest to drink. A great hill rose before them, bare of trees, covered only ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... tone, as if it could have told a lamentable story, had it only been gifted with human language. And when he attempted to drive it away, the bird flew no farther than the bough of the next tree, and again came fluttering about his head, with its doleful chirp, as soon as he showed ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... a low, peculiar chirp, not very fierce, but bantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a very fantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy their sense of honor than to hurt each other, for neither party gets the better of the other, and they separate a few paces and ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... his ancient and formidable hat, and in an instant seemed to come a century nearer to his neighbors. His stature was reduced, his unsociableness seemed modified; he now looked to be a smallish, friendless person, as if some ownerless dog had darted through the street, and heard a kind chirp at the tavern door, where his reception had been stones. His voice, with a little tremor in it, emboldened ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... their dismal noise; flocks of parrots and blue macaws pass overhead, the different kinds of cawing and screaming of the various species making a terrible discord. Added to them are the calls of strange cicada—one large kind perched high on the trees setting up a most piercing chirp. It begins with the usual harsh jarring tone of its tribe, rapidly becoming shriller, until it ends in a long and loud note resembling the steam whistle of a locomotive engine. A few of these wonderful performers make a considerable item in the ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... because there was neither a canvas tent, a barn roof, nor the blue sky above him, but a neat white ceiling, where several flies buzzed sociably together, while from without came, not the tramping of horses, the twitter of swallows, or the chirp of early birds, but the comfortable cackle of hens and the sound of two little voices chanting the ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... looked so pretty in her sleep that Abby came three times to wake her, and three times went away again, unable to spoil so perfect a picture. At last, however, the dark eyes opened of their own accord, and Marie began to chirp and twitter, like a bird at daybreak in its nest; only instead of daybreak, it was eight o'clock in the morning, a most shocking hour for anybody to be getting up. But Abby had been in the habit of spoiling her sister, who had a theory that she was never able to ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... risk it? She stretched out her hand towards the bird and softly and tremulously whistled to it in Hoodie's well-known call. The wavering balance of birdie's intentions was turned—it cocked its head on one side, and with a pretty chirp flew towards Magdalen and perched on her finger! Slowly and cautiously, whistling softly all the time, she slipped her hand into the cage, and quickly withdrawing it the instant birdie hopped ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... is the most beautiful of all months. Then it is, that all nature seems to awaken from its winter slumbers. The grass springs up, the little birds sing and chirp, and display their beautiful plumage. The trees shoot forth their buds, the fruitful covering of future foliage. We no longer greet each other in the warmed room, but, "Good morning," is sweetly spoken from the open ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... wind in the trees; the gentle rustle of the grass as it is swayed by the passing breeze; the musical ripple of water as it gurgles from the spring; the piping of the quail as it calls to its mate; the twitter of little birds flitting from bush to bough; the chirp of the cricket and drone of the beetle are among the sounds that are heard and ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... we found ourselves on a lonely brae-side, sorely weary, hungry and faint in spirit; a few whin-bushes were on the bank, and the birds in them were beginning to chirp,—we sat down and wist not ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... food conserver is the chipping squirrel, or chipmunk, so named because his cry sounds like the chirp of little chickens. His method of dress is most unusual; he is brownish grey in colour, with five stripes of black and two of pale yellow running along the back of his coat; the throat and lower part of his body is snowy white. These colours occasionally vary, when the grey and ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... strawstack, a wee little mite Of a cricket went chirping by day and by night; And further down, still, a cunning blue mouse In a snug little nook of that strawstack kept house! When the cricket went "chirp," Miss Mousie would squeak "Come in," and a blush would enkindle her cheek! She thought—silly girl! 't was a beau come to woo, But I guess it was ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... their heads in their cloaks and, fasting and unfed, lay down all that night and the day, awaiting a piteous death. But apart the maidens huddled together lamented beside the daughter of Aeetes. And as when, forsaken by their mother, unfledged birds that have fallen from a cleft in the rock chirp shrilly; or when by the banks of fair-flowing Pactolus, swans raise their song, and all around the dewy meadow echoes and the river's fair stream; so these maidens, laying in the dust their golden hair, all through the night wailed their piteous lament. And there all would ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... black minstrels of the night, chirp under the log upon which you are resting, and the katydids repeat over and over again "Katy's" wonderful achievement, though just what this amazing conquest was no one has been able to discover. The cicadas join the chorus ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... With night came new voices—the hideous voices of the nocturnal swamp; the qua-qua of the night-heron, the screech of the swamp-owl, the cry of the bittern, the cl-l-uk of the great water-toad, the tinkling of the bell-frog, and the chirp of the savanna-cricket—all fell upon my ear. Sounds still harsher and more, hideous were heard around me—the plashing of the alligator, and the roaring of his voice; these reminded me that I must not go to sleep. To sleep! I durst not have slept ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... Grasshoppers chirp and crickets chir, The rich-tagged alders nod and pur, The kine bells drowse the distant pasture,— All nature waits for ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... eyes open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop beating altogether. He had seen the dawn lighting the window chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow, before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of one who had always had his own way. He would see ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... heather. We have to move with extreme caution, for the colour of their soft feathers is scarcely distinguishable from the ground which they have selected as a table for their morning meal. Nicasio is in advance of me, tracking a company of guinea-fowls, whose melodious chirp has caught his accustomed ear. They are not yet visible, but my sporting friend has halted behind a bush, and thrown away his white tell-tale panama. This means mischief. The dark-grey clothes and sun-burnt face of my companion blend naturally ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... dreaming, content. And it was then that he caught and imprisoned in colour the nameless beauty which was the foundation for his first famous picture, whose snowy splendour silenced all except those little critics who chirp automatically, eternally, on the ruddy hearthstone of ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... around him Roger saw, emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was gone. Darkness, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... there were Jews who held their heads high, let the following legend tell: Few men could shuffle along more inoffensively or cry "Old Clo'" with a meeker twitter than Sleepy Sol. The old man crawled one day, bowed with humility and clo'-bag, into a military mews and uttered his tremulous chirp. To him came one of the hostlers with ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... mosquitoes and gnats. The dark shades of the heavy forests were seldom brightened by a ray of sun. The stream was full of alligators, that lay lazily on the banks all day, and bellowed dismally all night. The chirp of a bird was rarely heard. In its place were the discordant screams of cranes, or hisses of the moccasins or cotton-mouths. When at last the carpenters' clatter had ceased, and the ram, ready for action, lay in the little river, the crew were mustered ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... flapped by the winds; red leaves on the tree tops swaying to and fro; groves picture-like, half stripped of foliage; the western breeze coming with sudden gusts, and the wail of the oriole still audible; the warm sun shining with genial rays, and the cicada also adding its chirp: structures, visible to the gaze at a distance in the South-east, soaring high on various sites and resting against the hills; three halls, visible near by on the North-west, stretching in one connected line, on the bank of the stream; strains of music filling the pavilion, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... if we could examine the brain of a person who has grown up in an environment rich in stimuli to the eye, where nature, earth, and sky have presented a changing panorama of color and form to attract the eye; where all the sounds of nature, from the chirp of the insect to the roar of the waves and the murmur of the breeze, and from the softest tones of the voice to the mightiest sweep of the great orchestra, have challenged the ear; where many and varied odors and perfumes have assailed the nostrils; ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... leant forward in his low chair. The chaffinch gave a light chirp, as if to recall him to his duty. Hadria performed it for him. The chaffinch ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE would like to hear about a young robin my papa found under a cherry-tree near the house. He thought I could raise him, and take him back to New York for a pet. But after I had kept him two days in my room, he would chirp so mournfully when he heard the other birds singing merrily outside that it made me feel so sorry, I took him and put him on a branch of the tree. Oh, I wish you could have seen him flap his wings with delight. Then the old birds came, ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along Main Street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the bluebird, the swan song of the Blue Point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N. J., the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... a bird sang; its note was clear and bold. Its silvery trill seemed to melt into the air that was full of the soft, caressing splash of the waves. The silence that followed was broken by the nervous chirp of a cricket ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... in the mild sunlight of the autumn morning. Suddenly, great excitement in the cages. The Chaffinches chirp their rallying-cry: ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... the woods in flocks, this continual hailing is carried on between them to satisfy their desire for each other's company. A similar conversation passes between the individuals of a flock of Chickens, when scattered over a farmyard; one, on finding itself alone, will chirp until it hears a response, when it seems immediately satisfied. The call-notes of the Chicadee are very lively, with a mixture of querulousness in their tone, that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the boy almost cried with laughter—and old Bob and his wife, who came running from the kitchen, DID cry.) He had a third appellation for himself—"Just little Hamilton"; but this was only when the creaky voice could hardly chirp at all and the weazened face was drawn to one side with suffering. When he told us he was "Just little ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... clouds, and of long, shady country roads winding in and out and about the hills; of lanes bordered with blackberry-bushes and sumac, clematis and wild-rose; of dewy nooks full of ferns; of the songs of birds and the chirp of insects; and it seemed to him that he must put some of all this beauty into some shape of his own creation—picture or poem, song or speech; and then came a sudden sharp twinge of pain, and the brightness ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... the grasshopper called a "shuttle"? What does the word still mean here? Who are the "elfin clan"? By whom is the sheaf tenanted? What is a reveille? Does the grasshopper chirp at night? Why is its cry ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... silence for a few minutes. The sun was sinking low in the western sky, the chirp of the birds was growing faint in the trees. She raised her colorless ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... quietly in the garden and watch the evening pass into night. Nature, in these climes, chooses her vocalists from more humble performers than in Europe. A small frog, of the genus Hyla, sits on a blade of grass about an inch above the surface of the water, and sends forth a pleasing chirp: when several are together they sing in harmony on different notes. I had some difficulty in catching a specimen of this frog. The genus Hyla has its toes terminated by small suckers; and I found this ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... of another kind. When the canary bird of the heart begins to chirp, reason puts her fingers in her ears. The maiden was going to be married, but—well, it's an every-day story, and we will let ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... fashions of ten years past, and the aprons were too often frayed and darned, and relics of some former, more opulent owners. There were multitudes of children, but they were without the gambols which characterize the young of all animals; and there was not even the chirp of a winter bird about them; their faces were prematurely aged and hardened, and their bold eyes revealed that sin had no surprises for them. And every one of these showed that intense look which marks the awful struggle for food and life upon which they had just entered. ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... with the sweetest look on her face encouraged the birds to fly away. The poor little creatures cowered and hesitated, not knowing at first what use to make of their new liberty; but at last one, the boldest of the company, hopped to the door and with a glad, exultant chirp flew straight upward. Then the others, taking courage from his example, followed, and all were lost to view in the twinkling of ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... has no sympathy," the fluttering gentlemen chirp. "We admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, we all admire his art and intellectual brilliancy, his dazzling technique and rare rhythmical sense; but . . . he is totally devoid of sympathy." Dear! Dear! What is to be understood by this? Should he sprinkle his pages with sympathetic adjectives, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... sweet, Was its first soft tumultuous beat! I little thought that beat could be The harbinger of misery; And daily, when the morning beam Dawned earliest on wood and stream, When, from each brake and bush were heard, The hum of bee, and chirp of bird, From these, earth's matin songs, my ear Would turn, a sweeter voice to hear— A voice, whose tones the very air Seemed trembling with delight to bear; From leafy wood, and misty stream, From bush, and brake, and morning ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... wandered dismally up and down, stretching their hands nervously as if unused to gloves. Presently they fell back, and the organ, in the hands of an amateur performer and an inadequate blower, began to chirp and hoot merrily, by which we knew the bridal ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... when the winds are singing In the happy summer time— When the raptured air is ringing With earth's music heavenward springing, Forest chirp and village chime— Is there, of the sounds that float Unsighingly, a single note Half so sweet, and clear, and wild, As ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... she; "her William will leave her and forget her. The wild rose will bend over her grave—the brook will murmur low at her cold feet—the rabbit will nip the tender grass by her tombstone at night-fall—the katydid will chirp over her, and the whippor-will will sing in vain. William will forget her! ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... heart got heavier and heavier; for it did seem hard that in a great city full of fine things, there should be none for poor Nono, Sep, and little Speranza. Just as Tessa's tears began to tumble off her eyelashes on to her brown cheeks, the cricket began to chirp. Of course, he didn't say a word; but it really did seem as if he had answered her question almost as well as a fairy; for, before he had piped a dozen shrill notes, an idea popped into Tessa's head—such a truly splendid idea ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... burying himself in its perusal. That same night, while Ishmael, having finished his day's work, was refreshing himself by strolling through the garden, inhaling the fragrance of flowers, listening to the gleeful chirp of the joyous little insects, and watching the light of the stars, he heard an advancing step behind him, and presently his arm was taken by Mr. Middleton, who, walking on ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... firmament, and then, like the tearing of a veil, the opening grew larger and the beautiful azure sky, clear and fathomless, spread over the world. A fresh and gentle breeze passed over the earth like a happy sigh, and as they passed beside gardens or woods they heard occasionally the bright chirp of a bird as ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Pussy-cat, and down went he; Down came Pussy-cat, and away Robin ran: Says little Robin Red-breast, "Catch me if you can." Little Robin Red-breast hopp'd upon a wall, Pussy-cat jump'd after him, and almost got a fall. Little Robin chirp'd and sang, and what did Pussy say? Pussy-cat said, "Mew," and Robin ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... discern. In fairyland I soar, not that I would become a butterfly like Chang. So long I for my old friend T'ao, the magistrate, that I again seek him. In a sound sleep I fell; but so soon as the wild geese cried, they broke my rest. The chirp of the cicadas gave me such a start that I bear them a grudge. My secret wrongs to whom can I go and divulge, when I wake up from sleep? The faded flowers and the cold mist make my feelings of anguish know ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... calm, and fresh, and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill, And bell ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... winter had evidently been pleasant, hopped about the garden after her, occasionally seeking shelter on the lower bough of a tree if she turned, or came too near. "Don't be afraid," she called, aloud, then laughed, as with a farewell chirp and a flutter of wings, the robin took himself beyond the reach of ...
— Old Rose and Silver • Myrtle Reed
... but his instruments To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, I see the beauty of his providence In the King's order: blind, he will not let His doom part from him, but must bid it stay 120 As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stay And rear again our Zion's crumbled walls, Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built, By minstrel twanging, but, if need should be, With ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... between her slender fingers. Stars that looked upon her early in the night had gone down into blue abysms below the horizon, and the midnight song of a mocking-bird, swinging in a lemon-tree beneath her window, had long since hushed itself with the chirp of crickets and ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... The shrieks of pigs were trifles to the yelling of that Eskimo child's impatience. The caterwauling of cats was as nothing to the growls of his disgust. The angry voice of the Polar bear was a mere chirp compared with the furious howling of his disappointment, and the barking of a mad walrus was music to the roaring ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... pretended to growl, even at her, sometimes; it was so funny to see her look up and chirp on after it, like some little bird to whom the language of beasts was no language at all, and passed by on the air as a very big sound, but one that ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... now adieu—I've chirp'd too long, Must leave the finish of my song To some more learned bird's son; Whose mellow notes can charm the ear With no discordant chatter near; So now, dear Sir, I'm your sincere And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... and proceeded to limp about the apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Bealieu. He first possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... daily importuned to buy monkeys, parrots, cocks, or song birds. I took a tiny bird that was never known to so much as chirp, but he grew fond of me, would perch upon my shoulder or would turn his little head right or left as if to ask if I were pleased with his silent attentions. The last morning of my stay in Jaro I went to the window and set him free but he immediately came back and clung to my hand. I ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... it came, leaving the trenches running with water, like the gutters of a city street after a spring shower; and the men soon sopped them up with their overcoats and blankets, and in half an hour the sun had dried the wet uniforms, and the field-birds had begun to chirp again, and the grass was warm and fragrant. The sun was terribly hot. There was no other day during that entire brief campaign when its glare was so intense or the heat so suffocating. The men curled up in the trenches, with their heads pressed ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... fox had made its hole halfway down; there was still water at the bottom of the well. Here, plunged in the darkness, Angelot sat on the edge of the well and waited. There were odd little sounds about him, the squeaking of young animals, the sleepy chirp of easily disturbed birds; a frog dived with a splash into the well, and then in a few unearthly croaks told his story to his mates down there. The bracken smelt warm and dry; it was not a bad place to spend a summer night in, for any one who knew wild ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... seats, and remain quietly until the Senator from Kentucky had concluded his remarks. They did so and no word of complaint reached my ears. Hour after hour during the long summer day the speech drew itself along. At length as the shadows were lengthening and the crickets began to chirp, the speech ended and the Senator took his seat. I promptly replaced my pistols and motioned the visitors to move out. They did so on excellent time. As the last man was passing out, he quietly remarked to me, 'Mister, that was all right, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... it would be possible to keep up for hours longer. He felt no desire for sleep; on the contrary, his nerves were strained to their greatest tension, and he could hear sounds outside as if they had been magnified—the chirp of some grasshopper-like insect, or the impatient stamp of a horse in ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... was flooding in at the open lattice and, as if borne upon this shaft of glory, came the mingled fragrance of herb and flower and ripening fruit with the blithe carolling of birds, a very paean of thanksgiving; the chirp of sparrows, the soft, rich notes of blackbirds, the warbling trill of thrushes, the far, faint song of larks high in the blue—it was all there, blent into one harmonious chorus of joy, a song that spoke of hope and a fair future to such as were blessed with ears to hear. And by this, our Barnabas, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... neither Babe nor [5] me, Other play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, 45 That with stir of feet and wings (In the sun or under shade, Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this orchard's narrow space, And this vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in bands 55 Travelled into distant lands; Others slunk to moor and wood, Far from human neighbourhood; And, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... with liquor. Chirping glass, a cheerful glass, that makes the company chirp like ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... in the jail! Some people would have jumped to have had this chance of going to live in a palace, but this farmer said, "Give me my farmhouse and my quiet grave beside my mother." Elevation may undo us. A sparrow could only chirp even though in a golden cage. Barzillai felt, "A rustic, like I am, seems all right among my ploughs and cattle, but I should not fit a palace." Many a man has made himself a laughing stock because he left the place he was fitted ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... Countess had turned in hers; and long before the Abbot could get alone with Dom Galors he was sighing for his breakfast. He had, indeed, seen the dawn come in, caught the first shiver of the trees, the first tentative chirp of the birds, watched the slow filling of the shadowy pools and creeks with the grey tide of light. From brake to brake he struggled, out of the shade into the dark, thence into what seemed a broad lake of daylight. He met no living thing; or ever the sun kissed the ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... spectacle and mere picture for His own eye. How full and crowded with life, and happy life, His creation is! Go forth from inclosing city walls, and, in the summer noontide, stop in solitude and apparent silence and listen; and soon the sounds of this joyous life shall come to your ear: the chirp of the insects—the rustle of wings—the crackling of the leaves, as the blithesome airy creatures pass—the short, thick warble of the bird by your side, or its varied tune, clearer than viol or organ, from the thicket beyond—while, from time to time, the deep low of ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... stones before you, crying, "wet-feet, wet-feet!" and bowing and teetering in the friendliest manner, as if to show you the way to the best pools. In the thick branches of the hemlocks that stretch across the stream, the tiny warblers, dressed in a hundred colours, chirp and twitter confidingly above your head; and the Maryland yellow-throat, flitting through the bushes like a little gleam of sunlight, calls "witchery, witchery, witchery!" That plaintive, forsaken, persistent note, never ceasing, even in the noonday silence, comes from the wood-pewee, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... the woods to-day, a chipmunk running about, a cricket which dares not chirp," and she glanced up into the stern eyes with a merry light, "a grasshopper who takes long strides, a bee who goes buzzing, a glad, gay bird who says to his mate, 'Come, let us go to the unknown land and spend a winter in idleness, with no nest to build, no hungry, crying babies ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... was choked by her sobs. The whole valley was deserted and silent in the dazzling light and the overwhelming heat, and only the grasshoppers uttered their shrill, continuous chirp among the sparse yellow grass on ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... carried her head down, and when she ran she scuttled, and when she stopped she was absolutely still, except for her eyes, which she turned about brightly in every direction. Mrs. Cricky was looking for food for Chee, Chirk and Chirp. Usually Mr. Cricky brought home the food, but he was a member of the Marsh Grass Vesper Quartette—made up of himself, Miss K. T. Did, Mr. Frisky Frog and Mr. Tree Toad Todson, first cousin to Toadie Todson—and they had all been out very late the night before, so ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks
... chirp, An answers th' raven's call; He'll nivver see one want for owt, 'At's worth ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... winds are whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill, But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill, Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will {417} Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... had averted a tragedy in the sumac. He did not learn to use caution for himself; but after that, if a gun came down the shining river, he sent a warning "Chip!" to his mate, telling her to crouch low in her nest and keep very quiet, and then, in broken waves of flight, and with chirp and flutter, he exposed himself until he had lured danger ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... quite died down, leaving a suffocation in the air that is difficult to explain; but I've felt something like it on a sultry summer day when the sky is black with slowly advancing clouds, when the birds have become too awed to chirp and every leaf in the trees hangs motionless. It is in these suspenses of unpleasant expectation, when at any moment the heavens will open with a hissing smash of fire and nature be turned to fury, that one breathes heavily. There is no other feeling like it, except ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... (26. The Hon. Daines Barrington, 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1773, p. 252.); and thus she expresses her joy. Some social birds apparently call to each other for aid; and as they flit from tree to tree, the flock is kept together by chirp answering chirp. During the nocturnal migrations of geese and other water-fowl, sonorous clangs from the van may be heard in the darkness overhead, answered by clangs in the rear. Certain cries serve as danger signals, which, as the sportsman knows to his cost, are understood by the same ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... bravely, resisting to the last the tyranny of nipping winds and early frosts—took heart and brightened up; the stream which had been dull and sullen all day long, broke out into a cheerful smile; the birds began to chirp and twitter on the naked boughs, as though the hopeful creatures half believed that winter had gone by, and spring had come already. The vane upon the tapering spire of the old church glistened from its lofty station in sympathy with the general gladness; and from the ivy-shaded ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... boisterous revel of the forst geister, that meets his ear? or is it but the chirp of insects, replying ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... wise sky, the clouds that on the grass Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass; The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane That to our coming feet had been so plain, And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, And thickets of young pine-trees, nothing loath, Amidst the wilding ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... little lonesome cell, Where never romping playmates come, Nor bashful sweethearts, cunning-dumb— An April burst of girls and boys, Their rainbowed cloud of glooms and joys Born with their songs, gone with their toys; Nor ever is its stillness stirred By purr of cat, or chirp of bird, Or mother's twilight legend, told Of Horner's pie, or Tiddler's gold, Or fairy hobbling to the door, Red-cloaked and weird, banned and poor, To bless the good child's gracious eyes, The good child's wistful charities, And crippled changeling's hunch to make Dance on his ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... nature, and peace, and holy love. But now—at evening, when I see the round red sun sink quietly down behind those woody hills, leaving them sleeping in a warm, red, golden haze, I only think another lovely day is lost to him and me; and at morning, when roused by the flutter and chirp of the sparrows, and the gleeful twitter of the swallows—all intent upon feeding their young, and full of life and joy in their own little frames—I open the window to inhale the balmy, soul-reviving air, and look out upon the lovely landscape, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... the speech of the bird with a peculiar whistling sound in his throat, that was a marvelous imitation of a sparrow's chirp, and the little boy clapped his hands with delight, and insisted ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... a sombre air of homelessness about the whole region. Not a bird was flying in the air, no cattle were grazing in the fields, even the merry chirp of the crickets was no longer to be heard in the wayside ditches. The road itself was overgrown with grass on both sides, scarce leaving room for a little winding ribbon of a track in the centre, and even there the ruts, ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... very silly part. He listen'd a moment to the clatter of the carts, and the tramp of early passengers on the pave below, as they wended along to commence their daily toil. It was just sunrise, and the season was summer. A little canary bird, the only pet poor Lingave could afford to keep, chirp'd merrily in its cage on the wall. How slight a circumstance will sometimes change the whole current of our thoughts! The music of that bird abstracting the mind of the poet but a moment from his sorrows, gave a chance for his natural buoyancy to ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... leaves and moss to cover her; But while he perking there did pry About the arch of either eye, The lid began to let out day, At which poor robin flew away, And seeing her not dead, but all disleav'd, He chirp'd for joy ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... and clay, And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue; And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... when you'd chirp up, Tom," Beresford grinned cheerfully. "Sometimes I think I'm fed up for life on the hissing of snowshoe runners. The human voice sure sounds good up here. Yes, Great Bear Lake. And after ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... louder and more loud; the cricket's measured chirp seemed to grow more painfully audible; the wind whistled through the leafless boughs without, and in the lulls of the abating storm the low rumble of the ghyll could be heard within. What kept Ralph away? It was no unusual thing for him to be abroad from dawn to dusk, but ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... fool's bolt misses! What help? the world is full of loves; Night after night of running kisses, Chirp ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Shrill chirp the insects in the grass; All about the hoppers spring. While I my husband do not see, Sorrow must my bosom wring. O to meet him! O to greet him! Then my heart would rest ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... savanna sparrow, who sings habitually from the ground. But even he shares the common feeling, and stretches himself to his full height with an earnestness which is almost laughable, in view of the result; for his notes are hardly louder than a cricket's chirp. Probably he has fallen into this lowly habit from living in meadows and salt marshes, where bushes and trees are not readily to be come at; and it is worth noticing that, in the case of the skylark and the white-winged blackbird, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... ladies dined at Belgrave House, but to-night she was to be there. For the first time Fern's gentle nature felt jarred and out of tune. The bright little fire had burned hollow; there was a faint clinging mist from the fog outside; the cricket had ceased to chirp. Fern glanced round her disconsolately; how poor and shabby it must look to him, she thought, after the ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... excited tones of the Governor's voice. The desire was vanquished at last and the dying man had gone back in delirium to the battle he had fought beyond the river. On the hearth the resinous pine still blazed and from somewhere among the stones came the short chirp of a cricket. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... of debris, now disintegrated into one solid mass, and covered with vegetation. You can lie on the blossoming clover, where the bees hum and the crickets chirp around you, and can look through the arch which frames its own fair picture. In the foreground lies the steep slope overgrown with bayberry and gay with thistle blooms; then the little winding cove with its bordering cliffs; and the rough pastures with their grazing sheep beyond. Or, ascending ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... "Chirp and twitter, The dew-drops glitter, In the hours of sunny spring, I'll sing my best, Till I go to rest, With my head ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... lifted a flint-tipped spear over his head and emitted a shriek compared to which the Rebel yell was a chirp from the weakened lungs of the dove ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... you've been pretty horrid about writing him, and he's been blue-black at not getting letters from you; but at present he is having a good time with a very jolly girl from the West who is at their hotel. Chirp him something cheerful, Canary Bird. If I were younger or Billy older you shouldn't have him. I'd have him myself. I'm not going to stand for bad treatment of him, and if those Southern boys who make love to every pretty girl they see, ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... his presence. The weather still continued calm, and I could hear any occasional sounds very distinctly. I heard what resembled the pattering of little feet, as of the rat running over the lid of an empty box; and once or twice I clearly distinguished the short, shrill cricket-like "chirp" that rats are wont to utter. I can think of no more disagreeable sound than the voice of a rat, and at that time it sounded doubly disagreeable. You may smile at my simple fears, but I could not help them. I could not help a presentiment that somehow or other my life was ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... seemed the ruling passion of his soul. With a heart open to all innocent pleasures, purged from the leaven of malice and uncharitableness, it was as natural that he should be full of mirth as it is for the grasshopper to chirp or bee to hum, or the birds to warble in the spring breeze ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farm-house away among the hills; but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and turning suddenly in ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... sum of nearly five thousand dollars in gold, and the Father's first thought on waking, was of this money. Rising on his elbow, he listened. Hearing nothing, he was about to lie down, when again came the sound which had disturbed him, scarcely louder than the chirp of a far-away cricket, and which, but for the utter silence of the night, would have been swallowed up in the thick depths of the adobe wall between the two rooms. Springing out of bed, he threw on his clothes, and without a thought of danger to himself, hurried out to the cloisters and the ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... to the pine-woods above Lamteng in this month, and chirp shrilly in the heat of the day; and glow-worms fly about at night. The common Bengal and Java toad, Bufo scabra, abounded in the marshes, a remarkable instance of wide geographical distribution, ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... that the pitcher has the best chance to do the little turn I want done, and that's why I've come to you. Now, don't go off half-cocked! Hold hard, and hear me chirp. Every young fellow at college needs money, and they need a right good bit of it, too. I don't allow that you are any exception. Now, I reckon I can show you how you can make a smart bit of a pile and do it dead easy. Nobody but you and me will ever know you did it at all, and there isn't any ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... garden; the song-thrush warbled with a sweet melancholy his long-drawn contralto notes; the lark, like a prima donna, hovering conspicuously in mid air, poured forth her joyous soprano solo; and the robin, quite unmindful of the tempo, filled out the pauses with his thoughtless staccato chirp. Augusta, who was herself the early bird of the pastor's family, had paid a visit to the little bath-house down at the brook, and was now hurrying homeward, her heavy black hair confined in a delicate muslin hood, ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the evening I sit near my poker and tongs, And I dream in the firelight's glow, And sometimes I quaver forgotten old songs That I listened to long ago. Then out of the cinders there cometh a chirp Like an echoing, answering cry,— Little we care for the outside world, My friend the cricket, ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... down on the gray twilight field. And fur away over the green hills and woods of the east, the moon was a risin', big and calm and silvery. And we could hear the plaintive evenin' song of the thrush, and the crickets' happy chirp, till we got nearer the schoolhouse, when they sort o' blended in with 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' and 'Come, ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... fearful love approach his home, What time, 'mid western mists, the broad, red sun, Sinking, calls out from heaven the earliest star; And the crisp blazing of the dry Yule-log Flickers upon the pictured walls, and lights By fits the unshutter'd lattice; but, in vain, Thy chirp repeated earnestly; the flap, Against the obdurate pane, of thy small wing;— He hears thee not—he heeds not—but, at morn, The ice-enamoured schoolboy, early afoot, Finds thy small bulk beneath the alder stump, Thy bright eyes closed, and tiny ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... as he stood in the lee of a block of granite, sheltered from the cold night wind, found the pipe, and raised it to his lips to blow through the stem, but stopped short with every sense on the alert, for from below to his left he heard a light chirp such as might have been given by a bird, but which he argued certainly was not, for he knew of no bird likely to utter such a note at that time of the evening, when the flood of darkness had risen and risen till it had filled up everything high ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... all that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and—oh! their braveness and cheeriness—they did quite seem to hold one up! And then poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "God will not let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here! These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thing," he cried as he sprang up, "you too are shut within this terrible prison. This thick darkness must be as hard for you to bear as it is for me." He went toward the cage, and, as he drew near, the bird gave a glad little chirp. ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... little things; I love to hear them chirp," commented Miss Katie, turning a sweet glance toward us, and then the party moved to go and we saw the six hats loaded with their mournful freight file off to the house. We followed the retreating hats with sad eyes till they were lost ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... thicket the angler glides; Or the simpler comes, with basket and book, For herbs of power on thy banks to look; Or haply, some idle dreamer, like me, To wander, and muse, and gaze on thee. Still—save the chirp of birds that feed On the river cherry and seedy reed, And thy own wild music gushing out With mellow murmur of fairy shout, From dawn to the blush of another day, Like traveller ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... latter. What distinguishes the dead from the living is their inactivity. They lie in Aralu without doing anything. Everything there is in a state of neglect and decay. The dead can speak, but the Babylonians probably believed, like the Hebrews, that the dead talk in whispers, or chirp like birds.[1163] The dead are weak,[1164] and, therefore, unless others attend to their needs, they suffer pangs of hunger, or must content themselves with 'dust and clay' as their food. Tender care during the last moments of life was essential to comparative ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... Hawaii, a fact of marked interest to science in observing environmental effect upon the differentiation of species. One of these the natives call pupu kani oi or "shrill voiced snail," averring that a certain cricketlike chirp that rings through the stillness of the almost insectless valleys is the voice of this particular species. Emerson says that the name kahuli is applied to the land snail to describe the peculiar tilting motion as the snail crawls first to ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... bobolink along the meadow-brook; indeed, the birds of all sorts were astir, skimming along the ground or rising to the sky, keeping watch especially over the garden and the fruit-trees, carrying food to their nests, or teaching their young broods to fly and to chirp the songs of summer. And from the woodshed the shrill note of the scythe under the action of the grindstone. No such vivid ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the notes of the wild birds, and imitating them patiently, til you could scarcely tell which was boy and which was bird; and if you could, the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed the bobolinks and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head and chirp to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have taken hold and helped if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had had beak and claw instead of clumsy fingers. He ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... pursued their way in silence. It was one of those cold, but calm, bright days in winter, when the very air seems filled with silent ripples of gladness; when the sunshine rests like a glory on the leafless trees, and bright-eyed robins chirp and peck the moss, as they hop from bough to bough; when the light of heaven is so over all, that even the dun-colored earth, the decayed leaves and rotten branches, which the autumn blast has laid ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... you will hear voices, and see the gleam of a red garment, and then find a man of the roads, with dusky wife and child. You speak one word, "Sarishan!" and you are introduced. These people are like birds and bees, they belong to out-of-doors and nature. If you can chirp or buzz a little in their language and know their ways, you will find out, as you sit in the forest, why he who loves green bushes and mossy rocks is glad to fly from cities, and likes to be free of the joyous ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... clear tones reciting the contest between the hum of the kettle and the chirp of the cricket; the music of his voice lending added charm to the dual song. Then there followed in constantly increasing intensity the happy home life of bewitching Dot Perrybingle and her matter-of-fact husband, John the Carrier, with sleepy Tilly Slowboy and the Baby to fill ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith
... closed in on the meeting as the Senior Surgeon resumed his seat. It was broken by an enthusiastic chirp from the Youngest and Prettiest Trustee. She had never attempted to keep her interest for him concealed in the bud, causing much perturbation to the House Surgeon, and leading the Disagreeable ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... sings the latest, Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest, Where the nestlings chirp and flee, That's the way for ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... wood, if it be near mid-day, or before the decline of the sun, the notes of two small birds will be sure to attract our attention. These notes are very similar, and as slender and piercing as the chirp of a grasshopper, being distinguished from the latter only by a different and more pleasing modulation. The birds to which I refer are the Red Start (Muscicapa ruticilla) and the Speckled Creeper (Sylvia varia). The first is the more rarely seen of the two, being a bird of the deep forest, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... be it but a barrel-organ or a phrase, holds one as with an hypnotic power? I confess that I can never genuinely pity a knife-grinder, however needy. Think of the pleasure of driving that wheel all day, the merry chirp of the knife on the stone, and the crisp, bright spray of the flying sparks! Why, he does 'what some men dream of all their lives'! Wheels of all kinds have the same strange charm; mill-wheels, colliery-wheels, spinning-wheels, ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... breaking of waves. And sometimes, close at hand, the branches move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood thrills to its heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, a bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks goes by; and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with his family a few months in the summer. That is the reason he is called the "Bird of Society." When he is merry, he gaily sings, "Conk-quer-ree." When he is angry or frightened he screams, "Chock! Chock!" When he is flying or bathing he gives a sweet note which sounds like ee-u-u. He can chirp—chick, check, chuck, to his little ones as softly as any other bird. But only his best friends ever hear his sweetest tones, for the Blackbirds do not know how to be polite. They all talk at once. That is why most people think they only ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... made a chicken, And Christ, by grace, those dead in sin doth quicken. The egg, when first a chick, the shell's its prison; So's flesh to the soul, who yet with Christ is risen. The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep, The flesh decays, as men do pray and weep. The shell doth break, the chick's at liberty, The flesh falls off, the soul mounts up on high But both do not enjoy the self-same plight; The soul is safe, the chick now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan |
