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Warble   Listen
verb
Warble  v. t.  (past & past part. warbled; pres. part. warbling)  
1.
To sing in a trilling, quavering, or vibratory manner; to modulate with turns or variations; to trill; as, certain birds are remarkable for warbling their songs.
2.
To utter musically; to modulate; to carol. "If she be right invoked in warbled song." "Warbling sweet the nuptial lay."
3.
To cause to quaver or vibrate. "And touch the warbled string."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Warble" Quotes from Famous Books



... heel-fly or warble-fly. They deposit their eggs on the legs of cattle during the fall. The animal, licking the parts, takes the eggs into its mouth. These eggs gradually migrate into the gullet, where they hatch and burrow through the tissues, and in the early spring will be found in the region of the back in ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... breathless night, without star or moon. She had wandered into the dark garden; she had found her way to the grave, and standing by the Master's side she had listened to the music and seen the guests passing across the lighted windows. The warble of the fountain had seemed to her like the pulse of Eternity. All that was three years ago. "It is very wonderful, very wonderful," she thought, and she awoke with a start, and Mademoiselle Helbrun saw she had not been listening. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... revelry, With mask and antique pageantry; Such sights as youthful poets dream, On summer-eves by haunted stream. Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild. And ever, against eating cares, Lap me in soft Lydian airs, Married to immortal verse, Such as the meeting soul may pierce, In notes with many a winding bout Of linked sweetness long drawn out, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... the pain of thy transport O'erpowers each dying tone! Thou canst not warble a measure That is not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... And pomp, and feast, and revelry, With mask, and antique Pageantry, Such sights as youthfull Poets dream On Summer eeves by haunted stream. 130 Then to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonsons learned Sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespear fancies childe, Warble his native Wood-notes wilde, And ever against eating Cares, Lap me in soft Lydian Aires, Married to immortal verse Such as the meeting soul may pierce In notes, with many a winding bout Of lincked sweetnes long drawn out, 140 With wanton heed, and giddy cunning, The melting voice through ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... small blue rift of sky above. Even the sun seems slow to peep in, as if his brightness were not needed by those who walk in the light of their own hearts. And the little birds warble and the little burnie runs, as if neither knew there was a weary world outside, where many a heart, pure as either, grows dumb amidst its singing, and ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... spring: the birds warble, but you do not understand their song? Well, hear it in a ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen

... I likes old Jeffords, an' considers him a pleasin' conundrum. About tenth drink time he'd take a cha'r an' go camp by himse'f in a far corner, an' thar he'd warble hymns. Many a time as I files away my nosepaint in the Oriental have ...
— How The Raven Died - 1902, From "Wolfville Nights" • Alfred Henry Lewis

... up her hand to invite attention, as the delicious warble of a nightingale, or 'bul-bul' broke the heated silence into liquid melody. Her lover-husband took that little uplifted hand, and drawing it in his own, kissed it fondly,—and so for a moment they were very quiet, while the little ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... lustre Hid i' the harebell, while her tresses, sunnier than the wild-grape cluster, Gush in golden tinted plenty down her neck's rose-misted marble: Then her voice's music... call it the well's bubbling, the bird's warble! ...
— A Blot In The 'Scutcheon • Robert Browning

... the boy's poetic genius. In spite of the war between playwright and precisian, a Puritan youth could still in Milton's days avow his love of the stage, 'if Jonson's learned sock be on, or sweetest Shakspeare Fancy's child, warble his native wood-notes wild' and gather from the 'masques and antique pageantry,' of the court revels, hints for his ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... as if on wings, over the heads of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned, therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls, unconsciously, for she inherited old social instincts which became nature ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... buds begin to swell, And woods the bluebird's warble know, The yellow violet's modest bell Peeps from ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... Warble on, ye feathered songsters, Lift your praises loud and high, Merry lark, and thrush, and blackbird, In the grove and in the sky Make your music, shame our dumbness, Till we ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney

... morning rose, Called Lakshman gently from repose: "Awake, the pleasant voices hear Of forest birds that warble near. Scourge of thy foes, no longer stay; The hour is ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... bird, that strain, Frae hopeless love itsel' it flows; Sweet bird, oh! warble it again, Thou'st touch'd the string o' a' my woes; Oh! lull me with it to repose, I 'll dream of her who 's far away, And fancy, as my eyelids close, Will meet the maid ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... these sad strains to lighter sounds give place! Bid thy brisk viol warble measures gay! For see! recall'd by thy resistless lay, Once more the Brownie shews his honest face. Hail, from thy wanderings long, my much lov'd sprite! Thou friend, thou lover of the lowly, hail! Tell, in what realms thou sport'st thy merry night, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... vergego. Wander erari, vagi. Wander (be delirious) deliri. Wanderer nomadulo, vagisto. Wandering nomada, eraranta. Wane ekfinigxi. Wanness paleco. Want seneco, mizerego. Want (need, require) bezoni. Wanton malica. War milito—ado. Warble pepi. Warbler pepulo, silvio. Ward (guard) gardi, prizorgi. Ward (turn aside) deklinigi, evitigi. Ward (a person) zorgatulo. Ward (care) gardeco, zorgateco. Ward (district) kvartalo. Ward off deturni. Warder gardanto. Wardrobe ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... enterprises. This new interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it undisturbed. It consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short intervals in the midst of the music—the reader probably remembers how to do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... crystal of his words! Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues" (graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"—a slightly mixed reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and romantic ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... dinner! One pound one thrown into the puddle, To listen to Fiddle, Faddle, and Fuddle! Not to forget the sounds we buy From those who sell their sounds so high, That, unless the managers pitch it strong, To get a signora to warble a song, You must fork out the blunt with a ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... Whose nature hiding shall e'er decline; And subdued by wine in its mainest might * Like lover drunken by strains divine,[FN216] Do thou gaze on our garden of goodly gifts * And all manner blooms that in wreaths entwine; See the birdies warble on every bough * Make melodious music the finest fine. And each Pippet pipes[FN217] and each Curlew cries * And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine; Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Hazar, * And Kata calling on Quail vicine; So fill ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... it out, and as soon as it stood on her hand, it began to warble wonderfully, turning its head from side to side like some she had seen in Switzerland when she was there with ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham

... thee, father Sylvanus, guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace

... singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... scent with the weed of North America. His favorite horse is of Arabian blood; his pet dog of the St. Bernard breed. His gallery is rich with pictures from the Flemish school, and statues from Greece. For his amusement he goes to hear Italian singers warble German music, followed by a French ballet. The ermine that decorates his judges was never before on a British animal. His very mind is not English in its attainments: it is a mere pic-nic of foreign contributions. His poetry and philosophy ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... arose the varied warble of other frogs. The little polliwogs had all been put to bed; and now, came stealing on, the season for silent thoughts. Always anxious to improve her mind, Miss Frog gazed about her to find a subject on which ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... awoke, arrows of gold were shooting through the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent whistle and the warble, the cackle and the pompous crow, were in ...
— Red Saunders • Henry Wallace Phillips

... the veteran, and he broke into another verse of the interminable song—one of the series that cowboys love to warble. ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker

... with a noiseless hand—somehow he felt as if, in spite of all he had just heard, she must be there as usual to welcome him with that serene sweet smile which was the sunshine of his life. The empty desolate air of the room smote him with a sense of bitter pain,—only the plaintive warble of her pet thrush, who was singing to himself most mournfully in his gilded cage, broke the heavy silence. He looked about him vacantly. All sorts of dark forebodings crowded on his mind,—she must have met with some accident, he thought with a shudder,—for that ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... enthusiastic undergraduates; he is the joy of sober common-rooms. I wish with all my heart that the convenances of life permitted Egeria herself to stray into those book-lined rooms, dim with tobacco-smoke, to warble and sing to the accompaniment of Perry's cracked piano, to take her place among the casual company. But as Egeria cannot go to Perry, and as Perry will not go to Egeria, they must respect each other from a distance, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... faces. He stopped still and made no sound. A lovely musical voice, a young woman's voice, grave and sweet, was heard. Christophe pricked his ears. As she went on with her words he turned again, keenly interested to see what bird could warble so. He saw Ophelia. In truth she was nothing like the Ophelia of Shakespeare. She was a beautiful girl, tall, big and fine like a young fresh statue—Electra or Cassandra. She was brimming with life. In spite of her efforts to keep within her part, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland

... light at night and shade at noon, Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day. Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune; And as soft waters warble to the moon, Our answering ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... ebon blackness, laced with lustres From starry clusters; courts of calm retreat, Where wan rills warble over glistening marble; Cold jewels, and the sandal, moist and sweet— These for ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... Forbear!—But thou art sunk beneath reproach; In vain affected raptures flush the cheek, And songs of pleasure warble from the tongue, When fear and anguish labour in the breast, And all within is darkness and confusion. Thus, on deceitful Etna's flow'ry side, Unfading verdure glads the roving eye; While secret flames, with unextinguish'd rage, Insatiate on her wasted entrails ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... Magazine. Some one has observed, that when we listen to an exquisite opera, or any elaborate and intricate piece of music, we think not how vast were the pains and attention bestowed upon every note and cadence; what efforts for perfection in a solo, what panting for a warble, what travail for a trill! Taken separately, and at rehearsals, in disjointed fragments of sound, how different are they from that volume of sweet concords which is produced when they are all breathed forth in order, to the accompaniment ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... her bright eyes like black cords, such as our maidens buy nowadays, for their crosses and ducats, off the Moscow pedlars who visit the villages with their baskets; that her little mouth, at sight of which the youths smacked their lips, seemed made to warble the songs of nightingales; that her hair, black as the raven's wing, and soft as young flax, fell in curls over her shoulders, for our maidens did not then plait their hair in pigtails interwoven with pretty, bright-hued ribbons. Eh! may I never intone another ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... "Mighty glad to meet you, Ericson. Ray told me you'd make a ripping sprinter. The captain of the track team 'll be on the lookout for you when you get to Plato. Course you're going to go there. The U. of Minn. is too big.... You'll do something for old Plato. Wish I could. But all I can do is warble like a darn' dicky-bird. Have a cigarette?... They're just starting to dance. Come on, old man. Come ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... freedom was allowed the jackies in their amusements. With boxing, broadsword, and single-stick play, drill and skylarking, the hours of daylight were whiled away; and by night the men off duty would gather about the forecastle lantern to play with greasy, well-thumbed cards, or warble tender ditties to black-eyed Susans far across the Atlantic. Patriotic melodies formed no small part of Jack's musical repertoire. Of these, this one, written by a landsman, was for a long time popular among the tuneful souls of the forecastle, and was ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... horses or would fail to catch them, and indifferent he stood watching the moon hanging low over the landscape, a badly drawn circle, but admirably soft to look upon, casting a gentle, mysterious light down the lake. The silence was filled with the lake's warble, and the ducks kept awake by the moon chattered as they dozed, a soft cooing chatter like women gossiping; an Arab came from the wood with dry branches; the flames leaped up, showing through the grey woof of the tent; and, listening to ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore

... at sunrise in summer After the May-flowers have faded away, Warble to show unto every new-comer How to hush stars, yet to waken the Day: Singing first, lullabies, then, jubilates, Watching the blue sky where every bird's heart is; Then, as lamenting the day's fading light, Down through the twilight, ...
— Twilight Stories • Various

... Pleasures of Melancholy, and sonnets showing an interest in non-classical antiquities, likewise felt the need of new literary gods to sanction the practices of their school: Pope and Dryden were accordingly dethroned; Spenser, Shakespeare, and the young Milton, all of whom were believed to warble ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... timidity; her lips smiled rarely, and then but slightly; hardly ever did any one hear her voice. But a rumour was in circulation to the effect that it was very beautiful, and that, locking herself in her chamber, early in the morning, while everything in the city was still sleeping, she loved to warble ancient ballads to the strains of a lute, upon which she herself played. Despite the pallor of her face, Valeria was in blooming health; and even the old people, as they looked on her, could not refrain from thinking:—"Oh, how happy will be that young man for whom this bud still folded ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... duke clapped hearty praise of the singer, and we all did the same; all save Junker Henning, who had not failed to mark that Herdegen had striven to out-do his modest warble, and likewise the ardent eyes he turned on the lady of his choice. Hence he moved not. Ann clapped her hands but lightly, sat looking into her lap, and for some time could say not a word; indeed, if she had trusted herself to speak the game would of a certainty ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... in a soft and musical tenor, died away and changed to a plaintive whistle, leaving the scene more lonely than ever. For a few moments nothing was to be seen except the endless expanse of wilderness, and nothing was to be heard save the mournful warble of the singer. Then a horse and rider were suddenly framed where the sparse timber opened ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens

... Nightingales warble about it All night under blossom and star; The wild swan is dying without it, And the eagle crieth afar; The sun, he doth mount but to find it, Searching the green earth o'er; But more doth a man's heart mind it— ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... that the others were listening, waiting for her to be objectionable. She flinched before their dislike. She hastened to smile in agreement with Miss Villets, to glance publicly at her wrist-watch, to warble that it was "so late—have to hurry home—husband—such nice party—maybe you were right about maids, prejudiced because Bea so nice—such perfectly divine angel's-food, Mrs. Haydock must give me ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... particular in his accounts. He positively assures us that we shall experience a supreme pleasure in kissing and embracing the bodies of the blessed; they will bathe in the presence of each other, and for this purpose there are most agreeable baths in which we shall swim like fish; that we shall all warble as sweetly as larks and nightingales; that the angels will dress themselves in female habits, their hair curled; wearing petticoats and fardingales, and with the finest linen; that men and women will amuse themselves in masquerades, feasts, and balls.—Women will sing ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... warble myself for the dead one there I loved? And how shall I deck my song for the large sweet soul that has gone? And what shall my perfume be for the grave ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... through the night. Here, as along this shadowy bank I stray, And the smooth glass-snake,[2] glid-o'er my way, Shows the dim moonlight through his scaly form, Fancy, with all the scene's enchantment warm, Hears in the murmur of the nightly breeze Some Indian Spirit warble words like these:— ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... at ease, as this was her husband's only cause of disquiet, took his hand, and with a radiant face and smile began to warble that stanza from the favourite song of "Wapping Old Stairs," in which the heroine, after rebuking her Tom for inattention, promises "his trousers to mend, and his grog too to make," if he will be constant and kind, and not forsake her. "Besides," she said, after a pause, during which she ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... The songs of the birds were heard in an aviary hard by, and the branches of laburnums and rose acacias formed an exquisite framework to the blue velvet curtains. Everything in this charming retreat, from the warble of the birds to the smile of the mistress, breathed tranquillity and repose. The count had felt the influence of this happiness from the moment he entered the house, and he remained silent and pensive, forgetting that he was expected to renew ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... beckoning his mate to his heart. One morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. The fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. I heard a fine confidential warble,—the old, old story. But the female flew to a near tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. The male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion, but the other said "nay," and flew ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... you been with Bowers here? Do you like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know. What are you going in ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... tree tops below the clear warble of the purple finch proclaimed that under the fronds twilight had fallen. The vast green surface of the hills was streaked here and there with irregular peaks of darkness dwindling eastward. The ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... this spectre-haunted spot in the quiet evening! There was the groaning murmur of the stream flowing down its subterranean passage, and there was the low and fitful warble of a nightingale; but this was all. Who, passing by here without foreknowledge, would suppose that on this bit of desert the great struggle between Rome and Gaul was brought to a close? What a wonderful thing is a book, that it should preserve age after age, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... bin all this day to auoid him: He is too disputeable for my companie: I thinke of as many matters as he, but I giue Heauen thankes, and make no boast of them. Come, warble, come. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... strain it comes. The bell Of every village o'er the plain doth tell, From its high seat, within the sacred tower Above the house of God, from hour to hour, A joyous song; and in cathedral town The gladsome peals break forth and warble down; While through the city every belfrey gives A glad reply, which seems to say, "He lives! He lives!" The song of praise is heard ascend, Raised to the heavenly throne, in one to blend With angels' song, from many a cottage rung, Where ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... is the poet, must, metaphorically speaking, have no legs—as Adrian Harley said was the case with the women in Richard Feverel's poems. He must never be seen to walk in prose, for his part is, 'pinnacled dim in the intense inane,' to hang aloft and warble the unpremeditated lay, without erasure or blot. This is, I am sure, not fanciful, for two or three modern instances, which I am far too considerate to name, illustrate its truth. Unless you are a very great person indeed, the surest way to ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... the morning be "fine" or "pretty," it was all one to the birds. The woods were vocal with the cackling of robins, the warble of bluebirds, and the trills of pine warblers. Flickers were shouting—or laughing, if one pleased to hear it so—with true flickerish prolixity, and a single downy woodpecker called sharply again and again. A mocking-bird near me (there is always a mocking-bird ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The red-breast loves to build and warble here, And little footsteps ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... turn and sting you. All do not, like the fabled phoenix, warble sweet melodies in their agony; sometimes they spit venom—venom you must breathe whether you will or no, for you cannot seal their mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. You can lock the door upon them, but they burst open their shaky lattices and call out over the ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... better than yours, isn't she? 'cause she can walk and talk and sing and dance, and yours can't do anything, can she?" asked Jamie with pride, as he regarded his Pokey, who just then had been moved to execute a funny little jig and warble ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott

... do in Ireland for six months? Remember all my preachments, and never be in spirits at supper. Seriously I am sorry you are out of order, but am alarmed for you at Dublin, and though all the bench of bishops should quaver Purcell's hymns, don't let them warble you into a pint of wine. I wish you were going among catholic prelates, who would deny you the cup. Think of me and resist ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole

... Bear fleeting memories, that come and go; Nor can they oft recall familiar features, By absence touched, or clouded o'er with woe. Then rest content with sorrow: for there be Many that must that lesson learn with thee; And still thy wild notes warble cheerfully, Till, when thy tiny voice begins to fail, For thy lost bliss sing but one parting wail, Poor little sprite! and then ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler

... has pattered and murmured, have I heard the notes of the Robin and the Wood-Thrush; the Red-Eyed Flycatcher has pursued his game within a few feet of my window, darting with a low, complacent warble amid the dripping leaves, looking as dry and unruffled as if a drop of rain had never touched him; the Cat-Bird has flirted and attitudinized on my garden-fence; the House-Wren stopped a moment between the showers, and indulged in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... almost worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes, these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through which man may dream in Nature's lap, all regardless of ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites

... at morning's golden blush, And fill the whole bright arch with golden songs? And I have reasoned they sung only love, Which teaches them that strangest melody, Which they soar nearest heaven to warble out. Oft have I seen the beams that leave the sun, Embrace within the clouds, with shining arms— And form a splendid arch in earth and heaven, Which shines eternal covenant of Love— Toward which our hearts forever mount and sing, As skylarks ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... haunts the air. Spare us the Greek, come down from your Yale and Harvard heights to the level of my ignorance, and warble for me in English some of your Sicilian lark's melodies. At least I have heard ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... present your Lays, And learn to chaunt a Goddess Praise; Ye Wood-Nymphs let your Voices be, Employ'd to serve her Deity: And warble forth, ye Virgins Nine, Some Musick to ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various

... the open sky—in the other their resting-place is in the shadowy aisle, and beneath the dim arches of an ancient abbey. One is a temple of nature; the other a temple of art. In one, the soft melancholy of the scene is rendered still more touching by the warble of birds and the shade of trees, and the grave receives the gentle visit of the sunshine and the shower; in the other, no sound but the passing footfall breaks the silence of the place; the twilight steals in through high and dusky windows; and the damps ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... sat among his heirlooms, laboriously disengaging himself from his kilt. Fitfully throughout this process he would warble snatches of an air which ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston

... singing birds, and is not, I think, usually credited with being musical. But Thoreau speaks of his song, and others mention it. John Burroughs tells of a shrike singing in his vicinity in winter, "a crude broken warble,"—"saluting the sun as a robin might have done." Winter, indeed, seems to be his chosen time for singing, and an ornithologist in St. Albans says that in that season he sings by the hour in the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... beautiful song of the "Krasneya Sarafan," which Sarsha began at once to warble. The characteristic of Russian gypsy-girl voices is a peculiarly delicate metallic tone,—like that of the two silver bells of the Tower of Ivan Velikoi when heard from afar,—yet always marked with fineness and strength. This ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... of all sorts began to warble in the trees, and with their varied and gladsome notes seemed to welcome and salute the fresh morn that was beginning to show the beauty of her countenance at the gates and balconies of the east, shaking from her locks a profusion of liquid pearls; in which dulcet moisture bathed, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... vacations, from Oxford and Cambridge, puppies, full of the nonsense which they have imbibed from Platitude professors; and this nonsense they retail at home, where it fails not to make some impression, whilst the daughters scream—I beg their pardons—warble about Scotland's Montrose, and Bonny Dundee, and all the Jacobs; so we have no doubt that their papas' zeal about the propagation of such a vulgar book as the Bible will in a very little time be terribly diminished. Old Rome will win, so you had ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... re-inspire The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire The lily and rose, that neither sow'd nor spun. What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise To hear the lute well-touched, or artful voice Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air? He who of these delights can judge, and spare To interpose them ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... hymn. The only difficulty would be in keeping Aunt Becky Burnham from pitching it in a key where nobody but a soprano skylark, accustomed to warble at a great height, could possibly sing it. It was generally given at the grave, when Elder Weeks officiated; but it never satisfied Aunt Hitty, because the good elder always looked so unpicturesque when he threw a red bandanna handkerchief ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... sang—the song that made his little mate's black beady eyes twinkle and shine as she sat in the tussock; for she felt so proud to think how her mate could warble:— ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn

... the earliest of the year, By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found: The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... to swell, And woods the blue-bird's warble know, The yellow violet's modest bell Peeps from ...
— Ethel Morton's Enterprise • Mabell S.C. Smith

... application of even Gilead's balm. You are weak and languid, and I will not weary you with discussion; but spring will soon be here; genial, rejoicing spring. You will revive with its flowers, and your spirit warble with its singing birds. Then we will walk abroad in the hush of twilight—and if you will promise to listen, I will preach you a daily sermon, with nature for my text ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz

... and we may be sure no jingle of money ever hurried him back from the green fields where the lark, singing as she ascended higher and higher into the air, and nearer to the heavens, excelled, as he says, in her simple piety "all those little nimble musicians of the air (her fellows) who warble forth their various ditties with which Nature has furnished them, to the shame of art." Refreshed and exhilarated by the pure country air, we can fancy Walton returning homeward to his Chancery Lane shop, humming to himself that fine old ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... and beer, whereof I imbibed my full share. After the second song I was called on to play, and lifted my poor old flute in air with tumultuous, beating heart; for I had no confidence in that or in myself. But, 'du Himmel!' Thou shouldst have heard mine old love warble herself forth. To my utter astonishment, I was perfect master of the instrument. Is not this most strange? Thou knowest I had never learned it; and thou rememberest what a poor muddle I made at Marietta in playing difficult passages; and I certainly ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims

... bottle standing near him might have made one fear he was about to cleave the already cracked head of the diplomatist Not so! It was only to offer wine to his pretty neighbour, who did not hear him, being absorbed by a semi-whispered conversation in a soft and lively foreign warble with two young men seated next to her. She bent to them, and grew animated. Little frizzles of hair were seen shining in the light against a dainty, transparent, rosy ear... Polish, Russian, Norwegian?.. ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... rossignolet de mon ame! Would thou wert ever by my side! fain would I keep thee for myself in a golden cage, and feed thee on the tongues of other nightingales, so thou mightst warble every day, and all day long. By some strange congenital mystery the native tuning of thy voice is such, for me, that all the pleasure of my past years seems to go forever ringing in every single note. Thy dear mother speaks again, thy gay young father rollicks and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... of cheer, With the warble of birds overflowing, The wind through the fresh grass blowing And the blackbirds whistle ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean

... winter's coming! Now his hoary head draws near; Winds are blowing, winds are blowing; All around looks cold and drear. Hope of spring must now support us; Winter's reign will pass away; Flowers will bloom, and birds will warble, Making glad the ...
— The Nursery, November 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 5 • Various

... as the princess reached home, she placed the cage in the garden; and the bird no sooner began to warble than he was surrounded by nightingales, chaffinches, larks, linnets, goldfinches, and every species of birds of the country. And the branch of the singing tree was no sooner set in the midst of the parterre, a little distance from the house, than it took root, and in a short ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... understand a word, Being no Grecian; but he had an ear, And her voice was the warble of a bird, So soft, so sweet, so delicately clear, That finer, simpler music ne'er was heard; The sort of sound we echo with a tear, Without knowing why—an overpowering tone, Whence Melody ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... near as bad as Aristotle, though. He roped a puma up on th' Sacramentos, an' didn't punch no more fer three weeks. Well, here comes my pardner an' I reckons I'll amble right along. If yu needs any referee or a side pardner in any ruction yu has only got to warble up ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford

... Christmas festivals, eclipsing us all! Our family, through all its different branches, has ever been famous for bad voices, but good ears; and we think we hear ourselves—all those uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, and cousins—singing now! Easy it is to "warble melody" as to breathe air. But we hope harmony is the most difficult of all things to people in general, for to us it was impossible; and what attempts ours used to be at Seconds! Yet the most woful failures were rapturously encored; and ere the night was done we spoke ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various

... can fly In the bright blue sky, They'll warble a song to me; And then if I'm sad It will make me glad To think they ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various

... may enter her list of knights. But I intend to warble about the beauty of another lady! and the mad fool who would bring her misfortune. I confess to thee, Madonna, that I'm afraid! What shall I do? Give me your advice. Shall I go ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni

... grounds about the Castle, or "The Groves," there is many a sweet, dewy, flowery spot, where the grass, moss, and ivy, are green as green can be, and no sound is heard in the deep shade but the gurgle of water and the warble of birds. Here are some rude steps made in the rock, called "The Witches' Staircase," and a cave, in which it was said a fair Princess remained enchanted for many years. Legends say that the last Earl of Clancarty sunk all his valuable ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood

... solemn and affecting, sustained as it was by the pathetic warble of a voice which had naturally been a fine one, and which weakness, if it diminished its power, had improved in softness. Archibald, though a follower of the court, and a pococurante by profession, was confused, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the wood, That warble forth Dame Nature's lays, Thinking your passions understood By your weak accents; what 's your praise When Philomel ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... Hiddakel, even the pebbles being bdellium and onyx stone! What fruits, with no curculio to sting the rind! What flowers, with no slug to gnaw the root! What atmosphere, with no frost to chill and with no heat to consume! Bright colors tangled in the grass. Perfume in the air. Music in the sky. Bird's warble and tree's hum, and waterfall's dash. Great scene of gladness and love ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... outflow of another fountain to enrich a part of the plain. It was made good for the cultivation of a large tract; although very wild and disorderly cultivation. As we went, every spot within sight was full of interest; rich with associations; the air was warm but pleasant; the warble of the orange-winged blackbird - I don't know if I ought to call it a warble; it was a very fine and strong note, or whistle, - sounding from the rocks as we went by, thrilled me with a wild reminder of all that had once been busy life ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell

... more grave and sustained,—the nightingale singing by day (as sometimes, though rarely, he is heard,—perhaps because he misses his mate; perhaps because he sees from his bower the creeping form of some foe to his race),—see, as she listens now to that plaintive, low-chanted warble, how quickly the smile is sobered, how the shade, soft and pensive, steals over the brow. It is but the mystic sympathy with Nature that bestows the smile or the shade. In that heart lightly moved beats the fine sense of ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... more than the missing cherries. The yellow warbler, sometimes called the wild canary, flits through bush and tree and trills its gay notes in town and country. Song-sparrows, thrushes, and bluebirds warble far and near, while the red-winged blackbird makes music in wet, swampy places. The robin, who comes to city gardens in the winter, has a summer home in the mountains or redwoods. There, too, the saucy jay screams and chatters, and flashes his blue ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton

... the yearning of a plant for the sun, the airy motion of a branch waltzing to the breeze. As she unbuttoned the wristbands of her sleeves, she began to sing, not in the pitch that won her the applause of an audience at the Fenice, but in a warble tender with emotion. Her song was a zephyr carrying the caresses of her love ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac

... to change my manners, Simon Renard, Because these islanders are brutal beasts? Or would you have me turn a sonneteer, And warble those brief-sighted ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... the cricket on the hearth, and the joyous hum of the bees among the poppies; we hear the light-winged lark gladden the morning with her song, and the silver-throated thrush warble in the tree-top. What are these, and all the sweet melodies we hear, but echoes from the ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor

... wandered. From the time that any one came in till he went out, this bird made the vocal explosions to which it owes its name; and the good professor was certain, without ever being mistaken, that somebody was coming to his laboratory. He was notified. My Jaco in Paris has a warble that answers the ringing of the bell. If we have not heard the bell, we are notified by Jaco of its ringing, and, going to the door, find some one there. I have been told of a parrot belonging to the steward ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... pounce onto it powerful quick if we don't grab it while it's passin'; it's a good long name, and what if it does make a chap sling the muscles of his jaw to warble it? All the better; it'll make him think well of his town, which I prophesy is going to be the emporium ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... but confusedly; the dark bank of Brierley Park with its giant trees rose up against the sky, there was no gleam on the little river, the outlines of nearer trees and bushes were merged and indistinct; but what a hum and stir and warble and chitter of happy creatures! how many creatures to be happy! and what a warm breath of incense told of the blessings of the summer day in store for them! For them, and not for Dolly? It smote her hard, the question and the answer. ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... Again: the songs we warble in the night are those that show we have real faith in. God. Many men have just enough faith to trust God as far as they can see Him, and they always sing as far as they can see providence go right; but true faith can sing when ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... comes on, and it may be a week before I hear the not again, and this time or the next perchance see this bird sitting on a stake in the fence lifting his wing as he calls cheerily to his mate. Its notes now become daily more frequent; the birds multiply, and, flitting from point to point, call and warble more confidently and gleefully. Their boldness increases till one sees them hovering with a saucy, inquiring air about barns and out-buildings, peeping into dove-cotes and stable windows, inspecting knotholes and pump-trees, intent only on a place to nest. They wage war against robins and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... observer, he did not spy to see more than the world would when Nataly entered the dining-room at the quiet family dinner. She performed her part for his comfort, though not prattling; and he missed his Fredi's delicious warble of the prattle running rill-like over our daily humdrum. Simeon Fenellan would have helped. Then suddenly came enlivenment: a recollection of news in the morning's paper. 'No harm before Fredi, my dear. She's a young woman now. And no harm, so to speak-at least, not against the Sanfredini. She ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the air: They sow not, neither do they reap; Yet kings have not more healthful fare, Nor rest in calmer, sweeter sleep. They have no barns nor hoarded grain, Yet all day long a soft, sweet strain They warble forth from forest tree; Ever happy and ever free, Teaching a lesson dear to me. So free from care, O sylvan band; Fed by a heavenly Father's hand. Your freedom, O ye fowls of heaven, New courage to my soul hath given; I no more can doubt ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr

... smoothly flow; Ye vernal airs that softly blow; Ye plains, by blooming spring arrayed; Ye birds that warble through the shade. ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... shan't warble at all," announced Hippy. "I am a man of few words, but when I say I must have food for my services as a soloist, I mean it. There must be no uncertainty. Do I feed or ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower

... present to my disappointed gaze her own long, meagre back, instead of Edmee's beautiful face. Then she took some work out of her pocket, and quietly began to knit. Meanwhile the birds continued to warble, the chevalier to cough, Edmee to sleep or to pretend to sleep, while I remained at the other end of the room with my head bent over the prints in a book that I was ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... upon and rejoiced in, but at which my mind had to conceal a smile and turn its consciousness quickly elsewhere, to prevent an obtrusive reality from dimming this last addition to the picture. The gentle, unmistakable, velvet warble of a bluebird came over the hillside, again and again; and so completely absorbed and lulled was I by the gradual obsession of being in the midst of a northern scene, that the sound caused not ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... little retreat that gave me a complete illusion of country; from the far side of the old wall came the song of the tropical birds belonging to Antoinette's mother, and I heard the rollicking warble and twitter of the swallows perched on the house-top, and the chirp of the common sparrows as they flew about among the trees ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... heard an incessant warble of sweet, though feeble, notes and, looking above my head, saw the composer, his bride, dressed in olive and gold, weaving on the pendulous nest of moss and horse hair, near the tips of the overhanging limb. I then knew why his song had changed and understood ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... was getting rather out of temper when Phebe began to sing, and he forgot all about himself in admiration of her. It took everyone by surprise, for two years of foreign training added to several at home had worked wonders, and the beautiful voice that used to warble cheerily over pots and kettles now rang out melodiously or melted to a mellow music that woke a sympathetic thrill in those who listened. Rose glowed with pride as she accompanied her friend, for Phebe was in her own world now a lovely world where no depressing memory ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... Dexie's supple fingers were dancing over the keys in a delightful prelude. Then Lancy's voice filled the room as he sang the well-known song, accompanied by the exquisite notes of the southern mocking bird, and the continuous warble that poured from Dexie's throat during the chorus made her listeners start as if a veritable bird ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... birds distend their throats, let their wings droop, peck at one another, and in fact behave as exactly as they will next spring when fully grown. Young linnets also begin to sing before losing their youthful plumage, learn to sing well during the moulting season, and often continue to warble right on into the winter; in a mild winter young linnets will sing just as well as old ones. The young woodlark begins to sing as soon as its first moulting is nearly over, and not only does this when perching, but flies aloft like the adult bird in the spring-time, and soars for ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... from a very moist eyelid! How gladly the white smoke arises once more, spirally, from the large chimneys, after having been so long depressed by the heavy atmosphere! and how the massive ivy that covers the gable end, responds to the songs of the birds that warble their evening gladness amongst its gleaming leaves! The face of the dwelling is as cheerful as are the sun, river, mountains and meads, that it looks down upon from its slight elevation. Every leaf of the vine and pyrus-japonica that ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... faces the Examiners. Providence, however, reserves him for lower things. The Examiners triumph, and the career of the Servant of Society begins in earnest. The position of his parents secures for him an entrance into good houses. He is a young man of great tact and of small accomplishments. He can warble a song, aid a great lady to organise a social festivity, lead a cotillon, order a dinner, and help to eat it, act in amateur theatricals, and recommend French novels to inquiring matrons. His manners are always easy, and his conversation has that spice of freedom which renders it specially acceptable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... the birds, the pretty birds That play among the trees; 'Twould make the earth a cheerless place Should we dispense with these. The little birds, how fond they play! Do not disturb their sport; But let them warble forth their songs Till winter ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... tuned for several days, and had run down into a pitiful flatness; Halcyone could hardly sit still, it hurt her so—but it was only when Miss Roberta had begun a second warble that either she or Miss La Sarthe noticed the jar. Then a helpless look grew in the ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn



Words linked to "Warble" :   yodel, warbler, warble fly, quaver, animal disease, descant, trill



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