"Chirp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great thing in that emptiness. I note the feeling the more readily as it is the contrary of what I have read of in the experience of others. Day and night, above the roar of the train, our ears were kept busy with the incessant chirp of grasshoppers - a noise like the winding up of countless clocks and watches, which began after a while to seem ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the meadow, Where the grass is so even, Lived a gray mother cricket And her little crickets seven. "Chirp!" said the mother; "We chirp," said the seven: So they chirped cheery notes In the ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... a chirp or two, and then the bird thrust up its head, and out came the full blessedness of its ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... chirp of surprise and terror at the strange new world, fluttered in a circle, spread his wings at last ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... and four the next morning, the robin in the nest above Mary's window stretched out his left wing, opened one eye, and gave a short and rather drowsy chirp, which broke up his night's rest and restored him to the full consciousness that he was a bird with wings and feathers, with a large apple-tree to live in, and all heaven for an estate,—and so, on these fortunate premises, he broke into a gush of singing, clear and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... drink was a reminder to them that they had no time to spare, and an incentive to avoid dawdling on the way. The multitudinous insect-life of the forest was already awake and stirring, the hum and chirp of the myriad winged things causing the air fairly to vibrate with softly strident sound, to which was added the rolling chorus of innumerable frogs inhabiting the marshy low-lying patches contiguous to the river margin. Great gorgeously ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Underfoot the dirt was cool. It yielded itself deliciously to Gwendolyn's bare tread. Overhead, shading the way, were green boughs, close-laced, but permitting glimpses of blue. Upon this arbor, bouncing along with an occasional chirp of contentment, and with the air of one who has assumed ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... turned away from him, out of pity. He had the expression of a man that's fell down a hundred-foot prospect hole and been struck by lightning before he touched bottom. He grabbed aholt of the minister and swallered and swallered, unable to chirp. ...
— Mr. Scraggs • Henry Wallace Phillips
... sashes! The witch-grass round the hazel spring May sharply to the night-air sing, But there no more shall withered hags Refresh at ease their broomstick nags, Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters As beverage meet for Satan's daughters; No more their mimic tones be heard, The mew of cat, the chirp of bird, Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter Of the fell demon following after! The cautious goodman nails no more A horseshoe on his outer door, Lest some unseemly hag should fit To his own mouth her bridle-bit; The goodwife's ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... watershed of the lower bank of the Congo. From the cliff above starlings flew out to seek their feeding-haunts where the big game fed; and there was a familiar visitor near them in the black and drab stone-chat, whose scolding chirp they had so often heard in England among the gorse and bramble. The metallic cry of guinea-fowl down by the little river had a farm-yard ring; but the chatter of parrots flying overhead was still new, and so with many other calls, ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... call on the host of stars, And the cold and dimly shining moon, And the spirits, that watch by night in the air, Or chirp in the hollow oak[E], to see The plighting of their hands: They married themselves, And man and ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... buffalo close, so that they may be killed. The stone is found on the prairie, and any one who finds one is thought to be very lucky. Sometimes a man who is going along on the prairie will hear a queer faint chirp, such as a little bird might make. He knows this sound is made by a buffalo stone. He stops and searches for it on the ground, and if he cannot find it, marks the place and comes back next day to look for it again. If it is found, he and all his family are glad. The ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... in my breast. Yet how ecstatically sweet, Was its first soft tumultuous beat! I little thought that beat could be The harbinger of misery; And daily, when the morning beam Dawned earliest on wood and stream, When, from each brake and bush were heard, The hum of bee, and chirp of bird, From these, earth's matin songs, my ear Would turn, a sweeter voice to hear— A voice, whose tones the very air Seemed trembling with delight to bear; From leafy wood, and misty stream, From bush, and brake, and morning beam, Would turn away my wandering eye, A dearer ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... cricket, to Ratibor, and chirp in his ear that I love him only, but that I am held captive by the gnome in his ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... way past dense underbrush into the forest proper. Here he walked through shaded groves of giant oaks. All around him was the chirp and bustle of unseen bird and animal life. Far in front of him was a large white sign nailed to a tree. Barrent reached it, and read: FORESTDALE NATIONAL PARK. PICNICKERS ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... were lodged in Wai-pi'o, Beheld Hi'i-lawe, the grand. We brought and cut for our love-wreath The rich hala drupe from Naue's strand, 5 Tufted lehua that waves on the cliff; Then sat and gave ear to song of o-o, Or harked the chirp of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth. The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... glades there were glimpses of brilliant color in the foliage—the glow of the laburnum, the lilac blaze of the rhododendron bushes. And how still the place was! Far off there was a dull roar of carriages in Piccadilly; but here there was nothing but the bleating of the sheep, the chirp of the young birds, the stir of the wind among the elms. Sometimes he could now catch the sound of ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... to do so. For at this juncture, as had so often happened when this girl and I were closeted, the conversation once more went blue on us. The night breeze whispered, but not the Bassett. A bird twittered, but not so much as a chirp escaped Bertram. It was perfectly amazing, the way her mere presence seemed to wipe speech from my lips—and mine, for that matter, from hers. It began to look as if our married life together would be rather like twenty years among ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... forward promptly, with a jerk as if to throw off her irresolution, and a certain consternation. "Yes, I s'pose I do," said she, in a voice like a shrill high chirp. "It's Mis' Maxwell, ain't it—Edward's wife? How do you do, Esther? I hadn't seen you for so long, I wasn't quite sure, but I see who you are now. How ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... baby-treat; Nor, I deem, for me unmeet; [4] Here, for neither Babe nor [5] me, Other play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, 45 That with stir of feet and wings (In the sun or under shade, Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this orchard's narrow space, And this vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in bands 55 Travelled into distant lands; Others slunk to moor and wood, Far from human neighbourhood; ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... Turpin; "just tighten her girths, Grasshopper, and bring her after me, and thou shalt have wherewithal to chirp over thy cups ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the soft twilight of a summer's morning, and the little birds had begun to chirp their matins, and the lark to brush the dew from her speckled breast, waiting for the first gaze of the sun. The old man pressed the infant closer to his bosom as he drew nigh to the steep acclivity, the solitary dwelling of the eagle. He kissed the babe; then looking round, fearful of ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... is the most beautiful of all months. Then it is, that all nature seems to awaken from its winter slumbers. The grass springs up, the little birds sing and chirp, and display their beautiful plumage. The trees shoot forth their buds, the fruitful covering of future foliage. We no longer greet each other in the warmed room, but, "Good morning," is sweetly spoken from the open window, or among the bushes of the garden. ...
— The Girl's Cabinet of Instructive and Moral Stories • Uncle Philip
... had forgot their hardships; But not to chant and carol in the air, Or lightly swing upon some waving bough, And merrily return each other's notes; No; silently they hop from bush to bush, Yet find no seeds to stop their craving want, Then bend their flight to the low smoking cot, Chirp on the roof, or at the window peck, To tell their wants to those who lodge within. The poor lank hare flies homeward to his den, But little burthen'd with his nightly meal Of wither'd greens grubb'd from the farmer's garden; A poor and scanty portion snatch'd in fear; And fearful ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... mair by Babel streams we'll weep, To think upon our Zion; And hing our fiddles up to sleep, [hang] Like baby-clouts a-dryin'; Come, screw the pegs wi' tunefu' cheep, [chirp] And o'er the thairms be tryin'; [strings] O, rare! to see our elbucks wheep, [elbows jerk] And a' like lamb-tails ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... about the Roman villa as soon as Marcus was left alone. All seemed to have grown painfully still. It was fancy, no doubt, but, to the boy, the birds had ceased to sing and chirp among the trees, the sounds from the farm were distant, and though more than once Marcus listened intently he did not hear Serge go to or from his room, nor his step ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... doubtless, passing through the Ring, Me you have seen in autumn, summer, spring— Picking, with gleesome chirp, and nimble feet, My scanty living from the public street; Or else devouring in those golden hours, Insects from cabbages and other flowers:— Ah me! those happy days!—but they are past, And winter with his harsh and biting blast Remind me and my fellow-sparrows bold Of coming snow-storms, ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... days are here; Warm on my cheek the sunshine burns, And fledged birds chirp, and far and near Floats the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... also suggested its probable size when unbroken. It was perhaps two inches long. As there are little horny rings round the wing base like those which crickets have, on which they rub their legs and so "chirp," it is also quite likely that this insect of hoary antiquity did the same, and enlivened the silence of Devonian fern groves with a prehistoric hum. It is quite in keeping with modern ideas that in that age of fishes one of the most remarkable insects ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... thrust it back. It did not suit to-day. Hours passed. The night crept on towards morning, colder, stiller. Faint bars of gray fell on the stretch of hill-tops, broad and pallid. The shaggy peaks blanched whiter in it. You could hear from the road-bushes the chirp of a snow-bird, wakened by the tramp of his horse, or the flutter of its wings. Overhead, the stars disappeared, like flakes of fire going out; the sky came nearer, tinged with healthier blue. He could see the mountain where the Gap was, close at ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... for even the domestics hardly spoke above a whisper; and then we sat in the soft moonlight and looked on the sleeping scene before us. The summer sounds of rural life had long died away, and nothing but the untiring chirp of the tree-toad was to be heard. The melancholy monotony of the scene hushed Mary's spirit to a quiet she had not for a long time known, and at last she became conscious ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... glow of the day god as it comes peeping through the windows of the morning, then see the birds leave their bowers, the larks to fly away to the fields, the mocking-bird to sing in the cedar at the garden gate, the robin to chirp to its mate, and you will see a picture which will pale that ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... imperishable record of our shame. Then they loosed the men and bade them form in rank. The soldiers came out of the dark vans, in which they had been confined, with some eagerness, and began at once to chirp and joke, which seemed to me most ill-timed good humour. We waited altogether for about twenty minutes. Now for the first time since my capture I hated the enemy. The simple, valiant burghers at the front, fighting bravely as they had been told 'for their farms,' claimed respect, if not ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... round His purposes in ways undreamed by us, And makes the wicked but his instruments To hasten their own swift and sudden fall, I see the beauty of his providence In the King's order: blind, he will not let His doom part from him, but must bid it stay 120 As 't were a cricket, whose enlivening chirp He loved to hear beneath his very hearth. Why should we fly? Nay, why not rather stay And rear again our Zion's crumbled walls, Not, as of old the walls of Thebes were built, By minstrel twanging, but, if need should be, With the more ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... usually convulsed. "It must be shocking bad form to double up in public as they did; a photograph of them would have served as an up-to-date advertisement of the latest thing in gramaphones, and when I came to that touching line, about the poor bird sighing out its last feeble chirp ere it closed its eyes and died, those two very ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... were washed—when the shadows of evening crept in past the lamp, no longer able to exclude them, she began to feel lonely and sad. And as the notes of Aaron's flute mingled with the night sounds, the chirp of crickets, the hum of insects, she felt, rather than thought, "Life is so much spilt milk. And all that comes of fancies, is Aaron's flute, playing down there in ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... eyes last night and I'm not feeling well today, so I'm not going to get up for a while. I wish you would tell your uncle that Mrs. Matchan can't practice this morning. I must get some sleep. What's that in the kitchen?" she demanded as she heard a happy chirp-chirp. ...
— Mary Rose of Mifflin • Frances R. Sterrett
... flew over the blue bosom of Windermere; every bush, every tree—yea, it seemed as if every branch sent forth the music of singing birds, and the very air was redolent with melody, from the bold songs of the thrush and the lark to the love-note of the wood-pigeon; and even the earth rejoiced in the chirp of the grasshopper, its tiny but pleasant musician. The fields and the leaves were in the loveliness and freshness of youth, luxuriating in the sunbeams, in the depth of their summer green; and the butterfly sported, and the bee pursued its errand ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... the glass globes, where they were gazing at the fish they saw not, she raised them with a despairing action, as if to invoke the skies. Her sufferings seemed of a kind that are told to God alone. The silence was unbroken save for the chirp of crickets and the shrill whirr of a few locusts, coming from the little garden then hotter than an oven, and the dull sound of silver and plates, and the moving of chairs in the adjoining room, where a servant was preparing ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... fool's bolt misses! What help? the world is full of loves; Night after night of running kisses, Chirp ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... aliens have any right to see,—how you can see; "It must be somehow that you stole the light from us." They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... doorway, and their straw hats were turned sociably towards one another, now and then, as they exchanged a syllable or two, and there was a mild luminousness of pleasure in the recesses of their pale-blue eyes. The evening darkened fast into night. The plaintive half-chirp, half-whistle of a tree-toad fell in monotonous repetition ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... up and down, stretching their hands nervously as if unused to gloves. Presently they fell back, and the organ, in the hands of an amateur performer and an inadequate blower, began to chirp and hoot merrily, by which we knew the bridal party was about ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... little sparrows chirp, An' answers th' raven's call; He'll never see one want for owt, ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, First Series - To Which Is Added The Cream Of Wit And Humour From His Popular Writings • John Hartley
... wizard-work of silver lace, I draw my sofa on the rug, Before the ancient chimney-place. Upon the painted tiles are mosques And minarets, and here and there A blind muezzin lifts his hands, And calls the faithful unto prayer. Folded in idle, twilight dreams, I hear the hemlock chirp and sing, As if within its ruddy core It held the happy heart of Spring. Ferdousi never sang like that, Nor Saadi grave, nor Hafiz gay; I lounge, and blow white rings of smoke, And watch them ...
— Pipe and Pouch - The Smoker's Own Book of Poetry • Various
... full of debris, now disintegrated into one solid mass, and covered with vegetation. You can lie on the blossoming clover, where the bees hum and the crickets chirp around you, and can look through the arch which frames its own fair picture. In the foreground lies the steep slope overgrown with bayberry and gay with thistle blooms; then the little winding cove with its bordering cliffs; and the rough pastures ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... growth, and was rapidly turning the brown, withered sward of winter into emerald. The sun shone through a slight haze, but shone warmly. The birds had opened the day with full orchestra, but at noon there was little more than chirp and twitter, they seeming to feel something of Edith's languor, as she leaned on the railing of the porch, and watched for the coming of Malcom. She sighed as she looked at the bare brown earth of the large space that she purposed for strawberries, and work ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... I know the gracious mother's wiles And dear delusive smiles! No callow fledgling of her singing brood But tastes that witching food, And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, And how the thrushes sing, Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest Flaps forth—we know the rest. I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,— Are not all harpers blind? I sang too early, must I sing too late? The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in the mild sunlight of the autumn morning. Suddenly, great excitement in the cages. The Chaffinches chirp their rallying-cry: ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... And the veery, Answer each other. I hear the voices Of happy children And the baying of hounds Float up from the valley; The chirp of the cricket At my feet, and, ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... forward in his low chair. The chaffinch gave a light chirp, as if to recall him to his duty. Hadria performed it for him. The chaffinch flew ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... off, for I was intensely thirsty. Axinya had quite recently scrubbed the table and benches, and there was that smell in the kitchen which is found in bright, snug kitchens kept by tidy cooks. And that smell and the chirp of the cricket used to lure us as children into the kitchen, and put us in the mood for hearing fairy tales and playing at "Kings" ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... but scarcely had he uttered the words when the cricket in the chimney corner chirped loudly, and his shrill notes seemed to say: "The king—the king." Rodolph could hardly believe his ears. How had the cricket learned to chirp these words? It was beyond all understanding. But still the cricket chirped, and still his musical monotone seemed to say, "The king—the king," until, with an angry frown, Rodolph strode from his house, leaving the child to hear the cricket's ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bullfrog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfortably and ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... walls high over his head. Not a ray of sunlight penetrated into the soundless gloom. Not a leaf shivered in the still air. The creek gurgled and spattered among its rocks, without the note of a bird or the chirp of a squirrel to interrupt its monotony. Everything was dead. Now and then Rod could hear the wind whispering over the top of the chasm. But not a breath of it came down to him. Under his feet was only sufficient snow to deaden his own footsteps, and he still carried his snow-shoes ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... allusions to "little Robert"—evidently William Roscoe's son—do not occur in the former, and many slight improvements, tending to make the verses more rhythmical and flowing, are introduced. The whole passage, "Then close on his haunches" (p. 7) to "Chirp his own praises the rest of the night," &c. (p. 10), is an interpolation in this later edition. It is, I believe, certain that the verses were written by Roscoe for his children on the occasion of the birthday ...
— The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast • Mr. Roscoe
... to the pine-woods above Lamteng in this month, and chirp shrilly in the heat of the day; and glow-worms fly about at night. The common Bengal and Java toad, Bufo scabra, abounded in the marshes, a remarkable instance of wide geographical distribution, for a Batrachian which is common at the level of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... together; the Tartars migrate all the year through, crossing the steppes in winding and devious but fixed paths, paths settled for each family, and kept without a map, though invisible to strangers. It is only necessary to watch the common sparrow. In spring his merry chirp and his few notes of song are heard on the roof or in the garden; here he spends his time till the broods are reared and the corn is ripe. Immediately he migrates into the fields. By degrees he is joined by those left behind to rear second broods, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... height: "When a Mohican Sagamore listens, all Algonquins listen, and the Siwanois clan grow silent in the still places. When a real man speaks, real men listen with respect. Only the Canienga continue to chirp and chatter; only the Long House is full of squirrel sounds and the noise of jays." His lip curled contemptuously. "Let the echoes of the Long House answer the Kanonsis. ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Robin, thou hast left us, We shall hear thy chirp no more; Very lonely hast thou left us, And our ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... fields of sarasson, hedged by long banks of earth, which were masses of golden gorse and bronzed and crimson ferns. The sun shone, the clover-scented air was full of the joyous buzzing of bees and chirp of birds. ...
— Frances Waldeaux • Rebecca Harding Davis
... curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... voice the loss of the string and saved the fame of the musician. To this day in Surinam the Dutch call them lyre-players. If there is any truth in the story, the grasshopper then had powers far in advance of his degenerated descendants; for now the grasshopper—like the cricket—has a chirp consisting of three notes in rhythm, always forming a triplet ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... bowed, and proceeded to limp about the apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp which had already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de Beaulieu. He first possessed himself of some papers which lay upon the table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to give an order to the men behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out through the door ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... pouring rain, flashing lightning, and pealing thunder. At last the tempest dies away, and in the trio and chorus, "Now cease the Conflicts," night comes on, with its song of the quail,—which Beethoven subsequently utilized in his Pastoral Symphony,—the chirp of the crickets, the croaking of the frogs, the distant chime of the evening bells, and the invocation to sleep. Of the frog ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... lee of a block of granite, sheltered from the cold night wind, found the pipe, and raised it to his lips to blow through the stem, but stopped short with every sense on the alert, for from below to his left he heard a light chirp such as might have been given by a bird, but which he argued certainly was not, for he knew of no bird likely to utter such a note at that time of the evening, when the flood of darkness had risen and risen ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... had chosen, they tell me, a dusk so fair One almost thought there were not such another—there. The air was full of the perfume of pines, and the sweet Sleepy chirp of birds, long the lush soft grass at ...
— The Fairy Changeling and Other Poems • Dora Sigerson
... of mighty pow'r, Compact in frame, and strong of limb; Went with a chirp from hour to hour; Whip-cord! 'twas never made ...
— Wild Flowers - Or, Pastoral and Local Poetry • Robert Bloomfield
... as if he had entered unexpectedly into a wonderland of amazing beauty, and that from its dark and hidden bowers, crusted with their glittering mantles of white, snow naiads must be peeping forth at him, holding their breath for fear of betraying themselves to his eyes. There was not the chirp of a bird nor the flutter of a wing—not the breath of a sound to disturb the wonderful silence. He was encompassed in a white, soft world that seemed tremendously unreal—that for some strange reason made him breathe very softly, that made him stand without a movement, and made him listen, as ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... plastic to the contemporary world and able to retain its lessons. Thus old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird's chirp. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... brilliant planet close to her; there was not a breath of air, not a human being near but the soldiers at the gates below, and the monk above with me; not a sound was heard but those occasional noises of the night, the bark of a dog, the chimes from churches and convents, the chirp of a bird, which only served to make silence audible. Though I have seen the Coliseum a dozen times before, I never was so delighted with its beauty and grandeur as to-night. No description in poetry or painting can do it justice; it is a 'wreck of ruinous perfection,' ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... little Mary Samm made answer firmly. 'I love my sisters dearly, dearly,' she raised her voice unconsciously as she spoke, and a chaffinch on a branch overhead filled in the pause with an answering chirp, 'I love my mother too. Didst thou really say thou wert expecting her to visit thee right soon? My dear, dear mother! But I love my dear grandfather best of all, for he hath nobody but me to care for him. At least, of course, he hath thee, Aunt Joan,' she added hastily, noticing ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... willow-wrens; two I know perfectly, but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note, the other a harsh, loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a half, while the latter weighs but two; so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wryneck sometimes ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... am going to feed my snow-birds with them; and I should be very happy to have you go with me. I know you will enjoy seeing how merrily they hop about and flutter their wings, and seem to chirp out their thanks as they pick up the food I ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... while the grass yet glittered with pearls of water, and as the birds began to chirp, Belton was led forth to die. Little did those birds know that they were chirping the funeral march of the world's noblest hero. Little did they dream that ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... Mary with the delight in her blue eyes matching that in Uncle Tucker's pair of mystic gray. "I'll come just as soon as I get the skimming done. We'll want some corn meal and millet seed for the chirp-babies, but the others we can leave to the maternal ministrations. I'm so full of welcome I don't see how I'm going to keep ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... now and again; but no one minded that. I don't, nor you needn't, no more than other folk; for the tongue, be it never so bitin', it can't draw blood, mind ye, and hard words break no bones; and I'll make a cup o' tea—ye like a cup o' tea—and we'll take a cup together, and ye'll chirp up a bit, and see how pleasant and ruddy the sun shines ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... dwell upon her slender hands, swiftly, capably busy, her tawny hair, her sun-browned cheeks and the creamy curve of her brow, the blue and flash and fathomless depths of her eyes. I remembered the sunlight and freshening breeze upon the hills, the chirp and gentle stirring of the day, the azure sea and far-off, tender mist, the playful breakers, flinging spray high into the yellow sunshine. 'Twas no time now, thought I, to be busied with craft in the gloomy cabin of the Shining Light, ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... desk to whisper to swell to chirp sneering more and more he climbed the pulpit steps they never ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... lantern, waves the dim angels' heads upon the corbels of the roof, seeming to watch their progress. Anon they turn into narrower and steeper staircases, and the night-air begins to blow upon them, and the chirp of some startled jackdaw or frightened rook precedes the heavy beating of wings in a confined space, and the beating down of dust and straws upon their heads. At last, leaving their light behind a stair—for it blows fresh up here—they look down on Cloisterham, ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... little mother. Don't be afraid," whispered the child; and, as if it understood, the bird settled down on her nest with a comfortable chirp, while its mate hopped up to give her a nice ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... grace, in sins and darkness dwell. The egg, when laid, by warmth is made a chicken, And Christ, by grace, those dead in sin doth quicken. The egg, when first a chick, the shell's its prison; So's flesh to the soul, who yet with Christ is risen. The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep, The flesh decays, as men do pray and weep. The shell doth break, the chick's at liberty, The flesh falls off, the soul mounts up on high But both do not enjoy the self-same plight; The soul is safe, the chick now ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... which thus reacts to the vibration. This seems to be very often "tuned," as it were, to the sounds made by the particular species in which it is found. A cricket will at times be unaffected by any sound, however loud, while at the slightest "screek" or chirp of its own species, no matter how faint, it will start its own ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... be found in the mountains of Hawaii, a fact of marked interest to science in observing environmental effect upon the differentiation of species. One of these the natives call pupu kani oi or "shrill voiced snail," averring that a certain cricketlike chirp that rings through the stillness of the almost insectless valleys is the voice of this particular species. Emerson says that the name kahuli is applied to the land snail to describe the peculiar tilting motion as the snail crawls first to one side ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... they were flapped by the winds; red leaves on the tree tops swaying to and fro; groves picture-like, half stripped of foliage; the western breeze coming with sudden gusts, and the wail of the oriole still audible; the warm sun shining with genial rays, and the cicada also adding its chirp: structures, visible to the gaze at a distance in the South-east, soaring high on various sites and resting against the hills; three halls, visible near by on the North-west, stretching in one connected line, on the bank of the stream; strains of music filling the pavilion, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Sister Lizzie's bed, and looked so pretty in her sleep that Abby came three times to wake her, and three times went away again, unable to spoil so perfect a picture. At last, however, the dark eyes opened of their own accord, and Marie began to chirp and twitter, like a bird at daybreak in its nest; only instead of daybreak, it was eight o'clock in the morning, a most shocking hour for anybody to be getting up. But Abby had been in the habit of spoiling her sister, who had a theory that she was never able to do anything early in ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... it. A thousand little scraping noises broke the quiet air, chill and dank. Leaves pattered against each other, twigs rubbed faintly, brittle things broke under the lightest foot. Still hardly a wing unfolded ever so little, not a distressful chirp heralded the slaughter that threatened. Gradually, to eyes growing used to the gloom, differing shades of darkness became apparent; it was faintly marked by them as the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... March, Bobby Hill was wakened by a sound he had not heard since last Fall, "Chirp, ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... waiting for the moon; and the mysterious night noises from the shore were lulling and drowsy. Gradually the schooner blurred into a vague mass of shadow, out of which the two lights twinkled uncertainly. And mingling with the chirp of insects and the fitful cries of dreaming monkeys came a gnawing and rasping of wood that seemed to echo throughout the ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... silent. We pursued our investigations with zeal and finally reached the alley. It had been raining heavily for almost a week, and the alley was a mass of black, sticky mud. Gazing anxiously over the fence, we heard a feeble chirp from a large gob of mud in the alley. ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... features were sharp. On the contrary, they were neat and rounded and well formed, telling of great beauty in youth, but her little face and mouth were of such a form that one was led irresistibly to expect to hear her chirp; she fluttered rather than walked and twittered rather than talked. Altogether she was a charming little old lady, with a pair of bead-like eyes as black as sloes. Happy that captain—a sea-captain, by the way, long since dead—round ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... strawstack, a wee little mite Of a cricket went chirping by day and by night; And further down, still, a cunning blue mouse In a snug little nook of that strawstack kept house! When the cricket went "chirp," Miss Mousie would squeak "Come in," and a blush would enkindle her cheek! She thought—silly girl! 't was a beau come to woo, But I guess it was only ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... is that slight sounds, unnoticed before, are heard; the ticking of the clock, the chirp of a sparrow in the garden, the flight of a butterfly. The world becomes full of imperceptible sounds which invade that deep silence without disturbing it, just as the stars shine out in the dark ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... clumpety-clump!" of a stamp-mill on a shoulder of a hill high above the camp, drowned the whir and chirp of night insects, and from the second story of a house they passed they heard the crude banging of a piano, and a woman's strident voice wailing, "She may have seen better da-a-ys," with a mighty effort to ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... thine iron hand Harrow my soul? why calls thy cruel power The fields of England to my exil'd eyes, The joys which once were mine? even now I see The lowly lovely dwelling! even now Behold the woodbine clasping its white walls And hear the fearless red-breasts chirp around To ask their morning meal:—for I was wont With friendly band to give their morning meal, Was wont to love their song, when lingering morn Streak'd o'er the chilly landskip the dim light, And thro' the open'd lattice hung my head To view the snow-drop's bud: ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... thee about, Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That feared not you and me—alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along my knee, And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, Till he looked blandly, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... wandered by the brook-side, I wandered by the mill,— I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still; There was no burr of grasshopper, No chirp of any bird, But the beating of my own heart Was all ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... was great rejoicing in the royal castle, but the horse did not feed, the bird did not chirp, and the princess ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... of waves. And sometimes, close at band, the branches move, a moan goes through the thicket, and the wood thrills to its heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage on the road to Fontainebleau, a bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks goes by; and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear, not sweet and rich and near at ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... suddenly, for she was choked by her sobs. The whole valley was deserted and silent in the dazzling light, and the overwhelming heat, and only the grasshoppers uttered their shrill, continuous chirp among the sparse, yellow grass on both sides of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... of the river we still came across birds and insects, but the further we went the more monotonous and dead Nature became. I could never have pictured such a lifeless wood to myself. No sound of insects was to be heard, no chirp or song of bird; and not even the trail of a serpent ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... was the use in exclaiming when we all felt alike, and could look and see for ourselves? You don't seem to amount to much when you are up, like this, on a mountain, near the sky, with the world spread out below and not missing you; and a boy's voice, or a man's, is about the size of a cricket's chirp. The silence is one of the best things you find. So we ...
— Pluck on the Long Trail - Boy Scouts in the Rockies • Edwin L. Sabin
... exceptional state of things. Of such a morning I have seen a small flock of them collected on the sunny side of a thick hemlock, rather silent and quiet, with ruffled plumage, like balls of gray fur, waiting, with an occasional chirp, for the sun's rays to begin to warm them up, and meanwhile not depressed, but only a little sobered in their deportment, and ready, if the cold continued, to get used to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... was about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall, and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay spread out before him. He was taking his bearings ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... silent witnesses of Italy's great struggle, were hidden in the dusk, and the cypress sentinels stood up sharp and black against the darkening sky. The band had ceased to play and one heard only the chirp of grasshoppers, and across an orchard the soft sound of Italian speech, and the distant song of two soldiers in the village street. But the warm air, which just now was throbbing with a military march, seemed ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... close behind them. And around him Roger saw, emerging from the semi-dark, faces turning like his own to the summits of the mountains and the billowy splendors there. It grew so dark he could see no more. There fell a deep silence, not a sound but the occasional chirp of a bird or the faint whirr of an insect. Even the glow on the peaks was gone. ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... on wistfully, "When I was nine, I found these little books in our library and after that I enjoyed vicariously the life I had never lived. That's why I like it here—Mrs. Flippin's kettle sings—and the crickets chirp—and Mr. and Mrs. Flippin are ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... squirrels have been festive among the nuts all winter, in the hope of finding, among the myriads of short, stiff catkins, one which has lengthened and softened until it is ready to pour its golden pollen into our palms. We find neither this nor the crimson stars of the fertile flowers, but the chirp of a white-throated sparrow directs our eyes to a young aspen tree from whose ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... relief and accentuated the faint lines of pain that had come during the last few weeks; a pensive touch had been added to a countenance that combined loveliness with strength. The yellow puff-ball in the gilded cage by the window stirred drowsily, with a faint, comforting chirp. The white and gold of blossoming narcissi, rising from their sheaths of green, gleamed purely from a tabouret, and their ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... genial ideas and softening influences seem to have become things of the long-forgotten past, and then try to imagine a change, compared to which all the transformation scenes of all the pantomimes that ever blazed are as a tomtit's chirp to a lion's roar, or a—a—Words ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... green rushes, and over all the arch of blue summer sky. One or two carriages rolled along the distant road as they sat there; but otherwise; the stillness was unbroken save by the twitter of birds in the woods behind them, the chirp of sand-peeps or the scream of gulls on the beach, and the soft intermittent ...
— A Little Country Girl • Susan Coolidge
... At a heavy slug, With my rye-beard lance I'd push it along, And they'd think, "All at once we are wondrous strong!" In the nest of the robin, under the eaves Of the apple-leaves, I'd drop a worm in the gaping throats That answer my chirp of the mother's notes. When bonny Miss Harebell thirsts in vain For a drop of rain, I would fill at the brook my shining cap, And lay it all ...
— The Nursery, No. 165. September, 1880, Vol. 28 - A Monthly Magazine For Youngest Readers • Various
... of July, There could not run the smallest breath of wind But all the quarter sounded like a wood; And in the chequered silence and above The hum of city cabs that sought the Bois, Suburban ashes shivered into song. A patter and a chatter and a chirp And a long dying hiss - it was as though Starched old brocaded dames through all the house Had trailed a strident skirt, or the whole sky Even in a ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have never known such a night. The world was stifling in a deluge of gray, cold mists, unstirred by a breath of air. A robin with feathers all ruffled, and head hidden, sat on the gate-post, and chirped a little mournful chirp, like a creature dying in a vacuum. The very daisy that nodded and drooped in the grass at my feet seemed to be gasping for breath. The neighbor's house, not forty paces across the street, was invisible. I remember the sensation ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... for the sport. As the sun rose, however, and they got on the lower ground, the heat increased, and they appeared to have passed into a different region. Occasionally from the woods came the cheerful chirp of the feathered tribe, but otherwise, all around ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... apace. The morning skies were gray monotones, and the evening gorgeous reds. The birds had finished their summer singing. Sometimes the alert chirp of the cardinal suddenly smote the ear from some neighboring tree; but he would pass, a flash of crimson, from one garden to the next, and with another chirp or two be gone for days. The nervy, unmusical waking cry ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... the return boys, in the bow of the whaleboat, made the peace sign with his palm extended outward and weaponless, and began to chirp in the unknown Su'u dialect. Van Horn held his aim and waited. The dandy lowered his Snider, and breath came more easily to the chests of all who composed ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... that proceeds from the little warbling host, is the shrill chirp of the hairbird,—occasionally vocal at an hours on a warm summer night. This strain, which is a continued trilling sound, is repeated with diminishing intervals, until it becomes almost incessant. But ere the hairbird has uttered many notes, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... common in India he is sometimes a serious annoyance, because it is almost impossible not to follow him mentally in his incessant repetition of "brain fever." To a few fortunate people his peculiar note does not suggest these words. Even the Indian sparrow drowns conversation with his shrill chirp, taking advantage of the ever-open doors and windows to invade the bungalow, and making determined efforts to make his nest in ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... brought back the spring, Brought back the birds to chirp and sing, Melted the snow and warmed the sky, Little Jack Frost went pouting by. The flowers opened their eyes of blue, Green buds peeped out and grasses grew; It was so warm and scorched him so, Little Jack Frost ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... against and steps taken to have their statements given in such a way that they are audible and intelligible. A few lessons in elementary elocution are generally vitally necessary. The man with the bassoon voice must be tamed, and the birdlike old lady made to chirp more loudly. But all this is the self-evident preparation which must take place in every case, and while highly important is of far less interest than the development of the circumstantial evidence which is the next consideration of the ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... tallest one was Father Chirp; Here was his early home; Here lived his mother And dearest brother, And hither ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... calm and fresh and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill, And bell of wandering kine, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... suns and showers, Oh! girlish thorns and flowers, Oh! fruitless days and hours, Oh! groundless hopes and fears: The birds still chirp and twitter, And still the sunbeams glitter: Oh! barren years and bitter, Oh! bitter, ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... woman, with a wrinkled yellowish face. She seemed parched up and brittle. Whenever she moved she crackled, and one went in constant dread of seeing a wizen-looking limb break off short like the branch of some dead tree. When she spoke it was in a voice hard and shrill, not unlike the chirp of a cricket. When—as was frequently the case—she clothed her attenuated form in a faded brown silk gown, her resemblance to that lively ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... bark of squirrels and the chirp and twitter of birds that haunted the lonely place ceased and it was night. Only the notes of fall insects in their monotonous and ceaseless iteration were heard above the sighing wind, which now sounded ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... a low, peculiar chirp, not very fierce, but bantering and confident. They quickly come to blows, but it is a very fantastic battle, and, as it would seem, indulged in more to satisfy their sense of honor than to hurt each ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... Whilst we with happy hearts our circuit keep, The gladness of the Earth is shown. She smileth, though the trickling raindrops weep Silently o'er her, one by one. She loves to feel the tears upon her cheek, Like a rich veil, with pearls inwove. Joyous she listens when the swallows chirp, And warbles to her mate, the dove. Blithe as a maiden midst the young green leaves, A wreath she'll wind, a fragrant treasure; All living things in graceful motion leap, As dancing to some merry measure. The morning breezes rustle cordially, Love's thirst ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... kept up ventriloquistic clamor, and from far off the bawling of great bulls and the bleating of the calves brought news of a huge herd of cattle, but these sounds only made his solitary vigil the more impressive. The sleepy chirp of the crickets and the sound of his horse nipping the grass, calmly careless of the wolves, were the only aids to sleep; all else had the effect to keep his tense nerves vibrating. As the cold intensified, the crickets ceased to cry, and the pony, having filled his ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... of the cricket says that the pitch of the song varies with the temperature. He has even worked out a formula by which one can tell the pitch of the chirp, if he knows the temperature, or, knowing the temperature, can determine the pitch. Of course this is too mechanical; yet it indicates that there must be considerable relation between the two; the warmer the cricket the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... see him. I tell you, Robinson Crusoe don't make near enough of his loneliness. But here was interesting company. He looked at me and winked his eye from the front backwards, like a hen, and gave a chirp and began to peck about at once, as though being hatched three hundred years too late was just nothing. 'Glad to see you, Man Friday!' says I, for I had naturally settled he was to be called Man Friday if ever ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... bonnets represented the fashions of ten years past, and the aprons were too often frayed and darned, and relics of some former, more opulent owners. There were multitudes of children, but they were without the gambols which characterize the young of all animals; and there was not even the chirp of a winter bird about them; their faces were prematurely aged and hardened, and their bold eyes revealed that sin had no surprises for them. And every one of these showed that intense look which marks the awful struggle for food and life upon which they had ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly |
