"Wailing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shimmer; voices sounded with peculiar clearness; so did the rumble of a porter's barrow laden with luggage. From a foundry hard by came the muffled, rhythmic thunder of mighty blows; this and the long note of an engine-whistle wailing far off seemed to intensify the stillness of the air as gloomy day passed into ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... bless a brother, speaking to him words of cheer and bidding him go on to where duty led. But he was not coming and she only saw him from the carriage window, as with proud step and head erect he passed with his regiment through the densely crowded streets, where the wailing cries and the loud hurrahs of the multitude, which no man could number, rent the air and told how terribly in earnest the great city was, and how its heart was with that gallant band, their pet, their pride, sent forth on a mission such as it had never had before. But Mark ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... to his father, who held him in awkward fashion, till the nurse came to the rescue and soothed his faint wailing by the usual nonsense words of endearment which then, as now, nurses seem to consider the proper language in which ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... Yudhishthira, said these words, Do thou, O king, grant me permission to practise penances. By speaking repeatedly, O son, my mind becomes weakened. It behoveth thee not, O son, to afflict me after this.' When that foremost one of Kuru's race was saying go unto Yudhishthira, a loud sound of wailing arose from all the warriors there present. Beholding his royal father of great splendour, emaciated and pale, reduced to a state unbecoming of him, worn out with fasts, and looking like a skeleton covered with ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... cried the old woman, and burst into the tearless wailing of a child; "there is a home for me no more! My house was all that was left me of my people, and it is your own that make a house a home! In the long winter nights, when I sat by the fire and heard the wind howl, and the snow pat, pat like the small hands of ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... internal injury. It was early in the forenoon when the deed was done, and in the afternoon her body began to swell, and she suffered violent pain. She had, as a matter of fact, sustained a severe internal rupture. She managed to crawl over to where the child lay, still wailing, and she gave it the breast to still it. Then she began to suffer from violent thirst, but there was neither water nor milk in the hut. Owing to Samuel's bad reputation no one ever came to his dwelling, and thus Martha ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... her knuckles into her eyes, and wailed out that it was all for her poor children, and Cicely reproved him for his roughness, and as the woman kept close behind them, wailing, moaning, and persuading, the boy and girl were wrought upon at last to give her leave to wait outside the gate of the inn garden, while they saw whether it was possible to ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the story of which she had just, as it were, turned the first leaf. The other was connected with the name on the despatch-box. Why did it haunt her? It had produced a kind of indistinguishable echo in the brain, to which she could put no words—which was none the less dreary; like a voice of wailing from a ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... incomparably older. It may represent the original primitive cry of her species,—totally unmodified by centuries of domestication. It begins with a stifled moan, like the moan of a bad dream,— mounts into a long, long wail, like a wailing of wind,—sinks quavering into a chuckle,—rises again to a wail, very much higher and wilder than before,—breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter,—and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ghastliness of the ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... day, he buckled on his armour, laced his helmet, and with the falchion Ascalon in his hand, bestrode Bayard, and rode into the Valley of the Dragon. Now on the way he met a procession of old women weeping and wailing, and in their midst the most beauteous damsel he had ever seen. Moved by compassion he dismounted, and bowing low before the lady entreated her to return to her father's palace, since he was about to kill the dreaded dragon. Whereupon the beautiful Sabia, thanking him with ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... political sympathy as well as boon companionship with Fox and with Sheridan. Fox had always shown himself a true friend to Ireland. The Irish national poet, Thomas Moore, had, in one of his songs, described the Banshee as wailing over the grave of him "on whose burning tongue truth, peace, and freedom hung." It was fondly believed in Ireland that the King was returning to the sympathies of his earlier days, and that his coming to the island must bring blessings ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sheets and shreds of flame blazed and crackled round us. Above there was a noise as though thousands of devilish creatures were rushing along, helter-skelter, with inconceivable rapidity, howling, shrieking, screaming, wailing, ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... with echoes ring. How changed the scene! The glassy deep That slumbered in its resting-place, And seeming in its morning sleep To woo me to its soft embrace, Now wakened, was a fearful thing,— A giant with a scowling form, Who from his bosom seemed to fling The blackened billows to the storm. The wailing winds in terror gushed From the swart sky, and seemed to lash The foaming waves, which madly rushed Toward the tall cliff with headlong dash. Upward the glittering spray was sent, Backward the growling surges whirled, And splintered rocks ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... storm had decreased a little in violence: but my attention was now struck by the wind, which had risen as the thunder and rain had partially lulled. How drearily it was moaning down the street! It seemed, at that moment, to be wailing over me; to be wailing over him; to be wailing over all mortal things! The strange sensations I then felt, moved me to listen in silence; but I checked them, and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the gulf did rise, With a wild discordant sound; Laughter and wailing, Prayer and railing, As the ball spun ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... off in the middle and was succeeded by a series of rattles and thumps and jingles like a barrel of kitchenware falling downstairs; this was followed by a startling stillness, which was, in turn, broken by an aggrieved voice wailing: "Say, Central, why can't I get that twenty-seven ring fourteen Bayport? I bet you you've given me every other ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... and when he emerged below, they watched him hurry away through the forest, casting fearful glances over his shoulder as he ran. Alan made a hollow of his two hands and sent after him a wild note, like the wailing of a banshee. ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... amidst the roar Of waters fast prevailing: Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore,— His wrath was changed to wailing! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... a token of friendship. Taking this for granted, we saw a great crowd of people swimming towards us from the houses without any suspicion. At this juncture some old women showed themselves at the doorways of the huts, wailing and tearing their hair, as if in great distress. From this we began to be suspicious, and had recourse to our weapons, when suddenly the young girls, who were in our boats, threw themselves into the sea, and the canoes ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... details of his hidden history. Knowing all the truth, they would shrink from him. How much more then at such sights and sounds would a pure spirit, washed clean of every taint of earth, fly from his soiled presence, wailing and aghast? Nay, men are hypocrites, who, in greater or less degree, themselves practice the very sins that shock them, but spirits, knowing all, would forgive all. They are above hypocrisy. If the Lord of spirits can weigh the "dust whereof we are made" and still be merciful, shall ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard
... of mourning, and the monotonous, piteous plaint of the wailing women, which ever and anon rose into a loud, shrill, tremulous shriek, echoed through the silent rooms within to this hall, announcing that death had claimed a victim ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets. Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round barking in front of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... drawing his poniard sharply through his grasp, had cut his paw severely, and seeing him aim the trenchant weapon at his throat, became probably aware that his enemy had his life at command. He suffered himself to be borne backwards without further resistance, with a deep wailing and melancholy cry, having in it something human, which excited compassion. He covered his eyes with the unwounded hand, as if he would have hid from his own sight the death which seemed ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... the moor—do let me have one breath!' To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child. ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... a wailing wife; Oh, a weary way is the way of life! A heartless threat and a cruel blow And grief that the world can never know; A tongue obscene and a will perverse, A horrid oath and a muttered curse, A winter drear and a scanty meal, A heart so hard, oh, a heart of steel! A wizened look and an infant's ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... these (locks of hair) are set all the Lords of Lamentation and Wailing; and they depend from the ...
— Hebrew Literature
... of the sandalwooder followed the American across the wide courtyard to some native houses. Stopping in front of one, from which the low murmur of women's voices, broken now and then by a wailing cry, proceeded, he desired Ross to look in through the doorway. A small fire of coconut shells was burning in the centre of the room, and by its light Ross saw several women crouched round the bodies of ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... a thief!" and then a chorus of voices took up that awful cry, voices of expostulation, voices of contempt, voices of indignation, voices of menace; they took up the cry, and repeated and re-echoed it; but, most unendurable of all, there were voices of wailing and voices of gentleness among them, and his soul died within him as he caught, amid the confusion of condemning sounds, the voices of Russell and Vernon, and they, too, were saying to him, in tender pity and agonized astonishment, ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... as the song, was the crooning wailing tune that the wise woman sung. At the first note almost, you would have thought she wanted to frighten the princess; and so indeed she did. For when people WILL be naughty, they have to be frightened, and they are not expected to like it. The princess ...
— A Double Story • George MacDonald
... this awful speech (which, both because of all that it implied of bloodshed and civil war and of the wild, wailing voice in which it was spoken, that seemed quite different from Zikali's, caused everyone who heard it, including myself, I am afraid, to gasp and shiver) the King sprang from his stool as though to put a stop to such doctoring. ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... blame I do not know; but there is no doubt the Highland Brigade were led like lambs to the slaughter. We were led more as if we were on a Volunteer review at Hyde Park. We had a sorrowful job on Tuesday night. We had fifty-three dead brought in and buried. You could hear nothing but the wailing of the pibrochs as the ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... when Francis Drake found his way into it nearly four hundred years ago. The finger of Providence still points to it amid wreck and ruin and smoldering ashes as the place where a teeming city with every mark of a splendid civilization shall be the pride of our Western shores. Her wailing Miserere shall be turned into a joyful ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... and Indians were running into the woods; the wailing cry, "Oonah! Oonah!" rose on all sides now. Gardinier's Caughnawaga men were shooting rapidly; the Palatines, master of their reeking brush-field, poured a heavy fire into the detachment of retreating Greens, who finally broke and ran, dropping sack and rifle in ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... voice filled the night, the woman's faltered and died; and he, holding on for a stave or more, would stop on a note that had a wailing fall, and the lapping of the waves or cry of hidden birds take up the rule again. This did not often obtain. Mostly he watched out the night, sleeping little, talking none, but revolving in his mind the great deeds ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... maintain law by lawlessness! I called it vengeance and equity. I presumed, O Providence! upon whetting out the notches of thy sword and repairing thy partialities. But, oh, vain trifling! here I stand on the brink of a fearful life, and learn, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, that two men like myself could ruin the whole edifice of the moral world. Pardon—pardon the boy who thought to forestall Thee; to Thee alone belongeth vengeance; Thou needest not the hand of man! But it is not in my power ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... beef, please beef, pleasure is not wailing. Please beef, please be carved clear, please be ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein
... tranquillity itself. It is fair to say that really nervous and irritable people find the country worse than town. The noise of the nightingales is deplorable. The lamentations of a cow deprived of her calf, or of a passion-stricken cow, "wailing for her demon lover" on the next farm, excel anything that the milkman can perpetrate, and almost vie with the performances of the sweep. When "the cocks are crowing a merry midnight," as in the ballad, the sleepless patient wishes he could make off as quietly and quickly as the ghostly sons ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... clang and clamor of dreadful battle we hear the mournful dirge of minstrels wailing o'er ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... lonely garret lives a young man studying his life away, longing for books and a teacher. The man has a library full, and might keep the poor boy from despair by a little help and a friendly word. He mourns for his own lost baby: I advise him to adopt the orphan whom nobody will own, and who lies wailing all day untended on the poor-house floor. Yes: if he wants to forget sorrow and find peace, let him fill his empty heart and home with such as these, and life won't seem ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... sleuth-like stalking of a rabbit; and here and there in that world of wild things the gaunt hungry people of Wolf's blood stopped in their trails and turned their heads toward the signal that was coming in wailing echoes ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... even get her feet upon the path. If she has made blunders in the past, if she has weighted herself with a burden which she must bear to the end, she must but bear the burden bravely, and labour on. There is no use in wailing and repentance here: the next world is the place for that; this life is too short. By our errors we see deeper into life. They help us." She waited for a while. "If she does all this—if she waits patiently, if she is never cast down, never despairs, never forgets ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... it is so. I have eyes; I have been to her room." Mr. Marrapit's voice rose in a wailing cry. "I have been ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... to the hurriedly spread breakfast-table, Mr. Porne, long coffeeless, found it a bit difficult to keep his temper. Isabel was a little stiff, bringing in dishes and cups, and paying no attention to the sounds of wailing from above. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... There was never a definite sound, only the sibilance of a stillness made of many interwoven sounds, soft lisp of wavelets on the sands a hundred feet below, hum of nocturnal insect life in thickets and plantations, sobbing of a tiny, vagrant breeze lost and homeless in that vast serenity, wailing of a far violin, rumour of distant motor-cars. A night of potent witchery, a woman ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... mouth of the chimney, impending high over the hearth, received as into a mysterious gulf murky coils of smoke and brightness of aspiring sparks; and beyond, in the high darkness, were muttering and wailing and strange doings, so that sometimes the smoke rushed back in panic, and curled out and up to the roof, and condensed itself to invisibility among the rafters. And then the wind would rage after its lost prey, and rush round the house, rattling ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman
... fled her cheek, the distaff forsook her hand, the reel revolved, and with dishevelled locks she broke away, wailing as a woman." ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... these were added the human voice divine with its matchless cadences, now kindling into a storm of invective, before which the audience shrank, like shriveled leaves in autumn, then sinking to sepulchral tones that seemed to challenge a communion with the dead; now wailing an anguish of sorrow utterly insupportable, and then rising in holy exultation, as one redeemed from sin and inspired with the triumphant ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... he prepared to descend. Without warning, a strange, wailing cry swept over the face of the world. Starting in awful mystery, it ended with such a note of low and sordid mockery that he could not doubt for a moment whence it originated. It was ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... eye of gordian snake, Bewitch'd me towards; and I soon was near A sight too fearful for the feel of fear: In thicket hid I curs'd the haggard scene— 500 The banquet of my arms, my arbour queen, Seated upon an uptorn forest root; And all around her shapes, wizard and brute, Laughing, and wailing, groveling, serpenting, Shewing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting! O such deformities! Old Charon's self, Should he give up awhile his penny pelf, And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian, It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... this voyage to the former! Then tears and wailing accompanied the unwilling seamen on board, and often and often, their hearts failing them, they desired to turn back. Now one and all pressed on, eager to witness the wonders of the New World. On the evening of Saturday, the 2nd of November, Columbus was convinced, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... world was using him, and went home rather unsteadily at sunrise and slept heavily in the bunk-house all that day. For Billy Boyle was distressingly human in his rages as in his happier moods, and was not given to gentle, picturesque melancholy and to wailing at the ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... and the flames were extinguished; the agger was level with the walls, and defence was no longer possible. The garrison intended to slip away at night through the ruins to join their friends outside. The wailing of the women was heard in the Roman camp, and escape was made impossible. The morning after, in a tempest of rain and wind, the place was stormed. The legionaries, excited by the remembrance of Gien and the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... they began to think it was about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house. It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a name to. It was an undeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its intensity. Something ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... season, before a storm, I wondered not a little. But the Captain by my side was deadly pale: "My ship is lost," cried he; "there sails Death!" Before I could demand an explanation of these singular words, the sailors rushed in, weeping and wailing. "Have you seen it?" they exclaimed: "all is ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... spirits, the unrestrained language of admiration and worship, the unrestrained yielding to the impulses, the anxieties, the pitiable despair and agonies of love, the subordination to it of all other pursuits and aims, the weeping and wailing and self-torturing which it involves, all this is so far apart from what we know of actual life, the life not merely of work and business, but the life of affection, and even of passion, that it makes the picture of which it is so necessary a part, seem ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... not how long I had been swimming—it seemed to me, in my anxiety to get well away from the ship, to have been but a very few minutes— when the tumultuous sounds of contention aboard the doomed Saturn suddenly changed to a long wailing scream, and, glancing back over my shoulder, I saw, upreared against the star-lit sky, the fore end of the ship standing almost vertically out of the water, while at the same instant another loud boom reached my ears, proclaiming either the bursting of ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... across the silent sky. And next there was turmoil and uproar, and a flashing of swords, and they tore the youth from her arms, and stabbed him, but with a cry she snatched the dagger from his belt, and drove it into her snowy breast, home to the heart, and down she fell, and then, with cries and wailing, and every sound of lamentation, the pageant rolled away from the arena of my vision, and once more the past shut ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... and polka, and its castanet-like clapping of the hands. Then there are quieter prayer-meetings, with pious invocations and slow psalms, "deaconed out" from memory by the leader, two lines at a time, in a sort of wailing chant. Elsewhere, there are conversazioni around fires, with a woman for queen of the circle,—her Nubian face, gay headdress, gilt necklace, and white teeth, all resplendent in the glowing light. Sometimes the woman is spelling slow monosyllables ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... is seen to glide, No cates ambrosial are supplied, But one poor fisher's rude and scanty store Is all He asks (and more than needs) Who men and angels daily feeds, And stills the wailing ...
— The Christian Year • Rev. John Keble
... exquisite Tortures, offered her one of her young Puppies, which she immediately fell a licking; and for the Time seemed insensible of her own Pain: On the Removal, she kept her Eye fixt on it, and began a wailing sort of Cry, which seemed rather to proceed from the Loss of her young one, than the Sense ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... it was the commonest of experiences to have Rebel women sing it at us tauntingly from the house that we passed or near which we stopped. If ever near enough a Rebel camp, we were sure to hear its wailing crescendo rising upon the air from the lips or instruments of some one more quartered there. At Richmond it rang upon us constantly from some source or another, and the same was true wherever else we went in the ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... solemn twilight gleameth in the dreary sky, Dusky shadows growing deeper, sad night-breezes sorrowing by, Sighing 'mid the leafless bushes bending o'er the sullen stream, Wailing 'mid the fire-stained ruins darkly rising 'gainst the gleam Of the wild unearthly twilight. In the shivering evening air Cheerless lie the gloomy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of worms, which battled about on earth just to get something to eat. In his memory sprang up his meetings with these people, one after another—their remarks about life—now sarcastic and mournful, now hopelessly gloomy remarks—their wailing songs. And now he also recalled how one day in the office Yefim had said to the ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... voice broke in a long, wailing cry; and the voices of the terrified people answered it like an echo. All the clergy had risen from their places, and the deacons of honour started forward to lay their hands on the preacher's arm. ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door where people are going in and out all day long. This bird does not make the least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note when it thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances; it breeds ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... around that tree, and why are there no bones beneath it, on the ground there? Because, Jackies all, the man that did that murder walks! It is not always deadly still here; sometimes there 's a clanking of chains! And a bodkin through the tongue can't keep the dead from wailing! And the murdered man walks, too; in his shroud he follows the other—Is n't that something white in the ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... God!" muttered Van der Kemp as he left the market-place, where the relatives of those who had been murdered were wailing over ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... philosophy for him," and suiting the action to the words I lifted a pebble that happened to lie at the bottom of the boat and flung it at that creature with the melancholy eyes. Away went the owl, dipping his wings into the water at every stroke, and as he went wailing out a ghostly cry, which even amongst sunshine and glitter ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... Balder! As if I did not love, were not a half-god; As if by Skalds my name were never chanted As if I were a demon, bad as Loke! Ha! if upon my tongue lurked bane and magic, When fear enchains it and the pale lip trembles; When broken words and a disordered wailing Are all with which I can express my bosom's Desire intense, and dread unwonted torments. Ha! were my voice like Find's when he, distracted, Goes over Horthedal; as when he bellows, And wild at last, ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... frequently to draw a deep breath and gazed up at the sky, where the motionless golden spear still seemed to be darting through the clouds. He pondered for some time over that and shook his head. From the "violent ward" came a longdrawn wailing, which at regular intervals was merged in pitiful weeping. But the lawyer paid no attention to these sounds. He only heard the birds fluttering their wings and whetting their ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... infancy, but his mother showed rare good sense in the bringing up of her only child. Living near a butcher, she noticed that the boy mimicked the cries of the pigs. She then removed to the gate of a cemetery; but, noticing that the child changed his tune and mocked the wailing of mourners, she struck her tent and took up her abode near a high school. There she observed with joy that he learned the manners and acquired the tastes of a student. Perceiving, however, that he was in danger ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... struck. Thick as were the walls, they could not keep out the wailing shriek of the wind, nor the hissing of the rain, which flashed like a continuous cutting blade of steel past the windows. The hurricane wing could not rock, it was too low and solidly planted for that, but ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... moment, twenty rival chemists, on twenty rival beanstalks, came into existence. Then, the Furies would be seen, waving their lurid torches up and down the confused perspectives of embankments and arches—would be heard, too, wailing and shrieking. Then, the Station would be full of palpitating trains, as in the day; with the heightening difference that they were not so clearly seen as in the day, whereas the Station walls, starting forward under the gas, like a hippopotamus's eyes, dazzled the human locomotives with the sauce-bottle, ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... a long Alpen-horn in his hand, stood by a chalet far away in the wilds of Switzerland. Every now and then he blew a few wailing notes upon the horn—notes that echoed across the valley, up to the snow-covered heights beyond—and he smiled as the answer floated ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... were dealing with the virulent gonococcus, and we neither expected nor obtained much result from these measures. In a couple of hours more the eyes were beginning to exude pus, and the poor infant was wailing in ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... in the woods? Could they have fallen in with wolves (one of my early bugbears)? Could any fatal accident have befallen them? I started up, opened the door, held my breath, and listened. The little brook lifted up its voice in loud, hoarse wailing, or mocked, in its babbling to the stones, the sound of human voices. As it became later, my fears increased in proportion. I grew too superstitious and nervous to keep the door open. I not only closed it, but dragged a heavy box ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and wailing, As sick hearts will that feed upon despair, And that lone watcher, unrelieved, is paling With vigils that no pitying ...
— Poems of Sentiment • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... treasures together for the last days, when "miseries were coming upon them," the prospect of which might well drench them in tears and fill them with terror. If these admonitions and warnings were heeded there, would not "the South" break forth into "weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth?" What else are its rich men about, but withholding by a system of fraud, his wages from the laborer, who is wearing himself out under the impulse of fear, in cultivating their fields and producing ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... neigh of a horse startled them. Following it, the whip-like crack of a rifle stung and split the morning air. Hard on this came an Indian's long, wailing death-cry. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... whispered to some one what it was that the stranger required. He could see that those inside the building were all clothed in muslin shirts of different lengths, and that it was filled with men, all of whom had before them some sort of desk, from which they were reading, or rather wailing out their litany. Though this was the chief synagogue in Prague, and, as being the so-called oldest in Europe, is a building of some consequence in the Jewish world, it was very small. There was no ceiling, and the high-pitched roof, which had once probably been coloured, and the walls, ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... the beast, but it was late before he had it skinned and dressed. When the carcase was hoisted to the gallows—and it seemed gruesome enough as it hung there in the pallid light of the moon, with the night birds dismally wailing like mourners from the lonely trees—we went home and ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd
... soul he knew her to possess. For the first time since he met her she gave evidence of ill humour. She sharply withdrew her hand from his, and as she did so a barbaric croon was heard, a sort of triumphant wailing, and Constantia, without making an excuse, hurriedly left ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... God, and take thy place With baleful memories of the elder time, With many a wasting pest, and nameless crime, And bloody war that thinned the human race; With the Black Death, whose way Through wailing cities lay, Worship of Moloch, tyrannies that built The Pyramids, and cruel creeds that taught To avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guilt,— Death at the stake to those that held them not. Lo, the foul phantoms, silent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants' quarters that she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the writer visited the famous "Upper Room," the "Jew's Wailing Place," the "Mosque of Omar," which stands upon the very spot where Solomon's Temple used to stand, the "Way of Sorrows," the "Ecco Homo Arch," the "Castle of Antonio," "Tower of David," the "Pool ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... proceeding from the adjoining apartment. On entering it, I found several squaws seated on the floor, with downcast looks expressive of condolence and sympathy, while in their midst sat a little ugly woman, in tattered garments, with blackened face and dishevelled hair, sobbing and wailing bitterly. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... trees, By the light of the moon, the Kan-e-ti-dan, [31] The little, wizened, mysterious man, With his long locks tossed by the moaning breeze. Then a flap of wings, like a thunder-bird, [32] And a wailing spirit the sleeper heard; And lo, through the mists of the moon, she saw The ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... like a wild thing. Ole stood in the door, cursing, and Mary howled and screeched at the top of her voice. As for Canute, he lifted the girl in his arms and went out of the house. She kicked and struggled, but the helpless wailing of Mary and Ole soon died away in the distance, and her face was held down tightly on Canute's shoulder so that she could not see whither he was taking her. She was conscious only of the north wind whistling in her ears, and of rapid steady motion and of a great breast that heaved beneath ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... truth he will either transport thee to his presence or he shall place over this Palace guards who may forbid thee from me and forbid me from thee, and this shall be a cause of our separation each from other." But Al-Hayfa shrieked aloud when she heard these words and wept and wailing said, "O my lord, prithee take me with thee, me and my handmaids and all that be in this my Palace." Said he, "I will not delay from thee save for the space of my wayfare an I live and Allah Almighty preserve me." Hereat ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... hour how their hearts will shrink, and how cast down they will be; how their eyes will run tears, and their lips utter prayers, for the Russian is the sworn enemy of the Berlin people; and as often as the cry, "The Russians are coming," sounds through the streets of Berlin, there will be wailing and lamentation in every house and every heart; and they will bow down in timid contrition and abject obedience. Speak, therefore, to them, and say, "The Russians are coming!" that they may become humble and quiet; ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... but now it was for his own soul to settle how long and how often it would afflict itself, and it determined to do so at every opportunity. And the great opportunity came soon. Not the Black Fast when the congregation sat shoeless on the floor of the synagogue, weeping and wailing for the destruction of Jerusalem, but the great White Fast, the terrible Day of Atonement commanded in the Bible. It was preceded by a long month of solemn prayer, ushering in the New Year. The New Year itself was the most sacred of the Festivals, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... sounds.] Ululation. — N. cry &c. v.; crying &c. v.; bowwow, ululation, latration[obs3], belling; reboation[obs3]; wood-note; insect cry, fritiniancy|, drone; screech owl; cuckoo. wailing (lamentation) 839. V. cry, roar, bellow, blare, rebellow[obs3]; growl, snarl. [specific animal sounds] bark [dog, seal]; bow-wow, yelp [dog]; bay, bay at the moon [dog, wolf]; yap, yip, yipe, growl, yarr|, yawl, snarl, howl [dog, wolf]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... him; they had other prisoners to look after. The jailors gave him water, but whole months passed without anyone entering his cell. Some nights he would hear vaguely and far off through the greasy walls wailing and sobs in the adjacent dungeons. One morning he was awoke by sounds as of thunder, in spite of a tiny ray of sunlight filtering through his loophole; hearing the jailors in the corridors near, he understood the ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... One sees Inverary in flames, the smoke of burning huts and villages for miles and miles, butcheries of the native men wherever they are found, drivings-in of cattle, and scattered pilgrimages of wailing women and children, with relics of the men amongst them, fugitive and starving in side glens and corries, where even now the tourist shudders at the wildness. [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 930, 931; Baillie, II. 262; ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... crouching upon the seat, but in the very act of tumbling forward from off it. He caught it with one arm, set down the light, raised its head, and in the wild, worn, death-pale features and wandering eyes, knew the face of his son. He uttered one wailing groan, which seemed to spend his life, gathered him to his bosom, and taking him up like a child, almost ran to the house with him. As he went he heard at his ear ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... to the cradle's side, and saw a pallid little creature, puny and feeble from neglect. Its mother paid no attention to its wailing, and when Amy asked if she might take it up, the woman's mumbled ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... stairs were thick with mud from dirty boots and with droppings from pails, beer-cans, and milk-jugs, Mrs. Rowles went up the first flight. In the front room a woman's voice was scolding in strong language; in the back room a baby was wailing piteously. On the next floor one door stood open, revealing a bare room, with filthy and torn wall-paper, with paint brown from finger-marks, with cupboard-doors off their hinges, and the grate thick with rust. The visitor shuddered. ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... and inadequate object. A man could not possibly conceive, even if he gave all his time to it, of a more futile, reckless, hapless expression of or pointer to an immortal soul than a week-old baby wailing at time and space. The idea of a baby may be all right, but in its outer form, at first, at least, a baby is a failure, and always has been. The same is true of our other musical instruments. A horn caricatures music. A flute is a man rubbing a black stick with his lips. A trombone player ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... with gods will live long or hear his children prattling about his knees when he returns from battle. Let, then, the son of Tydeus see that he does not have to fight with one who is stronger than you are. Then shall his brave wife Aegialeia, daughter of Adrestus, rouse her whole house from sleep, wailing for the loss of her wedded lord, Diomed the ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... an old sorceress died, and great was the wailing over her body. She was buried on the Monday morning, just opposite the house in which she had lived. A grave was dug two feet deep, and spread over with mats, on which the corpse was laid. Her husband lay on the body, in the grave, for some ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... from the darkness deep dirge-like tones, and a voice solemnly chanted a strain, which all knew to be the death-song of their race, hymned by wailing women over an expiring sister. The music seemed to float ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... regular hour, or forgot his meal-time, he might have done so now. Oh, yes, he might easily have done so, she assured herself. But why should Bo'sn forsake his master and come home alone? He had never done that before, never. And why, oh, why, did he make that strange wailing noise? He frightened her and must ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... into broader thoroughfares now. A wailing child's voice fell on her ear. A small crowd of disreputable idlers was hanging round the closed doors of a public-house, waiting eagerly for the opening which would take place at the close of service-time. The wailing child's voice grew more and more piteous. Erica saw that it came from ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... honey-golden travertine; between them, as I looked one way, a deep strip of sea; when I turned, the purple gorges of the Apennine; and all about the temple, where I sat in solitude, a wilderness dead and still but for that long note of wailing melody. I had not thought it possible that here, in my beloved home, where regret and desire are all but unknown to me, I could have been so deeply troubled by a thought of things far off. I returned with head bent, that voice singing in my memory. All the delight I have known in ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... to arrange some minor feast-day of their own in time to clash with the period of general mourning for the martyrs Hasan and Hussain, the heroes of the Mohurrum. Gilt and painted paper presentations of their tombs are borne with shouting and wailing, music, torches, and yells, through the principal thoroughfares of the City, which fakements are called tazias. Their passage is rigorously laid down beforehand by the Police, and detachments of Police accompany ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... haunted—we that mocked and sinned Hear the vanished voices wailing down the wind, Watch the ruined rose-leaves drift along the shore. Wind among ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... rooms came a long wailing howl. For the first time Kerry might not follow his master; more yet, the master had thrust the astonished dog into his bedroom and shut the door upon him. He had refused to recognize the scratch at the door, the snuffling whine ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... about the green compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday's best, walking with those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of the gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath services, held, as they were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping bunks; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wailing when Gilian got back to Ladyfield he never heard them. Was the glen as sad and empty as before? Then he was absent, indeed! For he was riding through an air almost jocund, and his spirit sang within ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... mountains, he himself being detained by final arrangements with the authorities, his interest in researches into the arcana of old Cherokee customs had been revived by seeing the sibyl seated on the ground, swaying and wailing and moaning, and casting ashes on her head as if making her mourning for the dead. At the time he had marked the parity of the observance with the Hebraic usage, and he intended to make an examination into the origin of the curious tradition of the identity of the American ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... fortune, since I have lost thee, O my brother and apple [170] of mine eye!" And the abode on this wise, weeping and lamenting, till Alaeddin's mother was certified that he was in earnest and that he was like to swoon of the excess of his wailing and his lamentation. So she came to him and raised him from the ground, saying, "What profiteth it that thou shouldst kill thyself?" And [171] she proceeded to comfort him and ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... women wailing, Cruel wrong and bitter strife, Shrieking souls that pass, and quailing Hearts that shrink beneath the knife. Tales I tell of evil passions, Men that suffer, men that slay, All the tragedy that fashions Life and death for such as they. Yet ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... never runned afore in all his life." For a short space deer and dog in hot pursuit were visible on the snow, then the darkness swallowed them up as they rushed down the slope; but in less than half a minute a sound came back to Isaac, flying, too, down the incline—the long, wailing cry of a deer in distress. The dog had seized his quarry by one of the front legs, a little above the hoof, and held it fast, and they were struggling on the snow when Isaac came up and flung himself upon his victim, then thrust his knife through its windpipe "to stop its noise." Having killed ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... wide, thin blade and all those present covered their eyes with their cloaks, when a wailing voice called on the executioner to delay yet a moment. The High King uncovered his eyes and saw that a woman had approached driving ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens
... Earaird—they took each a hand of Mochuda and in a disrespectful, uncivil manner, they led him forth out of the monastery while their followers did the same with Mochuda's community. Throughout the city and in the country around there was among both sexes weeping, mourning, and wailing over their humiliating expulsion from their own home and monastery. Even amongst the soldiers of the king were many who were moved to pity and compassion for Mochuda ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... along the cliff-top. She had run for miles and it was night and beside her yawned the black gulfs of the cliff-edge. And from far below, in the darkness, she heard a voice wailing as if from some creature lost upon the rocky beach. It was Gregory in some great peril. Pity and fear beat upon her like black wings as she ran, and whether it was to escape him or to succour ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... prayer, that I may never have another. John," she added with a sudden outburst, "it is your fault. You know well I told you how it would be. I told you that if you would come this mad journey the babe would die, aye, and I tell you"—here her voice sank to a kind of wailing whisper—"before the tale is ended others will die too, all of us, except Rachel there, who was born to live her life. Well, for my part, the sooner the better, for I wish to go ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... dear! Did you ever see so many mice?" came in a wailing voice from Aunt Martha. She had clambered up on a chair and stood there holding her dress tightly around ...
— The Rover Boys at Colby Hall - or The Struggles of the Young Cadets • Arthur M. Winfield
... dragged myself, driven by some dimly sensed necessity. Peril had stolen upon me in my unconsciousness, a stalking beast. I knew that with nightmare certainty. It was as if my soul stood affrighted beside my brain, wailing upon its ally to arouse and stand with it against the menace. And my brain answered, but with infinite difficulty; like a drugged warrior who hears the clang of battle and forces numbed limbs to stir, arise ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... mode of disposing of the dead, and the ceremonials attending it, there is a difference in almost every tribe. Among the Adelaide natives as soon as a person dies, a loud wailing cry is raised by the relations and friends. The body is immediately wrapped up in the skin or clothing worn during life, and in the course of a day or two, it is placed upon the wirkatti or bier, which is made of branches crossed so as to form the radii of a circle, an examination is ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... Kippletringan was distant at first 'a gey bit'; then the 'gey bit' was more accurately described as 'ablins three mile'; then the 'three mile' diminished into 'like a mile and a bittock'; then extended themselves into 'four mile or thereawa'; and, lastly, a female voice, having hushed a wailing infant which the spokeswoman carried in her arms, assured Guy Mannering, 'It was a weary lang gate yet to Kippletringan, and unco heavy road for foot passengers.' The poor hack upon which Mannering was mounted was probably of opinion that it suited him as ill as the female respondent; for he began ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... flash of memory and association, there passed through her mind the vision of the Opera House blazing with lights—Iphigenia on the stage, wailing at her father's knees in an agony of terror ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... nearing the building, when an athletic, powerful slave, who had been but a short time from his "fatherland," whose spirit the cowardly overseer had labored in vain to quell, said in a calm, clear voice, that we had better stand our ground, and advised the females to lose no time in useless wailing, but get their things and repair immediately to a cabin at a short distance, and there remain quiet, without a light, which they did with all possible haste. The men were terrified at this bold act of their leader; and many with dismay at the thought of resistance, began to skulk behind fences ...
— Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman • Austin Steward
... moonlight, Hope and pleasure of my childhood, Taken from me now forever, And so soon to be forgotten At the tool-bench of my brother, At the window of my sister, In the cottage of my father." Spake again the gray-haired mother To her wailing daughter Aino: "Cease thy sorrow, foolish maiden, By thy tears thou art ungrateful, Reason none for thy repining, Not the slightest cause for weeping; Everywhere the silver sunshine Falls as bright on other households; Not ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... thinking about this when she heard something that made her first stop her work to listen and then jump up hurriedly, spilling the peas out of her lap. The wailing of a terrified child was coming nearer and nearer. Elliott set down the peas that were left and ran out on the veranda. There was Johnny stumbling up the path, crying at the top ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... age and the vital importance she seemed to attach to it. I never shall forget his describing her when first she saw it, appearing for a moment petrified at sight of it, and then tottering forward and falling down on her knees, and weeping and wailing over these poor remains of the royalty of her country as if it had been the dead body of ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... so full of dreary noises! O men, with wailing in your voices, O delved gold, the wailer's heap, God strikes a silence through you all, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... as they separated Beric walked rapidly to the house where Norbanus had taken up his abode. As he reached the door he paused, for he heard within the sounds of wailing, and felt that he had ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... courtyard came a piteous wailing. Barney ran to the casement and looked out. Butzow ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... counsel had blocked their plans, and they were forced to remain outside. When they see that they are shut out, they pause in their advance, as it is evident they can gain nothing by making an assault. Then there begins such weeping and wailing of women and young children, of old men and youths, that those in the town could not have heard a thunder-clap from heaven. At this the Greeks are overjoyed; for now they know of a certainty that the Count by no good luck can escape capture. Four of them mount the walls to keep ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... The pinnacle veiled in the cloud, the highest and sheerest of all, Ere to wedlock that rendeth my heart, and love that is loveless, I fall! Yea, a prey to the dogs and the birds of the mount will I give me to be,— From wailing and curse and pollution it is death, only death, sets me free: Let death come upon me before to the ravisher's bed I am thrust; What champion, what saviour but death can I find, or what refuge from lust? I will utter ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... watched, and a very superior sort of surgeon in the neighbourhood of Lambeth, from the second day of my arrival there, found some pretence or another to get introduced to my nurse, and took a violent liking to the little, puny, wailing piece of mortality, myself. I was about this time so exceedingly small, that though at the risk of being puerile, I cannot help recording that Joseph Brandon immersed me, all excepting my head, in a quart pot. ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... seven captains. The rangers saved but five of their captives. On the British side only two whites were killed and eight Indians wounded. The next day the remaining forts, filled chiefly with women and children, capitulated. The long and wailing procession of survivors flying from their fields of corn, their gardens, the flames of their cottages, the unburied bodies of their beloved defenders, escaped by a pass through the hills to the eastern settlements. Every fort and dwelling ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... who has heard the keening and wailing, say at Limerick Junction, over Paddy going over the water will forget the appealing sorrow of the scene, the sound of which rings long in one's ears after the train ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... of his men, which at last he succeeded in doing, and about forty of them gained our forecastle, from which they forced our weak crew, and retained possession, not following up the success, but apparently wailing till they were seconded by the Spaniard's boarding us on our lee quarter, which would have placed us between two fires, and compelled us to divide ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... bowels of the earth, Strange and varied sounds had birth; Now the battle's bursting peal, Neigh of steed, and clang of steel; Now an old man's hollow groan Echoed from the dungeon stone; Now the weak and wailing cry Of a stripling's agony!— Cold by this was the midnight air; But the Abbot's blood ran colder, When he saw a gasping knight lie there, With a gash beneath his clotted hair, And a hump upon his shoulder. And the loyal churchman strove in vain To mutter a Pater Noster; For he who writhed ...
— English Satires • Various
... into the night. Marie and Henri were at the cabin of the Bordoux, laughing and chattering in the gay abandon of youth. She could hear their snatches of songs, their quips and laughter rising now and again in shrill gusts. Also the wailing fiddle seemed a part of the warm night, and the bird ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... weight to that of the Ivan Tower, which is rung only on state occasions, yet the sounds were so deep and powerful that they produced a reverberation in the air resembling the distant roar of thunder, mingled with the wailing of the winds in a storm. When all the bells of the tower, save the largest, were tolled together, the effect was absolutely sublime, surpassing in the grandeur and majesty of their harmony any thing ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... the night, and forgotten sins came flocking out of the secret chambers of the memory and wanted a hearing; and how ill chosen the time seemed for this kind of business; and how dismal was the hoo-hooing of the owl and the wailing of the wolf, sent mourning by on ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... there's a frost along the marshes, And a frozen wind that skims the shoal where it shakes the dead black water; There's a moan across the lowland and a wailing through the woodland Of a dirge that sings to send us back to the arms of those that love us. There is nothing left but ashes now where the crimson chills of autumn Put off the summer's languor with a touch that made us glad For the glory that is gone from us, with ...
— The Children of the Night • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... as at all times of great endeavor among the Folk, a wailing song arose; it echoed through the gloom; it grew, taken up by the outlying boats; and in the eternal dark of the Abyss it rose, uncanny, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... with its wailing tides and surf-beaten reefs, is a desolate enough spot in modern days when superstitions do not add to its terrors. The wind pipes down from The Labrador in fairest weather with weird voices as of wailing ghosts, and in winter the shores of Belle Isle never cease to ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... thou so early from the wicked bed? So prompt to slough the snugness of thy vice? Or is it that in luxury thou art nice Become, and dalliest?" Low her head she hung And moved her lips. As when the night is young The hollow wind presages storm, his moan Came wailing at her. "Ten years here, alone, And in that time to have seen thee thrice!" But she: "Often and often have I chanced to see My lord pass." His heart leapt, as leaps the child Enwombed: "Hast thou—?" Faintly her quick ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... been brought to Tzazon, and he had disclosed its contents to the Vandals, they turned to wailing and lamentation, not openly, however, but concealing their feelings as much as possible and avoiding the notice of the islanders, silently among themselves they bewailed the fate which was upon them. And straightway setting in order matters in hand just as chance directed, they manned the ships. ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... attitude—so. She scarcely ever looks up. My brother talks, and occasionally steals a glance that way. We passed one whole hour as I have described. In the middle of it, I happened to look at Wilfrid's face, while the violin was wailing down. I fancied I heard the despair of one of those huge masks in a pantomime. I was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... down on the valley, and the rain had ceased, when Alton unstrapped his load, and stood with aching shoulders amidst the dripping pines. He could hear the rattle of the twigs that met and brushed through the shrill wailing of the wind about the sombre spires that pierced the growing darkness far above him, and the harmonic murmuring that rose and fell in cadence along the dim, vaulted roof. There was, however, nothing else beyond the growl of a rapid somewhere up the valley, and stretching ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... herdsmen in long cloaks and brown capuchons, silent, with bent heads; four women followed in black mantles. It was they who uttered those monotonous and piercing lamentations; one knew not if they were wailing or praying. They walked with long steps through the cold mist, without stopping or looking at any one, and were going to bury the poor body in the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... ready. I sit on the floor as comfortable as I can make myself while he is getting supper. The flickering light, the shifting shadows, the strange ones lying asleep, the almost as strange dusky helpers, the sense of dangers just escaped, the whining, wailing, barking dogs, my physical pain—all these things beget within me a strange feeling of loneliness and a longing for home. Again and again I ask myself the question, "Why did you undertake this; why were you not content to go down from Damascus to Galilee and all of West Palestine ...
— My Three Days in Gilead • Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal
... and the Sioux numbered one great warrior more within their bosom. Thus, by the exertion of remarkable presence of mind, Peritana preserved herself a husband, saved the babe from orphanship, restored a daughter to her father, and added a brave soldier to the forces of her tribe. Weeping and wailing would have availed her nothing; undaunted courage gave her the victory. The facts of this tale are current still among the wandering Sioux, who often relate to their wives and young men the famous deeds ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... settling the account of their coal contractors, these last had taken proceedings against them, and had seized not only all the contents of their refreshment-rooms, but also the whole of their rolling-stock. (Prolonged wailing.) He grieved to say that the last two engines that the Company possessed, and which they had up to now hidden in the cloak-room at the Edinburgh terminus, were unfortunately discovered and seized ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... shield, as it affected Brother Buddu, was shown next day at Harbe. At dawn three men and four women were found in the middle of the 19th Brigade's camp, outside General Peebles' tent, wailing. The women said their husbands had been bayoneted and mutilated by Turks a fortnight before, and buried here. This story proved true. The women dug up and bore off the decomposing fragments ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... that confusion. Twenty or so of the boys were still in the dormitories, working under Percy Witherspoon to save clothing and furniture, and the older girls were sorting over bushels of shoes and trying to fit them to the little ones, who were running about underfoot and wailing dismally. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... as they entered the music-room and the emotions which he expressed upon the keys were emotions of deep unrest. They ran in strains of folklore plaintiveness and rhythmic sobs of wailing cadences. When Mary spoke the musician turned with a start. He had not ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... to a bench that ran along the wall, and sat down. "Eli, get up from there and stop that camp-meeting wailing! Mr. Wilson, you perhaps do not yet know my brother's horse—black with a white star. Colonel Dick, they've got hold of the wrong end of some damned ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... Altara, virgin of Poseidon the God-head, then shall a darkness fall on Atlans! Her cities shall be cast down, there will be a weeping and wailing in the land, for Beelzebub and his followers shall prevail! Woe to Atlans and woe to ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... if no money," and she went on with her damnable singing, like a lost soul wailing for ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... his eyes; suddenly he leaped up, and a wild thought burned in his breast. But with an effort he checked himself, grasped his violin, and struck a wailing chord of lament. Then he laid his ear close to the instrument, as if he were listening to some living voice hidden there within, ran warily with the bow over the strings, and warbled, and caroled, and sang ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... evident that the poor creature was in the very last stages of exhaustion, for she reeled and staggered as she came toward us with outstretched, appealing arms; and presently, when we were still a few yards apart, with a low, wailing cry she fell prone and lay huddled up in a pathetic little heap in the long grass, while the dogs dashed forward and stood alternately nuzzling her and looking up to us with plaintive whines. The next instant I swung out of my saddle, and, bending down, raised the unfortunate ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... weeks later that the girls in Holly House heard a sharp, wailing cry from within the portals of Miss Phipps's private room, and looked at each other with eyes of sympathetic understanding. The knowledge that Pixie's father was seriously ill had leaked out among the elder pupils, and this afternoon, as they ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... of it. There are false and true, And we want to render you your due. But our hearts go out to that ravished land Where a few grim heroes make their stand, And our ears hear faintly, from overseas, The wailing ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... third-story window Widow Johnsen stood wailing, with her grandchild and the factory-girl's little Paul in her arms. Hanne's little daughter stared silently out of the window, with the deep, wondering gaze of her mother. "Don't be afraid," Pelle ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo |
