"Wail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nameless horror of the dead man's shroud. Then the clock struck the quarter, and he felt the time was come. He chuckled to himself, and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so, than, with a piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in his long, bony hands. Right in front of him was standing a horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a madman's dream! Its head ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... spells, Death's clammy kiss ere long will press together. I know, that face so fair and full Is but a masquerading skull; But hail to thee, skull so fair and so fresh! Why should I weep and whine and wail, That what blooms now must soon grow pale, That worms must feed on that sweet flesh? Let me laugh but to-day and to-morrow, And I care not for sorrow, While thus on the waves of the dance ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... a gust of wind tore past the lighthouse with a mournful wail. The sound died down for a few seconds and then rose again in a dismal, long-drawn-out note that caused the boys to ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... voice dying away in a low wail. "Look upon that wall opposite the bed; it will speak better than I can." I looked, and beheld a faint photograph or impression of the couch, with its handsome drapery. Upon it reclined the figure of a female, and bending over her appeared the ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... Grace saw that she was tearful and dishevelled. She hastened down the steps to meet her, wondering what childish grief could be agitating the mind of the usually imperturbable little Jean. When she caught eight of Grace, she threw up her arms with a loud, bitter wail that rang among the old elms, echoing through their arching branches, and startling the birds that had just gone to roost. "Oh, Miss Cam'ell! Geordie, Geordie!—he's hurt; he's dyin'; ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... waft him from his native home; And fast the white rocks faded from his view, And soon were lost in circumambient foam: And then, it may be, of his wish to roam Repented he, but in his bosom slept[34] The silent thought, nor from his lips did come One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept, And to the reckless gales unmanly ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... life. Many years later, talking with me about those last sad hours when she watched with such tender devotion by his bedside, she told me with accents that are still ringing in my ears with their wail of agony: I lived through a hell of suffering on ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... regarded as particularly virulent and hostile if they happened to have left the body of one who was ceremonially impure. The most terrible ghost in Babylonia was that of a woman who had died in childbed. She was pitied and dreaded; her grief had demented her; she was doomed to wail in the darkness; her impurity clung to her like poison. No spirit was more prone to work evil against mankind, and her hostility was accompanied by the most tragic sorrow. In Northern India the Hindus, like the ancient Babylonians, regard as a ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... lost ones who are in China, and God cares for them and yearns over them," and men who were in England respectable artisans, with an imperfect hold of their own language, come to China, in response to the "wail of the dying millions," to stay this "awful ruin of souls," who, at the rate of 33,000 a day, are "perishing without hope, having sinned ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... with a conductor to whom he could show no ticket. On the platform James Macauley, junior, and Martha Macauley, Winifred Chester, and four small children of assorted ages stared after the big figure bolting into the Pullman. Bobby Burns gave a shriek of delight followed by a wail of disappointment. ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... of the tower, clad in the blue dungaree of his abandoned service, and as Findlayson motioned to him to be careful, for his was no life to throw away, he gripped the last pole, and, shading his eyes ship-fashion, answered with the long-drawn wail of the fo'c'sle lookout: "Ham dekhta hai" ("I am looking out"). Findlayson laughed and then sighed. It was years since he had seen a steamer, and he was sick for home. As his trolley passed under the tower, Peroo descended by a rope, ape-fashion, and cried: "It ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... it stands off and mocks him. It goes to a home, tramples upon the pure unselfish love of a wife, enthrones the shadow of a drunkard's poverty upon the hearth-stone, makes the empty cupboard echo the wail of hungry children for bread, with its bloody talons marks the door lintels with the death sentence of an immortal soul, and then stands off and mocks the home. It goes to the Congress of the United States and says: "Put upon me the harness of taxation ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... complainin' none 'bout Dinah. Ah mah'd huh caze ah wuz lonesome, an' she suttinly bin a good wife to me. Ahm goin' to wuk foh huh tell ah git back all the money ah spent on Hannah. Hit wus Dinah's money, too. But"—he burst out again with a sudden long wail— "ah jes' doan see how ahm goin' tuh keep on livin in a worl' ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... of the library long enough to mark the hours of the births and marriages, the meetings and partings, and death, of several generations of the Vyvyans, now chimed in slow, subdued tones, through which ran the echo of a wail, like the voice of a human being, who has ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... hold, and obedient to the pressure of his lips. Since then he had lived from feeble hope to hope; and now, when he struck upon that hard and narrow tract of corduroy studded with comfortless buttons, he began again his melancholy wail. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... irrevocably settled. She thought quite methodically of how it would all be,—what must be done to cut the cords of the old life, to establish the new. John would see the necessity,—he would not make difficulties. He might even be glad to have it all over! Of course her mother would wail, but she would learn to accept. She would leave Molly at first, and John naturally must have his share in her always. That could be worked out later. As for the Farm, they might come back to it afterwards. John had better stay on here for the present,—it was good for ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... exclamation was one of horror. A screech-owl had just sent its dreadful note in melancholy waves out upon the still night air. It started low, almost pianissimo, rose with a hideous crescendo to fortissimo, and then died away like the wail of a lost soul. It came from just ahead of them and to the right. Alice's horse shied and danced nervously. Prudence's horse stood stock still. Then, as no further sound came, ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... are various degrees of skill in playing, I have never yet learned to be critical. I can only see a difference in style. Some are dramatic, some classical, some furious and others buffo. The song is a monotonous, drawling wail, with which the drumming has no sort of connection, for it increases and diminishes in rapidity according to the pleasure or strength of the player. I am sure a concert, such as I witnessed nightly, would cause a sensation in New York, though ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... elevation of feeling and mortification of the flesh. The interior is a hollow cross, and we wander among the instruments of martyrdom itself; the variegated windows cast on us red and green light, like blood and corruption; funeral songs wail about us; under our feet are mortuary tablets and decay; and the soul soars with the colossal columns to a giddy height, tearing itself with pain from the body, which falls like a weary, worn-out garment to the ground. But when we behold the exteriors of these ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... they are chanting show it to be a funeral procession. Every one wears a green badge, for most all the colored people belong to some order. Finally they come to a stop and gather about the grave. The mourners break out into a wail, and they begin to chant the words: "And must my trembling spirit glide into a world unknown?" The chant I can never describe, for there is no music in it, and we cannot distinguish any tune. Then the minister preaches, and they begin another chant. Let us look around ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... The monotonous wail of the instruments, the pungency of the incense, the subdued light, the humid breath of the roses carried the thoughts of Mr. Tutt far away. Before him, against the blue misty sunshine, rose the yellow temples of Peking. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... wail of a man in torture burst from him. It woke more than one sleeper in the distant chambers of the Chateau, making them start upon their pillows to listen for another cry, but none came. Bigot was a man of iron; he retained self-possession enough to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... right?" Wilford asked, for now that the time drew near when the little crib at home would be empty, the nursery desolate, with no fretful, plaintive wail to annoy and worry him, he began to feel that after all that cry was not so very vexing as he had imagined it to be; that he might miss it when it was gone, and wish back the little creature which had been so ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... scorn the thrilling tale Of Carolina's high-souled daughters, Which echoes here the mournful wail Of sorrow from Edisto's waters, Close while ye may the public ear— With malice vex, with slander wound them— The pure and good shall throng to hear, And tried and manly ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... heart-breaking. 'Why could he not have lived until I came? Why?' In the evening came a sister, whose aged parents had sent her to search for their only son. She also came too late. The brother had gone to the soldier's grave two days previous. One continued wail of sorrow goes up from all parts ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... spoke a frightful noise was heard,—not thunder, it was too prolonged for that; it was a deep, sullen roar, heard above the wail of the wind like the boom of Niagara Falls. Very soon the children saw for themselves what it meant. ...
— Little Grandmother • Sophie May
... case on the return of a war-party, mourning for a chief is to be terminated, one of the heads is carried down river to his tomb, followed by most of the men, while the women wail in the house. The head is first brought before the house, but not into it. An old man shoots a dart into the air in the direction of the enemy, and then, pattering out a long formula in the usual way, he slaughters ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... in their vocal expression. Heretofore the short, snappy bark has spoken only of anticipation and eagerness; now there comes the instinctive yelp of the questing beast, the hound on the scent. It bursts from them like a wail from the distant past. As if shot, they are off in a bunch. A clatter of sounds, scratching, rustling, and scrambling, we hear them tearing through the brush. We follow, but are soon outdistanced. Down the creek bed we go, splash through mud, clamber over logs, stop, listen, and hear them baying, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... neist outspak a raucle carlin, Wha kent fu' weel to cleek the sterling, For monie a pursie she had hooked, And had in mony a well been ducked. Her dove had been a Highland laddie, But weary fa' the waefu' woodie! Wi' sighs and sobs she thus began To wail her braw John Highlandman. ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... other, though it is probable that a sight of a fresh store of bodily aliment, which was soon after exposed in order to gain access to the roof, might have led to some further inferences, had more time been given to conjectures. But at this moment a new wail proceeded from the maidens ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... face who wert doomed to undergo that sore trial of thy faith. Of Holly also I desired to learn whether his wisdom could pierce through my disguise, and how near he stood to truth. It was for this reason that I suffered him to see me draw the lock from the satchel on thy breast and to hear me wail over thee yonder in the Rest-house. Well he did not guess so ill, but thou, thou knewest me—in thy sleep—knewest me as I am, and not as I seemed to be, yes," she added softly, "and didst say certain sweet ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... the undertone; The wail of hopeless weeping in the dawn From lips that smiled through ...
— The Englishman and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... born into this world of woe? In never-ceasing streams let sorrow flow; Be from that hour the house with sables hung, Let lamentations dwell upon thy tongue; E'en from the moment that he first began To wail and whine, let him not see a man; Lock, lock him up, far from the public eye; Give him no opportunity to buy, Or to be bought; B——, though rich, was sold, And gave his body up to shame for gold. 620 Let it be bruited all about the town, That he is coarse, indelicate, and brown, An antidote to ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... immovable barriers of great-coated soldiers, and the surging, restless sea of black-clad men and women pent up on either hand behind them. The long rolling of muffled drums, and the dull boom of cannon; the baring of men's heads; the wail of the Funeral March, the flash of suddenly whitened faces turned one way to greet Her as She passed, borne to Her rest upon a gun-carriage, as fitting an aged warrior Queen; drawn to her wedded couch within the tomb by the willing, faithful ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... wail Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt, Dispraise, or blame,—nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... nothing you kin do, Miss." The voice was a wail which rose, swelled out, and cracked like floating ice against the shore of a mighty stream. "Thar ain't nothin' nobody kin do. My John is dead. Even God can't do nothin'. It's over, I tell you. Dead, dead! I can't believe it, but they say it is so. He wasn't well when he left the house this ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... they even tried to show by gestures of the whole body that they could see and understand. When, however, the adherents of Sextus were routed, then in unison and with one impulse the one side raised the paean and the others a wail of lamentation. The soldiers as if they too had shared defeat at once retired to Messana. Caesar took up such of the vanquished as were cast on shore and went into the sea itself to set on fire all the vessels that ran aground in ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. III • Cassius Dio
... blissful thing thou were If thou wouldst spare us in our lustiness, And come to wretches that be of heavy cheer When they thee ask to lighten their distress. But out, alas, thine own self-willedness Harshly refuses them that weep and wail To close their eyes ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... they gone? That wail was sweet and piercing: but was it just? No. Let me forget myself a thousand times rather than I should forget them! And yet, cost what it will to say so, say it we must, that certain traces are fading off, ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... hugged the cropped head tenderly, Jo assumed an indifferent air, which did not deceive anyone a particle, and said, rumpling up the brown bush and trying to look as if she liked it, "It doesn't affect the fate of the nation, so don't wail, Beth. It will be good for my vanity, I was getting too proud of my wig. It will do my brains good to have that mop taken off. My head feels deliciously light and cool, and the barber said I could soon have a curly crop, which will be boyish, ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... succeeding generations of this land, but will give a stimulus to free principles in every part of the globe. If 'Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell' at the hands of despotism, a longer and sadder wail would mark the fall of American republicanism, wounded and slain in the house of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... trust, "Our Father who art in heaven." While the other taught his followers to lean only upon self, and to seek speedy relief from life itself, declaring that heaven returned only an empty, mocking echo to the helpless wail of the ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... so sings, yet does so wail? 'Tis philomel, the nightingale; "Jugg! jugg! terue!" she cries, And hating earth ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... shall contain at least one quotation from the Classics. Mr. G. from year to year observed this custom with splendid effect. LOWE'S Ex luce lucellum is famous in history; nearly became the epitaph of a Ministry; certainly was the funeral wail over a carefully-constructed Budget. The SQUIRE to-night felt bound to observe tradition; but in accordance with his nature did it modestly, adventuring nothing more recondite than citation of the familiar line that serves to mark WREN'S resting-place in Westminster Abbey. TOMMY BOWLES took ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... There was; however, no such disposition. The whole country was already cowering again, except the provinces of Holland and Zealand. No one dared approach, even to learn what had occurred within the walls of the town, for days after its doom had been accomplished. "A wail of agony was heard above Zutphen last Sunday," wrote Count Nieuwenar, "a sound as of a mighty massacre, but we know ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... filled the room, broken presently by the mother's wail as she fell on her knees at the bedside, and taking the cold hand in hers covered it ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... aery traceried pinnacle. So; it is builded, the high tenement, - God grant—to mine intent! Most like a palace of the Occident, Up-thrusting, toppling maze on maze, Its mounded blaze, And washed by the sunset's rosy waves, Whose sea drinks rarer hue from those rare walls it laves. Yet wail, my spirits, wail! So few therein to enter shall prevail! Scarce fewer could win way, if their desire A dragon baulked, with involuted spire, And writhen snout spattered with yeasty fire. For at the elfin portal hangs a horn Which none can wind ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... hoarse wind is raving, Rocks where the weary floods murmur and wail, Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, Reeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; Far as the tempest thrills Over the darkened hills Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, Roused ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... broken and bloody fail. Ensign and pennon are rent and cleft, And the Franks of their fairest youth bereft, Who will look on mother or spouse no more, Or the host that waiteth the gorge before. Karl the Mighty may weep and wail; What skilleth sorrow, if succour fail? An evil service was Gan's that day, When to Saragossa he bent his way, His faith and kindred to betray. But a doom thereafter awaited him— Amerced in Aix, of life and limb, With thirty of his kin beside, To whom ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... The wail and sob and moan of the sea's dirge, Its plangor and surge; The awful biting sough Of drifted snows along some arctic bluff, That ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... of the venomous green path, not thirty yards away, I saw the head and shoulders and upstretched, appealing arms of Van Roon. Even as the lightning flickered and we saw him, he was gone; with one last, long, drawn-out cry, horribly like the mournful wail of a sea ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... of a young child, darter, of our Anna's baby; a little, feeble wail; but I should have heard it, if the storm had been twice as loud. I had been sitting here, from sundown to ten o'clock, with no company but my fears and the raging storm. Hannah came, once or twice, and put her pale face through ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... silver roadway. Many tree-trunks were white, contrasting with the darkness within the dense woods, glistening like spectres, as the tremulous light glimmered through the branches. There was no sound in the forest, except the solemn wail of the wind, and the steady tramp, tramp—tramp, tramp of the hurrying horse. My flesh crept and shuddered under the drastic influence of the chill night and the doleful croakings of my companion; who talked continually of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... slighted ghosts protested, there came a loud, reproachful wail out of space. Everyone started, and stared in all directions. Then the soberly clad, modern inhabitants of Nancy glanced skyward as they crossed the square of Stanislas. Nobody hurried, yet nobody stopped. Men, women, and children pursued their way at the same leisurely pace as before, except ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... norbury Banshee— To wail and, then, to vanish. She will stand With lifted flambeau, lighted by the hand That lights the stars, till she again is free, Inspiring normal man in every land With love of Freedom, by her scorn ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... lake Lying calm and black Under the night, Floats the wail Of the pipes: And beyond, loom Langdale Pikes, dim, Shadowy sentinels. Over all, the stars, Like friends, faithful ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... just enough time to dig his wallet, pockets, and billfold before the whole neighborhood was up and out. Sirens howled in the distance and from above I could hear the thin wail of a jetcopter. Someone opened a window and called: "What's going on ...
— Stop Look and Dig • George O. Smith
... the candles shine around his narrow bier, Escorted by the crowds of poor with many a bitter tear; No more, alas! can he the sad and anguished-laden cure— Oh, wail! For Durand is no more—the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... ye Alleghenies, into the Conemaugh vale, And see the rising waters, and hear the bitter wail; The swollen streams now empty their contents in the lake, The waters rise to kiss the skies ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... the story we cannot unfold; They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold; They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come; They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... the spirits the ballyan places an offering before her and begins to chant and wail. A distant stare comes into her eyes, her body begins to twitch convulsively until she is shivering and trembling as if seized with the ague. In this condition she receives the messages of the spirits and under their direction ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... plaintive and wailing. This, too, is the opinion of hillmen, some of whom declare that the souls of men who have suffered injuries in the Law Courts, and who have in consequence died of broken hearts, transmigrate into the great Himalayan barbets, and that is why these birds wail unceasingly un-nee-ow, un-nee-ow, which means "injustice, injustice." Obviously, the hillmen have not a high opinion ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... and his men made a great pile before each of the doors, and then the women folk who were inside began to weep and to wail. ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... on their sentence waits They thrust pale Justice from their haughty gates, Invisible their steps the Virgin treads, And musters evil o'er their sinful heads. She with the dark of air her form arrays, And walks in awful grief the city ways: Her wail is heard; her tear, upbraiding, falls O'er their ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... bleak and bitter sky, the shapeless bog, the stunted trees, the savage girl alone with the corpse in that utter desolation. And as she bent her head over the still face, and called wildly to him who heard her not, and then, utterly unmindful of the intruders, sent up again that dreary wail into the dreary air, they felt a sacred horror, which almost made them turn away, and leave her unquestioned: but Yeo, whose nerves were of tougher ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... quietly, and Agatha lay still in her chair beside the stove. It snapped and crackled cheerfully, but save for that there was a restful quietness, and the room was cosily warm, though she could hear a little icy wind wail about the building. It swept her thoughts away to the frozen North, and she realised what it had cost her to keep faith with Gregory as she pictured a little snow-sheeted schooner hemmed in among the floes, and two ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... fell. Recovering himself, however, he sprang back on to the firm ground; but seeing that escape by flight was no longer possible, he turned round and boldly faced his pursuer. At the same instant a wild swan, rising from the water, flew off with a loud cry. It might have been taken for the death-wail of one of the combatants. Like a couple of wild beasts, the two Indians rushed at each other, and the next instant they were clasped in a deadly embrace. A desperate struggle ensued. It was youth and activity opposed to well-knit ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... intermittently a confusion of voices, Liane's light laughter, muted clatter of chips, now and then the sound of a popping cork. Forward the ship's bell sounded two double strokes, then a single, followed by a wail in minor key: "Five bells and all's well!" ... And of a sudden Lanyard suffered the melancholy oppression of knowing his littleness of body and soul, the relative insignificance even of the ship, that impertinent atom of human organization which traversed with unabashed effrontery the waters ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... cry of the massacred Jews in Russia rang across the Atlantic, and the Ghetto of Manhattan paraded one day through the narrow streets draped in black, through the erstwhile clamorous thoroughfares steeped in silence, stores and shops bolted, a wail of anguish issuing from every door and window—the only one remaining in his shop that day was old Zelig. His fellow-workmen did not call upon him to join the procession. They felt the incongruity of "this brute" in line with mourners in muffled tread. And the Gentile watchman ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Hastinapura and proclaim unto all that Pandu with his wives hath gone into the woods, foregoing wealth, desire, happiness, and even sexual appetite.' Then those followers and attendants, hearing these and other soft words of the king, set up a loud wail, uttering, 'Oh, we are undone!' Then with hot tears trickling down their cheeks they left the monarch and returned to Hastinapura with speed carrying that wealth with them (that was to be distributed in charity). Then Dhritarashtra, that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... He moved now to open the spring-house door; she turned and was lost to him in the lights and shadows of the woods-pasture. On its further border her cabin stood, and from it came the sound of a pitiful wail; at the back door a little child stood, staying itself by the slats let into grooves in the jambs. She had left it in its low cradle asleep, and it must have waked and clambered out and crept to the barrier and been crying ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... punishment due to their crimes. Yet no lament was raised by the political guides of Ireland over murdered landholders and clergymen; it appeared to be, in their sight, a just revenge. At the same time a long wail of woe was heard throughout the country, if it happened that any of the resisting peasantry were killed by the military in the performance of their duties in securing the tithe. Four were thus killed in the county of Cork, and others wounded, the military being ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... else they had as one. At length, by industry in trade, They had a pretty fortune made, And had, like others in the city, A country cottage very pretty; Where they amused their leisure hours, In innocence, with plants and flowers, Till fate had cut Tom's thread across, And left poor John to wail his loss. ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... wandered; their outlines were as vague and indistinct as the outlines of the clouds which seemed to be wandering at random overhead. He remembered his childhood, his mother; he remembered her death, how they had carried him in to her, and how, clasping his head to her bosom, she had begun to wail over him, then had glanced at Glafira Petrovna—and checked herself. He remembered his father, at first vigorous, discontented with everything, with strident voice; and later, blind, tearful, with unkempt grey beard; he remembered ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... increasing each instant as it came. It grew louder as the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief. O God, it was the death-wail! ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... stood round about it while the four men laid their master in his great coffin of black marble beneath the pines and the rhododendrons. And the pipers followed after, making shrill and dreadful music that sounded as though some supernatural beings added their voices to the universal wail of woe. And on either side of the body walked the women, the prophet's kinsfolk; but Nehushta walked by Zoroaster, and ever and anon, as the funeral procession wound through the myrtle walks of the deep gardens, her dark and heavy eyes stole a glance sidelong at her strong fair lover. ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... thousands of women offering these manuscripts. The publishers and the editors walk slowly along before the stalls and receive the manuscripts, which they look at and then lay down, though their writers weep and wail and wring their hands. Presently there comes along a man greatly resembling in the expression of his face the wild and savage wolf trying to smile. His habit is to take up a manuscript, and presently to express, with the aid of ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... seemed to tremble between life and death as she stretched forth her arms to them with a low wail that almost ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... law, and the grief of a poor child pining for the glorious sunshine, the dews of the valley, and liberty. Werther is the slave of desire; Louis Lambert was an enslaved soul. Given equal talent, the more pathetic sorrow, founded on desires which, being purer, are the more genuine, must transcend the wail even ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... Sing we a litany,— Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and weary; Domine, Domine! Sing we a litany, Wail we and ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... suddenly resounds through the stillness, a long-drawn, mysterious utterance, passing drearily, difficult to locate, more difficult to name—one of those sounds by which Nature at times reaches to the dark places of our spirit and terrifies us with vague dread of the unknown. Is it the wail of an owl or other bird of the night? It pervades the air wildly and lingeringly. Those who come late to the ford and hear this sudden strange call draw rein and turn backward; it is better to drive the weary distance to the bridge than to brave a crossing when this warning is abroad. Those ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... privileges of the good city of Paris that anybody may be born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Father Goriot has gone off the hooks, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... the commanding officer by this time, and several of the guard had come forth, anxious and eager to hear the news. No man in the group could catch the reply of the horseman to the questioners at "Sudstown," but in an instant an Irish wail burst upon the ear, and, just as one coyote will start a whole pack, just as one midnight bray will set in discordant chorus a whole "corral" of mules, so did that one wail of mourning call forth an echoing "keen" from every Hibernian hovel in all the little settlement, and in an instant ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... truth. When you wept, when you tore your hair, when you flung yourself in sorrow upon the body, I told myself that either he or I must die. And now you bid me be merciful." Then the big tears dropped down his cheeks, and he began to wail himself,—hardly like ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... would hiccough out a sob, sprinkle a few tears upon the counsel table, and gently thrust the pin into the infant's anatomy. Sob from Gottlieb—opportune wail from the baby. Verdict ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... darkness of the vaults. A great wine-cellar—there are ten miles of them at Rheims—crowded with four thousand people, lighted only by candles, and swarming with huge rats; the blanched faces of women, the crying of children, the wail of babies at the breast. Overhead the crash of falling masonry—the men had armed themselves with big iron pikes to hew their way out in case the vaults fell in. Life in these catacombs was one long threnody of anguish. Outside, ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... bone-headed, feeble-minded sons-uh-guns it's ever been my duty and pleasure to reconstruct," announced Pink melodiously, "you sure take the sour-dough biscuit. You're a song that's been tried on the cattle and failed t' connect. You're the last wail of a coyote dying in the dim distance. For a man that's been lynched and cut down and waiting for another yank, you certainly—are—mild! You're the tamest thing that ever happened. A lady could handle yuh with safety and ease. You're a children's playmate. ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... white men. Silently his followers ranged up in big circle, almost enveloping the stolid troopers. For a moment nothing was heard but the shuffling of moccasined feet, the quick breathing or murmured words of the squaws, the feeble wail of some Indian baby left to its own devices in the parental lodge. Sniffing the tainted air the horses shrank a bit, rallying under the prompt touch of the spur and standing with erect, quivering ear and starting eyeball, staring at the coming throng and uttering low snorts of fear. And then ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... takes up the note of warning, and bids Lodovico beware of the new King of France and, ceasing to dally with Fortune, prepare to defend his fair duchy. The next time Pistoia took up his pen, it was to wail over the duke's fall and the ruin of Italy, and to hurl curses on the head of the false servants who had betrayed their trust and yielded up the Castello to their master's foes. This, at least, may be said to Pistoia's credit—he did not forget his generous patron in the days of adversity; ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... of her husband, a deserter, condemned to die. Such was the crowd of besiegers for grace, offices, and simple greeting by the host of the White House that she was kept out in the hall. But one day, the master passing through the corridor "to hold the show," heard a baby's pitiful wail. He halted, listened again to make sure, and on entering his reception-parlor asked his favorite usher if he had not heard ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... "Oh, how frightful that would be." And she read on with lips compressed. But soon there came from a room upstairs the sudden cry of one of her children, followed by a shrill wail of distress. And dropping the paper, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... he shook his head from side to side with a look of mingled grief and desperation. The shrill complaint of Maria Remedios grew constantly shriller, and pierced the brain of the unhappy and now dazed priest like an arrow. But all at once the woman's face became transformed; her plaintive wail was changed to a hard, shrill scream; she turned pale, her lips trembled, she clenched her hands, a few locks of her disordered hair fell over her forehead, her eyes glittered, dried by the heat of the anger that glowed in her breast; she rose from her seat and, not ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... stirred with excitement. Some weak-nerved woman with a child at her breast began to cry, and the little one joined its feeble wail ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... A mellowed wail of the bagpipe came from Strone, the last farewell of the departing soldiers; it was but a moment, then was gone. The wind changed from the land, suddenly the odours of the traffics of peace blew familiarly, the scents of gathered hay and the more elusive perfume of yellowing corn. A myriad birds, ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... temperature had now fallen to sixty-five or seventy degrees below zero, and with it there came from the north an increasing wind, making the night one in which human life could not have existed for an hour. By midnight Kazan was back under the windfall. The wind grew stronger. It began to wail in mournful dirges over the swamp, and then it burst in fierce shrieking volleys, with intervals of quiet between. These were the first warnings from the great barrens that lay between the last lines of timber and the Arctic. With morning the storm burst in all its fury from out of the north, ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... in their place shall serve me, and sustain Their plagues, their torments suffer, sorrows bear, And they his absence shall lament in vain, And wail his loss and theirs with many a tear:' Thus talking to herself she did ordain A false and wicked guile, as you shall hear; Thither she hasted where the valiant knight Had overcome and slain her ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... To the endless home of unbelievers, Where there is everlasting wail and woe, 460 Gnashing of teeth, and tears of blood, and fire Eternal and the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... the last two days and nights in her room; nevertheless she had felt no fear; the thunder of the cannon and the wail of the wounded had inspired her with mournful resignation rather than with fear. As, at one time, she stood at the window, a shell burst near the house, and shattered the window-panes of the ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... There is nothing lovelier than white hair. Combine with it a fine complexion and a pair of animated brown eyes and you have as picturesque a beauty as ever awakened emotions in the heart of man. But, nevertheless, women moan and wail over every stray gray hair. They go off downtown and proceed to lug home a cartload of mysterious bottles which they keep religiously away from hubby's investigating eye. I won't tell the result of the experience, for it is too well known. It is a certain episode through ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans
... faint bleat, as of a new-born lamb, high above her head; she started and looked up. Then a wail from the cliffs, as of a child in pain, answered by another from the opposite rocks. They were but the passing snipe, and the otter calling to her brood; but to her they were mysterious, supernatural goblins, come to answer to her call. Nevertheless, they only quickened her expectation; and ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... scorned their expensive fare and sneaked away into the shadows of the garden to wait for Ringtail Pete and the rising of the moon. It rose; and, as it peeped above the wall, there also rose a cautious signal-wail, and Pete's one eye glowed green ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... man can do that the more manly he is. Is it a sign of strength to wail under a sorrow that cannot be cured,—or of truth to perpetuate the appearance of ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... spoke, the other spirit mourn'd With wail so woful, that at his remorse I felt as though I should have died. I turn'd Stone-stiff; and to the ground, fell like ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... dripping from among the rocks; flowers hanging from hedges emitting their fragrance, as they were 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a violent outcry, raucous and shrill as the wail of a captured hen, and out of the passage across the courtyard floundered a woman, fantastically dressed ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... stretched herself on the ocean bed, she fell with a despairing wail; her gown spread like a pall over the earth, the Highland bonnet came off, and her hair floated over a haphazard ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... all of every name: begin the wo, Ye woods, and tell it to the doleful winds; And doleful winds, wail to the howling hills; And howling hills, mourn to the dismal vales; And dismal vales, sigh to the sorrowing brooks; And sorrwing brooks, weep to the weeping stream; And weeping stream, awake the groaning deep; And let the instrument ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... why does Buck Davis, who lives on the river flats, cross our hills, unless Murder Hollow be blockaded with snow, or unless he has turkeys for sale? But Buck Davis with turkeys would surely have stopped here, unless he were selling a large stock in town. A wail from the sacking at the back of the sleigh tells the tale. It is a winter calf, and Buck Davis is going to sell it for one dollar to the Boston Market where it will be turned into potted chicken. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... him at five hundred yards, and began firing. Close over his head Thor heard the curious ripping wail of the first bullet, and an instant later came ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... the best possible chance to catch him in mischief, if to mischief he inclined. He generally made his appearance flying in bounding, wave-like fashion, uttering his loud mournful cry, which, though an apparent wail, was evidently not inspired by sadness. Alighting near the foot of a tree-trunk, with many repetitions of his complaining note, he gayly bobbed his way up the bark highway as if it were a ladder. When he reached the branches, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... him it was Samael's. Adam was annoyed, and his annoyance grew as the boy cried and screamed more and more violently. In his vexation he dealt the little one a blow that killed him. But the corpse did not cease to wail and weep, nor did it cease when Adam cut it up into bits. To rid himself of the plague, Adam cooked the remains, and he and Eve ate them. Scarcely had they finished, when Samael appeared and demanded his son. The two malefactors tried to deny everything; ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Him grace to be concerned about the salvation of your souls. And then, in the last place, I have taken upon me to do this, that I may deliver, if not you, yet myself, and that I may be clear of your blood, and stand quit, as to you, before God, when you shall, for neglect, be damned, and wail to consider that you have lost your souls. 'When I say,' saith God, 'unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou,' the prophet or preacher, 'givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... white man returned with the boy in his arms, a wail of mingled anguish and rage rose from ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... was now closed, through the curious complications of state policy. Philip VI. retained his throne, but France was exhausted and impoverished. The king often sat for hours, with his head leaning upon his hand, in a state of profound listlessness and melancholy. Famine was ravaging the land. A wail of woe came from millions whom his wars and ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... replied the Shaykh, his lip curling, his eyes gleaming. "They will tear their clothes, and cut their shaven crowns, and wail, 'Woe's me, O Ali!' then kiss the Kaaba with defilement on their beards. The curse of the Shaykaim is on them—may ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... on the arm, and passing through the flesh entered his breast. He was on foot, in front of the brave peasants whom he was leading, and they all saw him fall. Oh, M. de Lescure, if you had heard the groan, the long wail of grief, which his poor followers from St. Florent uttered, when they saw their sainted leader fall before them, your ears would never forget the sound. We raised him up between us, and carried him back to a part of the town which was in our hands, and from thence ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... a wail from the lips of Phoebe's father. He covered his face with his hands. Mr. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... catch, not the dog but the remaining pig, the one still capable of activity. Cornering it at last, he persuaded it to cease running round and round the room, and instead to take a spin outside. It shot through the door with one long wail. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... was about to reply, when of a sudden out of the silence of the night there rose a long-drawn piercing scream, which thrilled through every nerve of our bodies. I have never heard such a wail of despair. We pulled up our horses, as did the troopers behind us, and strained our ears for some sign as to whence the sound proceeded, for some were of opinion that it came from our right and some from our left. The main body with the waggons had come up, and we all listened intently for any ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... up and come alongside him, at a distance of half a cable's-length away, and both ships quickened up their speed, by such small degrees as to be imperceptible, to nine knots, which was as fast as the cruiser's consort could steam. Presently a long, dismal wail came floating across the water from the Union, and Douglas saw that she wished to attract his attention to a signal ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... the golden-haired girl broke out, in a voice that was positively a wail, and clasping a pair of pretty, slender hands in ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... Press had truth on its side when it uttered its wail that Medora needed housing facilities for the unruly. Medora had never had a jail. Little Missouri had had an eight by ten shack which one man, who knew some history, christened "the Bastile," and which was used as a sort of convalescent hospital for men who were too drunk to distinguish ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... unfaithful or unhappy; and their offspring—when they are cursed with any—poor, miserable, weak fledgelings, with aged, wasted faces, water on the brain, with rickets and softening of the bones—idiots or imbeciles—dying early and scarcely regretted even by the parent whose progeny they are, for every wail of the little suffering voice pierced his heart and reminded him of his lustful sin, and passionate, inexcusable indulgence that caused ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... last the warrior's race finished, his companions bring him, lashed on his steed, back at night to the aoul from which he rode so gayly forth in the morning, and with arms locked around each other's necks stand encircling the bard, the latter commences a monotonous but beautifully plaintive wail, his voice subdued with sorrow, and running at the end of the lines upon the same note, which rapidly caught and prolonged is like an uncontrollable gust of anguish, until the brothers in arms, no less impassioned, ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... death-fire leaped From ridge to river-head, From the Malwa plains to the Abu scars: And wail upon wail went up to the stars Behind the grim zenana-bars, When they knew that the ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... way out of this one so Jason leaped out with an echoing shout and lunged. The blade went right under the man's guard—he must never have seen a sword before—and the tip caught him full in the throat. He expired with a bubbling wail that stirred voices deeper in the building. Jason sprang over the corpse and tore at the multifold bolts and locks that sealed the door. Footsteps were running in the distance when he finally threw the door open ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... they reached the spot near which Poopy was concealed, the child sank with a low wail to the ground, unable to advance another step. Keona seized her in his arms, and, uttering a growl of anger as he threw her rudely over his shoulder, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... first autumn rains of a thousand years, the first snow-flakes that had wavered down in a slantin' line and touched the tips of her outstretched fingers, and then had drifted about her till her heart wuz almost frozen and she would clap her cold hands together to warm 'em, and wail out a dretful moanin' sound of desolation, ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley |
