"Songster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... disappoint ye," answered Mr. Brimberly, drawing the cork with a practised hand; "my father were a regular songster, a fair carollin' bird ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... was received with all the due grimace By those who govern in the mood potential, Who, seeing a handsome stripling with smooth face, Thought (what in state affairs is most essential), That they as easily might do the youngster, As hawks may pounce upon a woodland songster. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... have been a duel at Chalk Farm, but for unloaded pistols and police interference. This fiasco soon led to an amicable understanding between Moore and Jeffrey; and a few years later, about the end of 1811, to a friendship of closer intimacy between the Irish songster and his great poetic contemporary Lord Byron. His lordship, in his youthful satire of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, had made fun of the unbloody duel. This Moore resented, not so much as a mere matter of ridicule as because it involved an ignoring or a denial of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Milton so finely calls "a sullenness against nature," and who are willing, in a spirit of true philosophy and piety, to extract good from every thing, may save themselves from wretchedness even in this land of exile. While I am writing this paragraph, a bird in my room, (not the Caubul songster that I have already alluded to, but a fine little English linnet,) who is as much a foreigner here as I am, is pouring out his soul in a flood of song. His notes ring with joy. He pines not for his native meadows—he ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... undiscovered, but pallid and remorseful, gained the casement. Softly raising his head, he peeped within. The room was full of music; he seemed to grow blind for a moment, when lo! upon the kitchen-table sat the mysterious songster, an ebony-hued negress, scouring the tinware, and singing away. Just as he was peering through the window, the ebony songster discovered him. The soldier's limbs sank beneath him, and the black ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... Jackson: the descent of this was waving, in rather a melancholy soothing strain. The song of Bong-ree, which he gave them at the conclusion of theirs, sounded barbarous and grating to the ear; but Bong-ree was an indifferent songster, even ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... he said, he had heard a bird singing in more beautiful tones than any he had heard before. Going into the wood to see what strange songster this was, the sound changed to most wonderful music which compelled him to follow it. Thus lured onward he came at length to the edge of an enchanted lake, and he noticed that night had fallen but that the sky was ablaze with huge stars. Then more stars rose up all around him, and, ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... and gay Lorand, was thinking that he had but one more day to live; and then—adieu to the perfumed fields, adieu to the songster's echo, adieu to the beautiful, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... Imbibes the silver stream, with heat opprest To cool the fervour of his glowing breast. Here verdant boughs adorn'd with summer's pride, Spread their broad shadows o'er the silver tide: While, gently perching on the leafy spray, Each feather'd songster tunes his various lay: And while thy praise, they symphonize around, Creation ecchoes to the grateful sound. Wide o'er the heav'ns the various bow he bends. Its tincture brightens, and its arch extends: At the glad sign, aerial conduits flow, The ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... father, Oedipus, the towers That fence the city still are faint and far; But where we stand is surely holy ground; A wilderness of laurel, olive, vine; Within a choir or songster nightingales Are warbling. On this native seat of rock Rest; for an old man thou ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... of brilliant color, the nuthatch is a beautiful bird on account of the pleasing softness and harmonious disposition of his tints; and, in like manner, without being a songster in the strict sense of the word, his voice is so clear and far-reaching and of so pleasing a quality, that it often gives more life and spirit to the woods and orchards and avenues he frequents than that ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... Jackdaw, the Jay, the Magpie, the Rook in some green rookery of the Old World, or the Crow of our woods, with its long, melancholy caw that seems to make the silence and solitude deeper? Compare all the sweet warblers of the Songster Family,—the Nightingales, the Thrushes, the Mocking-Birds, the Robins; they differ in the greater or less perfection of their note, but the same kind of voice runs through the whole group. These affinities of the vocal systems among animals form a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... was in a kind of songster's pulpit just below me, was wreathed in the complacent air of a man who has discharged a lofty duty and has done it well. He had borne himself throughout as the real master of the entire service, and ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... object of its attachment. Nor is this surprising. In the country its various associations are essentially impressive and poetical. Moonlight—evening—the still glen—the river side—the flowery hawthorn—the bower—the crystal well—not forgetting the melody of the woodland songster—are all calculated, to make the heart and fancy surrender themselves to the blandishments of a passion that is surrounded by objects so sweetly linked to their earliest sympathies. But this is not all. In rural life, neither the heart nor the eye is distracted ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... them, for there would be enough for all; but the dainty little epicures puncture an indefinite number of berries, merely taking a sip from each. Then the wasps and bees come along and finish the clusters. The cardinal, cat-bird, and our unrivalled songster the wood-thrush, all help themselves in the same wasteful fashion. One can't shoot wood-thrushes. We should almost as soon think of killing off our Nilssons, Nevadas, and Carys. The only thing to do is ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... great success. If e'er he dozed, at break of day, The cobbler's song drove sleep away; And much he wish'd that Heaven had made Sleep a commodity of trade, In market sold, like food and drink, So much an hour, so much a wink. At last, our songster did he call To meet him in his princely hall. Said he, 'Now, honest Gregory, What may your yearly earnings be?' 'My yearly earnings! faith, good sir, I never go, at once, so far,' The cheerful ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... alters the case. I thought you were another topical songster. Now here's a clever little ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 23, 1914 • Various
... was giv'n to me Sweet medicine to clear and strengthen sight, And, as one handling skillfully the harp, Attendant on some skilful songster's voice Bids the chords vibrate, and therein the song Acquires more pleasure; so, the whilst it spake, It doth remember me, that I beheld The pair of blessed luminaries move. Like the accordant twinkling of two eyes, Their beamy circlets, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... December 24, the position being lat. 64 32 S., long. 17 17 W. All the dogs except eight had been named. I do not know who had been responsible for some of the names, which seemed to represent a variety of tastes. They were as follows Rugby, Upton Bristol, Millhill, Songster, Sandy, Mack, Mercury, Wolf, Amundsen, Hercules, Hackenschmidt, Samson, Sammy, Skipper, Caruso, Sub, Ulysses, Spotty, Bosun, Slobbers, Sadie, Sue, Sally, Jasper, Tim, Sweep, Martin, Splitlip, Luke, Saint, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... distance, and an interval of silence was succeded by an earnest discussion of the cause of this prodigy. One supposition only could be adopted, which was, that the strain was uttered by human organs. That the songster was stationed on the roof of the arbour, and having finished his melody had risen into the viewless fields ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... privileged and insolent, inquires perpetually what you say. Besides these, swallows of various kinds, little wrens, {87d} almost exactly like our English ones, and night- hawking goat-suckers, few birds are seen. But, unseen, in the depths of every wood, a songster breaks out ever and anon in notes equal for purity and liveliness to those of our English thrush, and belies the vulgar calumny that tropic birds, lest they should grow too proud of their gay feathers, are denied the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... note from a lady who writes from among the Berkshire hills, where the sweet call of this bird is constantly repeated. It is very pleasant to know that a little girl out in that beautiful region honors me so much as to recite my verse when she hears the fresh note of this charming songster, as this lady tells me her ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... flowery meadows, There to rock upon the common, Where the Sun retires to slumber; There I heard a song-bird singing, Heard the thrush simple measures, Singing sweetly thoughts of maidens, And the minds of anxious mothers. "Then I asked the pretty songster, Asked the thrush this simple question: 'Sing to me, thou pretty song-bird, Sing that I may understand thee, Sing to me in truthful accents, How to live in greatest pleasure, And in happiness the sweetest, As a maiden with her father, Or as wife beside her husband.' ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... along a high, close, board-fence, on the right hand side of the way, when, just within this enclosure, and almost overhead, in the dark boughs of a large orange-tree, a mocking-bird began the first low flute-notes of his all-night song. It may have been only the nearness of the songster that attracted the passer's attention, but ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... your mate, and are crying for her," the girl said, stretching out her little brown hand compassionately toward the crouching songster. "Your companions have gone to the South, and you wait here, trusting that your mate will come back, and not journey to summer lands without you. Is not that so, my poor bird? Ah, would that I could go with you where there are always flowers, and ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... crowd dwindled she played less feverishly, but there was nothing slipshod about her performance. The chubby songster found time to proffer brief explanations in asides. "They want the patriotic stuff. It used to be all that Hawaiian dope, and Wild Irish Rose junk, and songs about wanting to go back to every place from ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... voice, Great Spirit! thou whose flame Kindled the Songster sweet of Israel, Who made so high to swell 15 Beyond a mortal strain thy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... tunes the men whistled to him. His notes were clear, loud, metallic and yet soft; their variety was astonishing, and his powers of imitation wonderful; there was not a bird of the forest that he did not imitate so exactly as to deceive. I would on no account allow this songster to be disturbed, and the consequence was that his rich note was the first thing heard at dawn of day, during the greater part of our residence ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... among the birds than the Mockingbird. But it should be remembered that a bird's song cannot be separated from the associations which it calls up in one's memory. So that the performance of an ordinary songster may be more pleasing to one than that of some finer ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... finished me, O Lord, Nor left out of me part of that great gift that goes to singing, I sure had known the meaning high of the songster's praising word, Had known upon what thoughts of thee his ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... replied Leveridge, dryly. "If I know anything about His Royal Highness you'll gain a fortune sooner by writing a ballad or two for this pretty songster. Make her famous as you made me with 'All in the Downs' and 'T'was when the ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... hundred feet high, with all branches near the top, as though they had grown in close woods. They were quite scattering now, and lower trees and shrubs flourished in their shade, making a charming spot, and a home worthy even of this superb songster. The bird himself was remarkably friendly. Seeming to appreciate my attitude of admiring listener, he often perched on the peak of a low roof (separated only by a carriage drive from the upper "gallery" where I sat), and sang for hours at a time, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... who had been singing to very thin houses, chanced to encounter a Glow-worm at eventide and prepared to make upon him a light repast. The unfortunate Lampyris Splendidula besought the Songster, in the sacred name of Art, not to quench his vital spark, and appealed to his magnanimity. "The Nightingale who needlessly sets claw upon a Glow-worm," he said, "is a being whom it were gross flattery to term a Luscinia Philomela." The Bird, however, turned a deaf beak to these appeals ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee
... mistress dear; Now in vain you call his name, Vainly raise his rigid frame, Vainly warm him in your breast, Vainly kiss his golden crest, Smooth his ruffled plumage fine, Touch his trembling beak with wine. One more gasp—it is the end! Dead and mute our tiny friend! —Songster thou of many a year, Now thy mistress brings thee here, Says, it fits that I rehearse, Tribute due to thee, a verse, Meed for daily song of yore Silent ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... songster with a shower of stones, panting and bleeding to the ground, they thought was the best sport in the world, and the woods rang and echoed with their whoops and cheers as each poor bird fell to the earth. A mere glimpse of one of the blue beauties as he hid among the leaves ...
— Dickey Downy - The Autobiography of a Bird • Virginia Sharpe Patterson
... admire my lamp,' quoth he, 'As much as I your minstrelsy, You would abhor to do me wrong, As much as I to spoil your song: For 'twas the self-same Power Divine Taught you to sing, and me to shine; That you with music, I with light, Might beautify and cheer the night.' The songster heard this short oration, And warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And found ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... "poete de la bonne compagnie," an anacreontic senior, patriarch of pleasure, survived the classical century, and sang his songs of facile, epicurean delights; his friend La Fare (1644-1712) survived, but slept and ate more than a songster should. Anthony Hamilton (1646?-1720) wrote graceful verses, and in his brilliant Memoires de la Vie du Comte de Gramont became the historian of the amorous intrigues of the court of Charles II. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... bird," replied the Dewdrop, turning in politeness half round on its pillow; "thank you for thinking of me in my loneliness." And away the songster flew, first to his home, and then, after some outstanding duties and civilities, over to his thicket among the May blossoms. The extreme beauty of the night seemed to dispel all care, and to have a decidedly inspiring effect on his nerves. I cannot tell whether he had really any such ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... freezing in an Ague fit. Another poking in't with th' tongs, Still ready to cough up his lungs Here sitteth one that's melancolick, And there one singing in a frolick. Each one hath such a prety gesture, At Smithfield fair would yield a tester. Boy reach a pipe cries he that shakes, The songster no Tobacco takes, Says he who coughs, nor do I smoak, Then Monsieur Mopus turns his cloak Off from his face, and with a grave Majestick beck his pipe doth crave. They load their guns and fall a smoaking Whilst he who coughs sits by a choaking, Till he no longer ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... no means contented us each to follow his own course and woo his own muse. No, we all set our caps at the same muse and tried to cut one another out. If I happened to write an ode to a blackbird—and I wrote four or five—every one else must write an ode to a blackbird too; until the luckless songster must have hated the sound of ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... driver, usually so deft, Resented, in his doze, the interference Of any one poor fellow-suff'rer left; Of all his strength and energy bereft, The weary horse dragged listlessly along, And there appeared to be no effort left In the sleepy trilling of the songster's song, Which to the small suburban ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... And the woodland songster, pent In forlorn imprisonment, Though a mistress' lavish care Store of honeyed sweets prepare; Yet, if in his narrow cage, As he hops from bar to bar, He should spy the woods afar, Cool with sheltering ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... The Salvation Army do not enforce total abstinence from tobacco as well as from alcoholic drinks as a condition of membership or soldiership, but a member of the Army must be a non-smoker before he can hold any office in its rank, or be a bandsman, or a member of a "songster brigade." And in other religious organizations there are yet a few of the "unco' guid" who look askance at pipe or cigarette as if it were a device of the devil. But the numbers of these misguided folk become ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... Companion of our lives to be, I'll seek the moral songster's meed, An earthly immortality; Most vain!—O let me, from the past Remembering what to man is given, Lay Virtue's broad foundations fast, Whose glorious turrets ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... from a tiny scarlet-crowned songster, as if it were trying to advise and direct the hard-pressed boy. Its solemn, round eyes stared at him, reproving and admonishing him for his foolhardiness. Piang, on his knees, struggling with the current, was unaware of his audience. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... powerful personage. There was not a continental or oriental court where she was not well-known—and feared, because of her power. A much-travelled woman, a wide reader—especially in the matter of the occult; a superb musician; a Patti and a Lind rolled into one, made her the most wonderful songster of the day. ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... concern that I watched the gayly dressed little songster for an entire day to see if he would take upon himself the duties of the mother-bird. Nothing could have been more touching than to note the faithfulness with which he performed all the work of two birds save brooding the young. ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... perhaps our best songster, according to my taste; full as fine as our English blackbird, and much handsomer in its plumage, which is a glossy, changeable, greenish black. The upper part of the wing of the male bird of full growth is of a lively orange; this is not apparent in the younger ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... songster heard his short oration, And, warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... songster, and in soft sunny weather sings both perching and flying; on trees in a kind of concert, and on chimney-tops: it is also a bold flier, ranging to distant downs and commons even in windy weather, which the other species seems much to dislike; nay, even frequenting exposed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... tones have been put in regulation, might have supplied the bass of the lamented viol-de-gamba. Halbert, however, who had no temptation to give way to the charms of slumber, remained awake with his eyes fixed on the songster; not that he was better entertained with the words, or more ravished with the execution, than the rest of the company, but rather because he admired, or perhaps envied, the composure, which could thus spend the evening in interminable madrigals, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... more brought them in sight of the melancholy songster. Seated in a corner of the cave, with his massive head on his fore-paws, the picture of dejection, was the most enormous creature they had ever seen or dreamed about. He was rather like an elephant, but much more immense and without a trunk: a huge, ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... happy amid the surrounding squalor, sitting with its little bare feet and legs dabbling in the sparkling water in the broken marble tank of a once magnificent fountain. There she sate alone in the sunshine, and carolled, with wide-opened throat, like any other nature-made songster. ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... his body less clay. How slight a wound kills him! how exquisite his sensations! how perfect his nervous system! and hence how large his brain! Why, look at the cerebral development of this tiny songster,—almost a third larger, in proportion to the size of its body, than that of Shakspeare even! Does it mean nothing? You may observe that a warbler has a much larger brain and a much finer cerebral organization throughout than a bird of prey, or any of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... birds were asked to dine; Not Jenny's friends alone, But every pretty songster That had Cock Robin known. They had a cherry pie, Beside some currant wine, And every guest brought something, That sumptuous ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... another experiment. The brilliant songster was pouring out his heart in that fine cry of strength and hope which he sends resounding over hill and vale. Suddenly hearing his own voice repeated to him in an echo sweet and pure as his own song, he fluttered his wings, peered this way and that, and sang again. Once more the answering ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... lark!" Sofya raised her head, and looked into the blue expanse of the sky for the merry songster. Her gray eyes flashed with a fond glance, and her body seemed to rise from the ground to meet the music ringing from an unseen source in the far-distant height. At times bending over, she plucked a field flower, and with light touches of her slender, agile fingers, ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... patroon heard the note of the whippoorwill, the nocturnal songster that mourns unseen. It was succeeded by the sharp tones of a saw-whet and the distinct mew of a cat-bird. A wild pigeon began to coo softly in another direction and was answered by a thrush. The listener vaguely realized that all this unexpected ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... previously mentioned, now stretching away in the distance like the unruffled bosom of some beautiful lake. A light breeze slightly rustled the leaves of the trees, among whose branches an occasional songster piped forth his morning lay ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with every songster ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... mind, in the same way as those of its more highly endowed sisters formerly did at home. There are several allied species in Brazil; in the southern provinces they are called Sabiahs. The Brazilians are not insensible to the charms of this their best songster, for I often heard some pretty verses in praise of the Sabiah sung by young people to the ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... is also somewhat at fault, we have proof in occasional outcries over the absence of these or those particular persons famous for inspiriting. It sticks and clogs. The improvising songster is missed, the convivial essayist, the humorous Dean, the travelled cynic, and he, the one of his day, the iridescent Irishman, whose remembered repartees are a feast, sharp and ringing, at divers tables ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... must flatter him at every word; and you will please him best by doing it grossly and to his face, for he is quite used to praise: he has long lived among those who look up to him as their patron, or gape at him as their principal wit, or glory in him as their chief songster, possibly as the chairman of their drinking club, and as their ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... Christian what the forest is to him who delights in nature. He who walks through the forest laughing, talking, and singing, hears not the sweet notes of the songster nor sees the wild things. He who would see and hear the things that delight the nature-lover must steal softly and silently along, watching his footsteps, hiding in the shadows, and thus he may see nature ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... lad who, when his father thought To clip his morning nap by hackneyed praise Of vagrant worm by early songster caught, Cried, "Served him right! 'tis not at all surprising; The worm was ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... for a Frenchwoman, and her love for sport was equal to her personal charms. Up to this time I had, I suppose, not had time to fall in love with anyone in particular. This was probably due to the fact that I was imbued somewhat with the spirit which prompted a Spanish songster ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... tanagers vied with each other in persistent singing. The vireo sang more constantly but the notes of the tanager were more wild and possessed greater resonance of tone. The call of a quail came clear and sweet from a distant wheat field and, like a glorious soloist, Ohio's finest songster, the woodthrush, was casting her "liquid pearls" on ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... Harry was so brave a songster, and could sing such bewitching airs: I suggested whether his musical talents could not be turned to account. The thought struck him most favorably—"Gad, my boy, you have hit it, you have," and then he went on to ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... who was sitting out of doors, kindly beckoned us to enter, and we had the pleasure of listening, under some splendid oaks, to the oriole's song, and of seeing a little cluster of Eucalyptus trees, two surprises we had not looked for. The oriole, a well known and beautiful American bird, also a songster that may be compared to the nightingale, is indeed no stranger here, and, having once heard and seen him, you cannot mistake him for any other bird. His song is an invariable prognostic of rain, as we ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... I do not exactly see why the Goose and little Goslings should emblematize a Quaker poet that has no children. But after all—perhaps it is a Pelican. The Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin around it I cannot decypher. The songster of the night pouring out her effusions amid a Silent Meeting of Madge Owlets, would be at least intelligible. A full pause here comes upon me, as if I had not a word more left. I will shake my brain. Once— twice—nothing ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... lost your mate, and are crying out for her," the girl said, stretching out her little brown hand compassionately toward the low-crouching songster. "Your companions have gone to the South, and you wait here trusting that your mate will come back, and not journey to summer lands without you. Is not that so, my poor bird? Ah, would that I could go with you where there are always flowers, and ever can be heard the ripple of little ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... awakened ears was the song of a little wren, a little wren who sang even as to-day in the days of my youth and joy, whose nest is built over the window that was so often a frame for that dearest-loved face. The song brought with it the recollection of all the little songster had outlived—the love, hope, and fear that had sprung up and grown and died, since I had first heard his warbling. And I broke into those quiet tears that are now my only expression of a grief ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bird-life. Mr. Torrey has no puerile ambitions for birds in the hand, and a bird in the bush makes to his perception holy ground, where he takes the shoes from off his feet and watches and waits, feeling a delightful surprise in each piquant caprice of the little songster. He tells the story of his experiences and impressions simply and pleasantly, often utters a good thing without too much emphasis, and yet more often says true things, which is more difficult still. He is nowhere bookish, although he has read and can quote well if need be. He ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... Which a Certain Songster Treats the Company To a Dolorous Ballad Whereby Mr. Irons ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the theatre. Some first-rate songsters have been produced among them, whose merits have been acknowledged, not only by the Russian public, but by the most fastidious foreign critics. Perhaps the highest compliment ever paid to a songster was paid by Catalani herself to one of these daughters of Roma. It is well known throughout Russia that the celebrated Italian was so enchanted with the voice of a Moscow Gypsy (who, after the former had displayed her noble talent before a splendid audience ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... miscellaneous kind are "The Pickwick Songster," "Sam Weller's Almanac," "Sam Weller's Song Book," "The Pickwick Pen," "Oh, what a boon and a blessing to men," etc.,—to say nothing of innumerable careless sheets, and trifles of all kinds and of every degree. Then we have adapted advertisements. The Proprietors ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... seemed to make it a perfect paradise. Brilliantly-plumaged birds flitted here and there, their colours contrasting with the green foliage. Gauzy-winged insects buzzed to and fro. The notes of the nightingale, or some kindred songster, could be heard, singing an ecstatic soprano to the cooing bass of the dove and the rippling obbligato of babbling brooks—that filtered through golden-yellow sands into the lap of the mother of waters—amid the sympathetic harmony of gushing cascades, whose noisy cadence ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... who has been in the forests of Cayenne, but we are determined, as soon as a Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a public place, and have the distance measured."[175] But the most remarkable songster of the Amazonian forest is the Realejo, or organ-bird. Its notes are as musical as the flageolet. It is the only songster, says Bates, which makes any impression on the natives. Besides those are the Jacamars, peculiar to equatorial America, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... a loud Bacchanalian hymn, in which Philip could find no mirth, and from which the songster suddenly paused to exclaim:— ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... group, disposed upon the lawn according to their various desires, stood and sat looking up at the brave little songster. ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... valley is lovely and rich in the extreme. All the foliage is fresh washed and clean; young herbage is bursting through the ground; the air is deliciously cool, and the birds are singing joyfully: one, called Mzie, is a good songster, with a loud melodious voice. Large game abounds, but we ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... do me wrong, As much as I to spoil your song: For 'twas the self-same Power Divine Taught you to sing, and me to shine; That you with music, I with light, Might beautify and cheer the night." The songster heard this short oration, And warbling out his approbation, Released him, as my story tells, And found a supper ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... the least ostentatious singer I know of. He does not strike an attitude, and lift up his head in preparation, and, as it were, clear his throat; but sits there on a log and pours out his music, looking straight before him, or even down at the ground. As a songster, he has but few superiors. I do not hear him after ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... then, though, I gets a law case so confoundedly cross-grained, that I'se forced to call in Lawyer Songster (he's a cute un, ye know), afore I can get the point o'nt halucinated. Then, Smooth, you see, I isn't one a them kind a folk what run after bigified gentry; and that's how I'se got where I has! A squire in this part of the world is somebody, I assure ye, sir. Then, what's more, I've always ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... generally speaking, are fond of singing, and, in some instances, I have heard many very good songs. The war-boat song, for example, is remarkably striking. The recitative of the leading songster, and then the swell of voices when the boatmen join in chorus, keeping time with their oars, seemed very beautiful when wafted down the Irrawaddy by the breeze; and the approach of a war-boat might always be known by the sound of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... intelligent discourse. And thus, though for thousands of years, men and birds had been dwelling together in Mardi, they remained wholly ignorant of each other's secrets; the Islander regarding the fowl as a senseless songster, forever in the clouds; and the fowl him, as a screeching crane, destitute of ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the crow family caw, whether it be the jackdaw, the jay, or the magpie, the rook in some green rookery of the Old World, or the crow of our woods, with its long, melancholy caw that seems to make the silence and solitude deeper? Compare all the sweet warblers of the songster family—the nightingales, the thrushes, the mocking-birds, the robins; they differ in the greater or less perfection of their note, but the same kind of voice runs through the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Chattesworth, who was frowning hard upon his dessert-plate, cried, 'Order, gentlemen,' in a stern, but very tremulous undertone. Lord Castlemallard, leaning upon his elbow, was staring with a grave and dreamy curiosity at the songster, and neither he nor his lordship heard the interruption, and on went the pleasant ditty; and as the musician regularly repeated the last two lines like a clerk in a piece of psalmody, the young wags, to save themselves from bursting ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... certain,—trusty to the string. "Bends to his knee the yielding horn, then sends "Through Pluto's heart the bearded arrow sure. "Not far from Enna's walls, a lake expands "Profound in watery stores, Pergusa nam'd: "Not ev'n Caisters' murmuring stream e'er heard "The songster-swans more frequent. Woods o'ertop "The waters, rising round on every side; "And veil from Phoebus' rays the surface cool. "A shade the branches form; the moist earth round, "Produces purple flowers: perpetual spring "Here reigns. While straying sportive in this grove "Here Proserpine ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... nature, the fervid heart, the trembling sensibility, the headlong passion, all thrilling through an intellect strong and keen beyond (p. 204) that of other men. How mysterious to reflect that the same qualities on their emotional side made him the great songster of the world, and on their practical side drove him to ruin! The first word which Burns composed was a song in praise of his partner on the harvest-rig; the last utterance he breathed in verse was also a song—a ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... to fashion little crystal stanzas, and to hurl themselves about the valley as if catapults propelled them. One songster perched on the iron rail of the bridge and practised a vocal lesson, cocking his head from side to side and seeming to ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... over Jerrie made her grandmother sit still while she washed up and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling, too—loud, dear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up to the perch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened, as if in wonder, to this new songster, whose ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... of it. The sedge-bird ceases at times as if from very weariness; but wake the bird up, says White, by throwing a stick or stone into the bushes, and away it goes again in full song. We have but one real nocturnal songster, and that is the mockingbird. One can see how this habit might increase among the birds of a long-settled country like England. With sounds and voices about them, why should they be silent, too? The danger of betraying themselves ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... of a linnet. As these two species are closely allied, and belong to the order of Insessores, which includes nearly all the singing-birds in the world, it is possible that a progenitor of the sparrow may have been a songster. It is more remarkable that parrots, belonging to a group distinct from the Insessores, and having differently constructed vocal organs, can be taught not only to speak, but to pipe or whistle tunes invented by man, so that they must have some musical capacity. Nevertheless it would be very rash ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... I was up, the puzzling songster visited the little grove under my windows, and I heard his whole song, of which it now appeared the three notes were merely the conclusion. The performance was eccentric. It began with a soft warble, apparently ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... Though I call Dibdin a ballad-monger, I do not think him by any means equal to the other songster, sans-souci Dibdin.] ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... are watching him the grosbeak ceases his ringing tones and drops into that dreamy, soft, melodious warble, which is characteristic of this songster as it is of the catbird. But he leaves when a belted kingfisher comes ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... skin feathers begin To warn the songster of his fleeting; But never mind, I leave behind Songs all ...
— Echoes from the Sabine Farm • Roswell Martin Field and Eugene Field
... Gayest songster of the Spring! Thy melodies before me bring Visions of some dream-built land, Where, by constant zephyrs fanned, I might walk the livelong day, Embosomed in perpetual May. Nor care nor fear thy bosom knows; For thee a tempest never blows; But when our northern ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... deepening into night, but still the glow from the setting sun lingered in the western sky. The brave little songster had gone from the top of the elm tree, but from the shrubbery behind the church a whippoorwill was beginning to ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... favorite for the cage, being preferred by many to the Canary. Whatever he may lack as a songster he more than makes up by his wonderful beauty. These birds are very easily tamed, the female, even in the wild state, being so gentle that she allows herself to be lifted from the nest. They are also called the Painted Finch or Painted Bunting. They are found in our Southern ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Friends. From photograph by S. J. Eddy Hen and Chickens. " " " Chickens Drinking A Happy Family. From photograph by J. M. Eldredge Just Arrived Pig looking over a Fence Feeding the Pigs Old White Horse A Little Songster Pussy Willows Paper-Makers A Butterfly Grasshopper and Cricket. Illustration by Alice Barber Stephens Spider and Web A Woodmouse Little Freehold. By S. J. Carter An Interesting Family. By S. J. Carter Frog and Lily-pads Four little Friends ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... in upturned roots, in the corners of rail fences, and in the young pear-trees and apple-trees in the orchard. The eggs are a greenish blue. The robin sings a full, clear song; indeed he is our best songster. We have so few singing-birds, that we prize those that do sing ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... mad, sir," faltered the White Linen Nurse. "No, not mad, sir,—but very far from well." Coaxingly with a perfectly futile hand she tried to lure one astonished yellow songster back from a swaying yellow bush. "Why, they'll die, sir!" she protested. ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... is calm, the sky serene, Though wide the broad and leafy arms are spread, Yet still the scars of recent wounds are seen; Their shelter henceforth seems but insecure; The winged tribes disdain the frequent lure, Where many a songster lies benumb'd or dead; And when I would the flow'ry tendrils train, I find my late delightful ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... common than other birds. It is not large or strong, or swift on the wing, and it seems to have none of those advantages which would help it to defend itself against enemies. It is not handsome, and it is not a sweet songster, so that man is not disposed to give it much protection. He is often prompted to destroy it, because of the injury which it does to his gardens and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various |
