"Chirp" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bottom of the tunnel was excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke 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 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, and determining ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... long before the hour of his advent shall have been completed, the birds, which till now have been all activity, will become torpid, the pigeons will have given over their cooing, and the sparrow his chirp; so the fish that has not yet breakfasted had better make haste, for his are chariot-wheels which have been looked after overnight, and linchpins that never come out; nor has he had one break-down or overturn since he first set off on his Macadamized way. In haste to escape from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... food conserver is the chipping squirrel, or chipmunk, so named because his cry sounds like the chirp of little chickens. His method of dress is most unusual; he is brownish grey in colour, with five stripes of black and two of pale yellow running along the back of his coat; the throat and lower part of his body is snowy white. ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... 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, ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... to hear a cricket chirp now, I'd screech. This isn't really quiet. It's like waiting for a cannon cracker to go off just before the fuse is burned down. The bang isn't there yet, but you hear it a hundred times in your mind ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... it had long ago obscured the sun; a weird twilight had fallen upon the scene; the stagnant air had grown even more oppressively hot than at first; not a bird uttered a single note; not an insect raised a chirp; not a leaf stirred; and in the profound silence the roar of the surf on the reef became thunderous in its resonance. They dined somewhat earlier than usual that night, and while they sat over their meal the darkness fell ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... 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 ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... 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 they were chanting ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... these joys, he saw the necessity of a sunshade—the advantage of having a great lady to complain of, instead of chewing the stems of roses bought for fivepence apiece of Mme. Prevost, after the manner of the callow youngsters that chirp and cackle in the lobbies of the Opera, like chickens in a coop. In short, he resolved to centre his ideas, his sentiments, his affections upon a woman, one woman?—LA ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... by Storborg, by Breidablik, and the sound follows them all the way from the hills here and there; 'tis no military music like in the towns, nay, but voices—a proclamation: Spring has come. Then suddenly the first chirp of a bird is heard from a treetop, waking others, and a calling and answering on every side; more than a song, it is a hymn of praise. The emigrant feels home-sick already, maybe, something weak and helpless in him; he is going off to America, and none could be more fitted to ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... I sit near my poker and tongs, And I dream in the firelight's glow, And sometimes I quaver forgotten old songs That I listened to long ago. Then out of the cinders there cometh a chirp Like an echoing, answering cry,— Little we care for the outside world, My friend ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... little thing," he cried as he sprang up, "you too are shut within this terrible prison. This thick darkness must be as hard for you to bear as it is for me." He went toward the cage, and, as he drew near, the bird gave a glad little chirp. ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... clouds that on the grass Let their vague shadows dreamlike trail and pass; The conscious woods, the stony meadows growing Up to birch pastures, where we heard the lowing Of one disconsolate cow. All the warm afternoon, Lulled in a reverie by the myriad tune Of insects, and the chirp of songless birds, Forgetful of the spring-time's lyric words, Drowsed round us while we tried to find the lane That to our coming feet had been so plain, And lost ourselves among the sweetfern's growth, And thickets of young ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... 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, then, The silence ...
— A Little Window • Jean M. Snyder
... Down came Pussy-cat, and away Robin ran: Says little Robin Red-breast, "Catch me if you can." Little Robin Red-breast hopp'd upon a wall, Pussy-cat jump'd after him, and almost got a fall. Little Robin chirp'd and sang, and what did Pussy say? Pussy-cat said, "Mew," and ...
— Harry's Ladder to Learning - Horn-Book, Picture-Book, Nursery Songs, Nursery Tales, - Harry's Simple Stories, Country Walks • Anonymous
... and concealed in the grasses and moss which grew out of the decaying wood; now among the sedges covering the mudbanks where the brook had silted up; now in the hedge which divided the willows from the meadow. Still the peculiar sparrow-like note, the ringing chirp, came continually from their throats; the warm sultry day delighted them. One clung to the side of a slender flag, which scarcely seemed strong enough to support it, yet did not even bend under its weight; ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... with my fellow bird or brute So strangely metamorphis'd, either ney Or bellow loud: or if 't may better sute Chirp out my joy pearch'd upon higher spray. My passions fond with impudence rehearse, Immortalize ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... it all was! 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 lead, went ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... Pan no more, That guarded once the shepherd's seat, They chatter of their rustic lore, They watch the wind among the wheat: Cicalas chirp, the young lambs bleat, Where whispers pine to cypress tree; They count the waves that idly beat Where breaks the ...
— Ballads in Blue China and Verses and Translations • Andrew Lang
... become intimate with the movements of the tides, the glacier, and the planets; must translate the bubbling fountain and the eruption of Vesuvius; must be able to interpret the whisper of the zephyr and the diapason of the forest; must be able to hear music in the chirp of the cricket as well as in the oratorios; must be able to delve into the recesses of the mine and scale the mountain tops; must know the heart throbs of Little Nell as well as of Cicero and Demosthenes; must be able to see the processions of history ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... 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
... turned into the forest, and they had not gone very far before they became aware of a strange silence, if silence it could be called, for when they listened the silence was full of sound, innumerable little sounds, some of which they recognised; but it was not the hum of the insects or the chirp of a bird or the snapping of a rotten twig that filled Joseph with awe, but something that he could neither see, nor hear, nor smell, nor touch. The life of the trees—is that it? he asked himself. A remote and mysterious ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... 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 ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... 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 ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... I had a sense all this time that I was, so to speak, in hospital, being tended and cared for, and not allowed to do anything wearisome or demanding effort. But I became more and more aware of other spirits about me, like birds that chirp and twitter in the ivy of a tower, or in the thick bushes of a shrubbery. Amroth told me one day that I must prepare for a great change soon, and I found myself wondering what it would be like, half excited ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... suddenly when I awoke in the shepherd's hut one morning at Ripon. The instant I awoke I knew it. It was very early in the morning, just before sunrise, but there was a little wood behind me, and the birds were beginning to chirp. ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... like to say, I'm sure, I shouldn't like to say, Why all the birds should chirp of you, Who live so far away. Robin and oriole sing to me From the leafy depths of our apple-tree, With trunk so gnarled and gray— But why your name should their burden be I ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... the fool's bolt misses! What help? the world is full of loves; Night after night of running kisses, Chirp after chirp of ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... near the birds once more begin to chirp and trill, they salute the setting sun and fly away to rest. Then the monkeys commence their screeching and chattering and soon after the owls and other night birds take their turn, making the now dense darkness more terrible with their harsh, ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... little girl listen to a pewee twittering in a thorn-bush and the lusty call of a robin from an apple-tree. A bluebird flew over-head with a merry chirp—its wistful note of autumn long since forgotten. These were the first birds and flowers, he said, and June, knowing them only by sight, must know the name of each and the reason for that name. So that Hale found himself walking the woods with an interrogation point, ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... nature, and peace, and holy love. But now—at evening, when I see the round red sun sink quietly down behind those woody hills, leaving them sleeping in a warm, red, golden haze, I only think another lovely day is lost to him and me; and at morning, when roused by the flutter and chirp of the sparrows, and the gleeful twitter of the swallows—all intent upon feeding their young, and full of life and joy in their own little frames—I open the window to inhale the balmy, soul-reviving air, and look out upon the lovely landscape, laughing in dew and sunshine—I ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... majestic rhythm to the cool tumult of interstellar conflict, to the onset of starry hosts, to the impact of cold suns and the flaming up of nebular in the darkened void; and through it all, unceasing and faint, like a silver shuttle, ran the frail, piping voice of man, a querulous chirp amid the screaming of planets and the crash ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... plume your wings, and chirp and flutter, And swing, light-poised upon the pendant bough;— Fondly I deem he hears the calls ye utter, And stirs in his light sleep to ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... 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 loud, which Mary, without ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... music) was undertaken by a courtier. As this went on, the darkness of night began to diminish, and the hues of the flowers in the garden, and the countenance of each of the party, became gradually visible, while the birds themselves began to chirp in the trees. It was a pleasant dawn. Several presents were made to the company by the Imperial-mother, and to the Lord-Lieutenant a robe was given in addition, as an acknowledgment of his services as judge in the competition. And so the ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... poor Little, "how happy a workman must be that plies his trade here in the fresh air. And how unfortunate I am to be tied to a power-wheel, in that filthy town, instead of being here, where Nature turns the wheel, and the birds chirp at hand, and the scene and the air ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the bobolink along the meadow-brook; indeed, the birds of all sorts were astir, skimming along the ground or rising to the sky, keeping watch especially over the garden and the fruit-trees, carrying food to their nests, or teaching their young broods to fly and to chirp the songs of summer. And from the woodshed the shrill note of the scythe under the action of the grindstone. No such vivid realization of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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
... the speech of the bird with a peculiar whistling sound in his throat, that was a marvelous imitation of a sparrow's chirp, and the little boy clapped his hands with delight, and insisted on ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... will visit his pale face when you chirp tenderly to him, and a faint tinge comes upon his cheek when you lay your soft tiny hand upon it; yet all the while there is that desperate secret lying next his heart, and, like a vampire, sucking away, drop by ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... single tear a sound broke the stillness, making her prick up her ears. It was only the soft twitter of a bird, but it seemed to be a peculiarly gifted bird, for while she listened the soft twitter changed to a lively whistle, then a trill, a coo, a chirp, and ended in a musical mixture of all the notes, as if the bird burst out laughing. Rose laughed also, and, forgetting her ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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 the tree-shell. ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... 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 ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... note 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, a single robin begins to warble from a neighboring ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the river. The willows Are yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the south And darken the ripples; but they cannot darken my heart, Nor the face like a star in my heart!... Rain falls on the water And pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten, The sparrows chirp under the eaves; but the face in my heart Is a secret of music.... I wait in the rain and am silent." Listen again!... It says: "I have worked, I am tired, The pencil dulls in my hand: I see through the window Walls upon walls of ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... beyond the Waltham Hills. The shadows of the maples were lengthening upon the lawns, and the chirp of the crickets was heard in the old walls. Charlie seemed quite dissatisfied with Gentleman Jo's story. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... But ours is finer. I should, however, be glad if we had it up here in our nest, for it keeps one warm. I am curious to know at what the ducks were so frightened; at us, surely not; 'tis true I said 'chirp,' to you rather loud. In reality, the thick-headed roses ought to know, but they know nothing; they only gaze on themselves and smell: for my part, I am ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... at nightfall, when the sun has sunk under the hills, and the crickets chirp,—"gone." Say it to yourself when the night is far over, and you wake with some sudden start from pleasant dreams,—"gone." Say it to yourself in some country churchyard, where your father, or your mother, sleeps under the blooming violets of spring,—"gone." Say it in your sobbing prayer to ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... feel his chilling touch as we pass along. But from above the pleasant sunshine comes trickling down between the branches, and the warm south wind blows cheeringly among the trees. Didst thou not hear yon swallow sing, Chirp, chirp?—In every note he seemed to say, "'T is ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... the desk to whisper to swell to chirp sneering more and more he climbed the pulpit steps they ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... the tables were clear'd with the utmost decorum. When they gaily had caroll'd till peep of the dawn, The Lark gently hinted, 'twas time to be gone; And his clarion, so shrill, gave the company warning, That Chanticleer scented the gales of the morning. So they chirp'd, in full chorus, a friendly adieu; And, with hearts beating light as the plumage that grew On their merry-thought bosoms, ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset
... have grown sensibly longer; and I see how I shall get through the winter without adding to my wood-pile, for large fires are no longer necessary. I am on the alert for the first signs of spring, to hear the chance note of some arriving bird, or the striped squirrel's chirp, for his stores must be now nearly exhausted, or see the woodchuck venture out of his winter quarters. On the 13th of March, after I had heard the bluebird, song sparrow, and red-wing, the ice was still nearly a ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... on the sill; The look of leaves a-twinkle With windlets clear and still; The feel of a forest rill That wimples fresh and fleet About one's naked feet; The muzzles of drinking herds; Lush flags and bulrushes; The chirp of rain-bound birds - To live, I think ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... few minutes. The sun was sinking low in the western sky, the chirp of the birds was growing faint in the trees. She raised her colorless ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)
... in 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
... asked a stupid donkey feeding near to come and put his heavy foot on the bush. He did it, and crack went the branch, splash went the poor chicks into the water, and all were drowned but Cocky, who flew across and was saved. Poor little Hop, Chirp, and Downy went floating down the brook like balls of white foam, and were never seen again. All the hens mourned for them, and put a black feather in their heads to show how sorry they were. Mamma Partlet was heart-broken to lose three darlings at once; but Cocky comforted her, ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... lazily and luxuriously on his father's money and his wife's, and, being after his natural term of days laid away in a tomb at Mt. Auburn, ends his existence without making any more impression upon the world's history than a falling rose leaf, or an August cricket's faintest chirp." ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... boulders near the Sixth Avenue entrance. The sun was rising. It was the first sunrise he had ever seen in New York. The effect on his imagination was startling. The red rays streaming through the park and the chirp of birds in the bushes were magic touches that transformed the world. He was back again in the South, where Nature is the one big fact of life, and the memories of the girl he had learned to love beside its beautiful waters ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... The 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 of his son Robert, who was ...
— The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast • Mr. Roscoe
... me no one had been here? (Shakes his finger at her.) My little song-bird must never do that again. A song-bird must have a clean beak to chirp with—no false notes! (Puts his arm round her waist.) That is so, isn't it? Yes, I am sure it is. (Lets her go.) We will say no more about it. (Sits down by the stove.) How warm and snug it is here! ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... calm and fresh and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill, And bell of wandering ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... inflection of the voice, a bend of that curious long thin body which seems to be embodied gesture, she can suggest, she can portray, the humour that is dry, ironical, coarse (I will admit), unctuous even. Her voice can be sweet or harsh; it can chirp, lilt, chuckle, stutter; it can moan or laugh, be tipsy or distinguished. Nowhere is she conventional; nowhere does she resemble any other French singer. Voice, face, gestures, pantomime, all are different, all are ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... sure chirp some language. Believe you me, a guy had orto carry an interpreter around with him. Me and Skinny went out to a swell English camp today to take a peep at English trainin methods; outside we sees a tipical Tommy Atkins settin down fixin sumpin wrong with his kicks; as we ...
— Love Letters of a Rookie to Julie • Barney Stone
... neither troubled nor afraid. She lay there with her face upturned to the pelting rain, watching it patter from leaf to leaf, listening to the chirp of the birds in the nests, listening to the crying of the wind. She liked the sound. She had a dim notion that it was like an old camp-meeting hymn that she had heard Creline sing sometimes. She never understood the words, but the music came back like a dream. She wondered if Massa Linkum ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of old responded in a manner similar to these. They did "peep" and "mutter;" their speech was low out of the dust; they spoke out of the ground, and whispered; or, as in the margin, did "peep" or "chirp" out of the dust. These "rap" and mutter. They respond from ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... cage door, and with the sweetest look on her face encouraged the birds to fly away. The poor little creatures cowered and hesitated, not knowing at first what use to make of their new liberty; but at last one, the boldest of the company, hopped to the door and with a glad, exultant chirp flew straight upward. Then the others, taking courage from his example, followed, and all were lost to view in the twinkling of ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge
... caroll'd till peep of the dawn, The Lark gently hinted 'twas time to be gone; And his clarion, so shrill, gave the company warning, That Chanticleer scented the gales of the morning, So they chirp'd in full chorus, a friendly adieu; And, with hearts beating light as the plumage that grew On their merry-thought bosoms, away they ...
— The Peacock 'At Home' AND The Butterfly's Ball AND The Fancy Fair • Catherine Ann Dorset
... presence I wondered that the garden was always so full of singing birds. But the Captain never meddled with them. Probably he understood that his master would not have tolerated it for a moment. So there was always a song or a chirp somewhere. Overhead flew the gulls and the cranes. The wind in the pines always made a glad salutation. Abel and I paced the walks, in high converse on matters beyond the ken of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... here; Warm on my cheek the sunshine burns, And fledged birds chirp, and far and near Floats the strange sweetness of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... and scarcely feathers—a kind of downy hair. I can hardly express how pleased I was to 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 he was hatched, as soon as ever I found the egg in the canoe had ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... O the young cock crew i' the merry Linkem, An' the wild fowl chirp'd for day; The aulder to the younger did say, 'Dear brother, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... very sad, I was very solemn— I had worked all day whittling out a column. I said, "I'll bet a nickel I can chirp such a chant," And Mr. Geoffrey Parsons said, "I'll bet you can't." I bit a chunk of chocolate and found it sweet, And I listened to the trucking on ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... meet, And robins pipe amid the cedars nigher. Thro' the still elms I hear the ferry's beat. The swallows chirp about the towering spire; The whole air pulses with its weight of sweet, Yet not quite ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... blood-poisoning, which might cause death without the assistance of any particular toxic venom. The rattlesnake, however, which is rather too common in the desert, is a different sort of a chap. If he strikes you, you may just as well make your will, and chirp your death song, as to monkey with physicians, and squander some of the good wealth which may ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... and silvery gray and brown, a coyote yapped a falsetto message and was answered by one nearer at hand—his mate, it might be. In a bush under the bank that made of it a black blot in the unearthly whiteness of the sand, a little bird fluttered uneasily and sent a small, inquiring chirp into the stillness. From somewhere farther up the arroyo drifted a faint, aromatic odor ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... which characterized all her movements, she then opened the casement and inhaled the air. All was still in the narrow lane; the shops yet unclosed. But on the still trees behind the shops the birds were beginning to stir and chirp. Chanticleer, from some neighbouring yard, rang out his brisk rereillee. Pleasant English summer dawn in the pleasant English country village. She stretched her graceful neck far from the casement, trying to catch a glimpse of the blue river. She had seen its majestic ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wood and clay, And by-and-by, like heath-bells gilt with dew, There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers, Ink-spotted over, shells of green and blue; And there I witnessed, in the summer hours, A brood of Nature's minstrels chirp and fly, Glad as the sunshine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... greedily drank it 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 ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... a nun is she; One weak chirp is her only note; Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he, Pouring boasts from his little throat, Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link, Spink, spank, spink, Never was I afraid of man, Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... afterwards it became dark, and the mules being much distressed, we could only proceed at a slow pace. The fatigue of riding was much lessened by having an English saddle; still it was a hard day's travelling: but the air was deliciously balmy, and the glowworm's lamp and cricket's chirp helped to cheer the weariness of a road which seemed interminable. Presently, we met country people returning from the market at Ajaccio, lights were seen more frequently on the hills, and, at last, the lantern on the pier-head—a welcome beacon—came in view. ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... his ear mysterious words. Here a shrill chirp; there a click, like the click made with the tongue; further on, plaintive murmurs; in the distance a tinkle like that of the bell on the neck of the wandering ox. Suddenly Rey heard a strange sound, a rapid ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... blackbird sings upon the budding spray, I hear the clarion tones of chanticleer, And robins chirp about from break of day,— All pipe their carols ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... back into the bank building, the deputy in the chair yawned, stretched and opened his eyes, staring stupidly at him. There was no mistaking the dancing glitter in Trevison's eyes, no possible misinterpretation of his tense, throaty whisper: "One chirp and you're a dead one!" And the deputy stiffened in the chair, dumb ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of a hedge I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed, And spied a bird upon a nest: Two eyes she had beseeching me Meekly and brave, and her brown breast Throbb'd hot and quick above her heart; And then she oped her dagger bill,— 'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe At break of day; 'twas not a trill, As falters through the quiet even; But one sharp solitary note, One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy, One passionate note of victory: Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked, Smiling the smile the ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... 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 creatures, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... wild flutter of tiny wings, A faint low chirp of pain, A throb of the little aching heart And birdie was free again. Oh sorrowful anguished mother-heart, 'Twas all that she could do, She had set it free from a captive's life In the only ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... carefully in the center of the coop, she put the little chickens close by it. Finding it soft and warm, they cuddled up against the flannel cover, and began to chirp as contentedly as if it were a mother hen. Then she pinned a square of flannel to the upper side of the can, letting it spread either way like a mother hen's wings, and leaving the ends open for the chickens ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37. No. 16., April 19, 1914 • Various
... to pale and the sky brightened. Day came suddenly, almost instantaneously. I turned for another look at the blue night, and it was gone. Everywhere the birds began to call, and all manner of little insects began to chirp and hop about in the willows. A breeze sprang up from the west and brought the heavy smell of ripened corn. The boys rolled over and shook themselves. We stripped and plunged into the river just as the sun came up ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... temple was building it was credibly reported that at least 10,000 sparrows sitting on the trees round declared that it was entirely wrong—quite contrary to received opinion—hopelessly condemned by public opinion, etc. Nevertheless it got finished and the sparrows flew away and began to chirp in the same note ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... them and behind them, as the soldier and Constance joined the desultory fag-end of the procession. On either side of the road waved the mournful cypress, draped by the hoary tillandsia, and from the somber depths of foliage came the chirp of the tree-crickets and the note of the swamp owl. Faint music, in measured rhythm, a foil to disconnected wood-sound, was wafted from a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... heart, Infant, you're a martyr to our long tongues!" cried Patricia, jumping up and putting out the light. "Go to sleep now. We won't chirp a single ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... ice; now the sky is full of radiant warmth, and the air of a half-articulate murmur and awakening. How still the morning is! It is at such times that we discover what music there is in the souls of the little slate- colored snowbirds. How they squeal, and chatter, and chirp, and trill, always in scattered troops of fifty or a hundred, filling the air with a fine sibilant chorus! That joyous and childlike "chew," "chew," "chew" is very expressive. Through this medley of finer songs and calls, there is shot, from time to time, the clear, ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... a low, insistent chirp. One monkey leaped into the cage, the others following as fast as they could stretch up their hands and grab the tail board of the wagon. Instantly they began scrambling for the nuts and candies that ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... robin-redbreast, who, at view, Not seeing her at all to stir, Brought leaves and moss to cover her; But while he perking there did pry About the arch of either eye, The lid began to let out day, At which poor robin flew away, And seeing her not dead, but all disleav'd, He chirp'd for joy to ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... got into the automobile, I gave another feeble chirp about the fair, but the secretary was adamant, so we yielded temporarily, and ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... with the officers spreads to the men. Some cases of terrorism have occurred at Delhi which are a disgrace to our race. And of course we know what follows. Cowardice and cruelty being twins, the man who runs terror-stricken into his barrack to-night because he mistook the chirp of a cricket for the click of a pistol, indemnifies himself to-morrow by beating his bearer to within an ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... willow- sprays of them shinin' bars a layin' down on the gray twilight field. And fur away over the green hills and woods of the east, the moon was a risin', big and calm and silvery. And we could hear the plaintive evenin' song of the thrush, and the crickets' happy chirp, till we got nearer the schoolhouse, when they sort o' blended in with 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' and ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... derived from his friendship in early days with the painter-astrologer Varley. If a horse stopped for no ascertained reason or if a house martin fell they wondered what it portended. They disliked the bodeful chirp of the bat, the screech of the owl. Even the old superstition that the first object seen in the morning—a crow, a cripple, &c.—determines the fortunes of the day, had his respect. "At an hour," he comments, "when the senses are most impressionable ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... she disappeared again. In a few minutes more, she returned, skimming round to reconnoitre that all was safe, she perched upon the nest. Instantly the little nestlings were awake to the summons of her touch and chirp, and, opening their mouths wide, were ready for what she would give. She dropt a small fly into the mouth of one of them, and, having no more, flew away to provide for the other hungry mouths as fast as she could. As soon as she was ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... the tree, as they had been prematurely expanded by the heat of party politics. The strain of that song was of a higher mood. In those days, when American literature spoke with faint and feeble voice, like the chirp of half-awakened birds in the morning twilight, we need not say what cordial welcome was extended to a poem which embodied in blank verse worthy of anybody since Milton thoughts of the highest reach and noblest power, or what wonder was mingled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... flit, ghost-like, round the seductive light of my lantern. The meadows, ever breathing freshness, are now saturated with dew, and I feel the damp of the night air on my heated limbs. A Cicada, a fellow-lodger in the house, attracts me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... Once more, chirp of cricket, croak of frog and the rush of waters through the valley were the only sounds, and I darted across to the camp shadow. Lying flat, I began to crawl cautiously and laboriously towards my horses. One gave a startled snort as I approached and this set the dogs going ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... that he has written to her from Whitford under her pillow, and she kept spreading them out, and making us read them, and—oh! their braveness and cheeriness—they did quite seem to hold one up! And then poor little Minna's constant little robin-chirp of faith, "God will not let them hurt him." One could not bear to tell the child, that though indeed they cannot hurt him, it may not be in her sense! Look here! These are her slippers. She has worked on all day to finish them, that they might be done and out of sight when he came home this evening. ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... white and cold, and underneath her breath she kept crying, "Oh, will they never come—will they never come?" and a cricket somewhere about the house began to chirp. ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 just ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... I wander'd by the mill,— I could not hear the brook flow, The noisy wheel was still; There was no burr of grasshopper, Nor chirp of any bird; But the beating of my own heart Was all ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... other; the bird has soft warm feathers, and the fish has scales, overlapping each other as the slates on the roof of a house do, thus making a perfectly waterproof coat for its whole body; the bird has legs and wings, and the fish has neither; the bird can chirp and sing, while fishes generally make ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... growl, even at her, sometimes; it was so funny to see her look up and chirp on after it, like some little bird to whom the language of beasts was no language at all, and passed by on the air as a very big sound, but one that in no wise ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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 sky without banishing the darkness of the night. It is almost the discovery ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... examine the brain of a person who has grown up in an environment rich in stimuli to the eye, where nature, earth, and sky have presented a changing panorama of color and form to attract the eye; where all the sounds of nature, from the chirp of the insect to the roar of the waves and the murmur of the breeze, and from the softest tones of the voice to the mightiest sweep of the great orchestra, have challenged the ear; where many and varied odors and perfumes have assailed the nostrils; where a great ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... moon be my mate, I can't discern. In fairyland I soar, not that I would become a butterfly like Chang. So long I for my old friend T'ao, the magistrate, that I again seek him. In a sound sleep I fell; but so soon as the wild geese cried, they broke my rest. The chirp of the cicadas gave me such a start that I bear them a grudge. My secret wrongs to whom can I go and divulge, when I wake up from sleep? The faded flowers and the cold mist make my feelings of anguish ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin |
