"Plaint" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to him to hush, and, in the same moment, there came again the plaint of that wild sobbing. And abruptly it sounded away on our right, and immediately was caught up, as it were, and echoed back from some place beyond us afar up the creek. At that, I got me upon a thwart, intending to take another look over the country about us; but the banks ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... long, for my countries, cries of grief and tears? Till what time, O lord of Babylon, wilt thou remain in hostile regions?—Let thy heart be softened, and make Babylon joyful,—and let thy face be turned toward Eshaggil which thou lovest!'" Merodach gave ear to the plaint of his servant: he answered him graciously and promised his aid. Namar, united as it had been with Chaldaea for centuries, did not readily become accustomed to its new masters. The greater part of the land belonged ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... stack of coal. A powerful, bearded man came out, leading a young girl by the hand. She went slowly, and appeared to resist. He set her ceremoniously ashore, turned back to the cabin, and locked the door behind him. The girl stood still for a moment. A low 'plaint escaped her lips. She stretched her arms pleadingly toward the cabin. Then she turned and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... father reads the sacred page, How Abram was the friend of God on high; Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Or how the royal bard did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heav'n's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy seers that tune the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... selfe, she saide, and deare constraint, Lets me not sleepe, but wast the wearie night 470 In secret anguish and unpittied plaint, Whiles you in carelesse sleepe are drowned quight. Her doubtfull words made that redoubted knight Suspect her truth: yet since no' untruth he knew, Her fawning love with foule disdainefull spight 475 He would not shend; but said, Deare dame I rew, ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... he were, He would be shrewder, and not be paying money For what this woman is glad to do for naught. Nothing is cooked, and nobody is warmed,— A most unthrifty fire! Do you bid the Duke, Until he show me sounder cause for plaint, Permit this woman to gather unmolested Dead wood in his forest, and bear it home.—Lisa, Take care you break no half-green ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... of the French troubles with the Commune, formidable revolts were going on among the descendants of those untamable wretches whom Saint Arnaud smoked out in a cave. In July the garrison at Setif heard the plaint of a friendly cadi, named D'joudi, who had been wantonly attacked for his loyalty to the French by some organized mutineers under Mohammed Ben-Hadad. The poor wretch had been obliged to flee, with his women and his flocks, into the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... both the hammock sentinels came the mournful sounds of living things unseen. From the depths beyond drifted the weird plaint of the sloth, crying in the night, "Oh me, poor sloth, oh-oh-oh-oh!" Goat suckers repeated by the hour their monotonous refrains, "Quao quao," or "Cho-co-co-cao," while a third earnestly exhorted, "Joao corta pao!" ("John, cut wood!"). Tree frogs and crickets clacked ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... amount of attention to one of his younger wives—a circumstance which naturally gives great offence to one of the older women. This wife, when she has an opportunity and is alone with her husband, commences to sing or chant a plaint—a little thing ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... OF P'EI.— An Officer Bewails the Neglect with which He is Treated A Wife Deplores the Absence of Her Husband The Plaint of a Rejected Wife Soldiers of Wei Bewail Separation from their Families An Officer Tells of His Mean Employment An Officer Sets Forth His Hard Lot The Complaint of a Neglected Wife In Praise of a Maiden Discontent Chwang Keang Bemoans ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... plaintive, tender notes that stole out like wounded birds and fluttered away on broken wings to the sunlight, Kitty realized that she was an ear-witness to the interpretation of a soul's pain. Though she had never heard of Jean Paul Richter's plaint to music—"Thou speakest to me of those things which in all my endless days I have found not, nor shall find"—something of the torment embodied in those exquisitely bitter words came to her through Rosanne's ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... In heaven's high register she claims a place. Retiring, and unknown or but to few, Her latter days were hid from public view; But I have often witness'd, when alone— The prayer uplifted, and the sigh unknown. When no eye saw her, but with God shut in, She pour'd her plaint to Him, who saw, unseen; Then from the sacred word she succour drew, 'To hoary hairs I bear, I carry you.' This promise still her drooping spirit cheered, And shed its starlight when the night appeared. Bold, in her weakness, close the foe pursued, And oft the bitter ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... and the old. Our Manchester Territorials were distressed to find that thousands of yards of hurdles were being lined with the best tent cloth at 1s. 4d. a yard, instead of with cheap cotton at a quarter the price. I repeated their plaint to a Regular officer of the old school, expecting sympathetic indignation. "Magnificent," was his reply. "It shows the world in what spirit England ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... the past rushed to my memory. He must have seen what I felt, for he said: 'A la guerre comme a la guerre. It is very good of you to come to see me.' In a quiet, natural way he then praised the kindness of the Germans at Wilhelmshoehe, nor did a single plaint escape him during our conversation. He said he had been deceived as to the force and preparation of his armies, but without mentioning names, nor did he abuse anybody, till I mentioned Trochu, who had abandoned the empress, whom he had sworn to defend. During half ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... dressing-room and I rushed to my room. The voice was not there. I locked my door and, with tears in my eyes, besought it, if it were still alive, to manifest itself to me. The voice did not reply, but suddenly I heard a long, beautiful wail which I knew well. It is the plaint of Lazarus when, at the sound of the Redeemer's voice, he begins to open his eyes and see the light of day. It was the music which you and I, Raoul, heard at Perros. And then the voice began to sing the leading phrase, 'Come! And believe in me! Whoso believes in me shall live! Walk! Whoso hath ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... gentle sigh that was almost a plaint. I turned my head and saw that first gleams of morning light were ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... the little circle fell upon things ghostly and mysterious—strange happenings and prophetic dreams. Dorothea, who had a love of horrors, lent a suddenly attentive ear; but Jennie, though plainly fascinated, uttered a protesting plaint. "Oh, please stop! You don't know how you frighten me! Dorothea has had some awfully queer things happen to her, and it scares me almost to death when she tells ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... this dead city of stones and the sea that wrought so on his spirit. Tourgenieff was right; only the young should come here, not those who had seen with Virgil the tears of things. And then he recalled the lines of Catullus—the sad, stately plaint of the classic world, like the suppressed sob ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... on the holy hearth, The Lars, and Lemures, moan with midnight plaint; In urns, and altars round, A drear and dying sound Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... depths of the forest, fifty, perhaps a hundred, men were waiting for him—for him? Yes, the mighty arms of the Union were about him; the trump of a fame, such as no song had ever sung, was poised to blow to the world his daring. Hark! Heavens, yes; the long, tender plaint of the whippoorwill. Ah! now, now there was no doubt. In swooning delight he waits. Good Heaven! What's that sound? Angels and ministers of grace, the dead in wailing woe over the deed about to ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... thereon: yet, Lady, if it be I ever woke ear-winning melody, 'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string, Thy praise alone—for all my worshipping Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day, Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?— Send me a maiden ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... the third time I saw Miss Swink glance at the watch upon her wrist, and then out of the window, I knew she was waiting for some one to pass. It wasn't Harrie. There was no necessity for furtive watching for Harrie to pass, The latter's plaint of sickness was evidently not convincing to the girl. I looked at the clock on the mantel. I had been in the room twenty-seven minutes, but I didn't agree with Selwyn that Miss Swink was in love with his brother. Her engagement ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... Shaking his finger, the professor recited oracularly, "'Oh, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursel's as ithers see us.' Van Manderpootz is that power, Dixon. Through my attitudinizor, one may at last adopt the viewpoint of another. The poet's plaint of more than two centuries ...
— The Point of View • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... and heard a feeble plaint, quickly silenced by a thunder crash. "If we were only home with mama," he ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... this, that a man was slain in Abou Sabir's village; wherefore the Sultan caused plunder the village, and they plundered the headman's goods with the rest So his wife said to him, 'All the Sultan's officers know thee; so do thou prefer thy plaint to the king, that he may cause thy beasts to be restored to thee.' But he said to her, 'O woman, said I not to thee that he who doth evil shall suffer it? Indeed, the king hath done evil, and he shall suffer [the consequences of] ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... and faint, Blends with the hollow sobbings of the sea; Like the sad music of a siren's plaint, But shriller than Leander's voice should be, Unless the wintry death had changed its tone,— Wherefore she thinks she hears ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... this world closed against all the rest, so fashioned by the logic of its creator that in it there should never be any but themselves; the world of this sonata. Was it a bird, was it the soul, not yet made perfect, of the little phrase, was it a fairy, invisibly somewhere lamenting, whose plaint the piano heard and tenderly repeated? Its cries were so sudden that the violinist must snatch up his bow and race to catch them as they came. Marvellous bird! The violinist seemed to wish to charm, to tame, to woo, to win it. ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... the gods heard his plaint and meant to crush him with their answer, the telephone bell sounded at his elbow. Mechanically, he lifted the receiver off its hook, and immediately became aware of Tomlinson's voice, with some element of flurry and distress in its ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... plaint of modern Germany. We seek, they say, to do merely what England and France—it were indiscreet to mention Austria—did in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They were vigorous peoples with an impulse to expand ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... still listened to their piping. The old gods had not been discrowned and banished; and to fishers drawing their nets the coasts yet kept a something of the trace of amorous Polypheme, the rocks were peopled with memories of his plaint to Galatea. Inland, among the dim and thymy woods, bee-haunted and populous with dreams of dryad and oread, there were rumours of Pan; and dwellers under thatch—the goatherd mending his sandals, the hind carving his new staff, the girls who busked them for the vintaging—were ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign 5 To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint; But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled strain Bursts in a squall—they ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me breathe a while, and hold thy heavy hand, My grievous faults with Shame enough I understand. Take ruth and pity on my plaint, or else I am forlorn; Let not the world continue thus in laughing me to scorn. Madam, if I be he, to whom you once were bent, With whom to spend your time sometime you were content: If any hope be left, if any recompense Be able to recover ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... plaint and humor, that it always seemed to him that no one ever gave an abbreviation or an abstract of anything which he had written, without very nearly spoiling the original. This would be preeminently true of an abstract of this examination; abbreviation can ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... way down through the darkness, and into the spheres of men, and that all heaven was in a tumult of expectation, whilst in yonder city men slept, as they always sleep unconscious when God is near. And then, when the feeble plaint broke from Mary's lips, I cannot go further, and the gentle beast turned aside into the rocks and whins, and called to his companions of the stable, and the meek-eyed ox looked calmly at the intruders, and ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... cries were loudly heard around, And feeling bosoms shuddered at the sound; Though, we, on these occasions, truly know, The plaint is always greater than the woe. Some ostentation ever is with grief Those who weep most the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... in vice, he little cared On what she did, or how she fared. The love withheld she never sought, She grew uncherished—learnt untaught; To her the inward life of thought Full soon was open laid. I know not if her friendlessness Did sometimes on her spirit press, But plaint she never made. The book-shelves were her darling treasure, She rarely seemed the time to measure While she could read alone. And she too loved the twilight wood And often, in her mother's mood, Away to yonder hill ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... cold days and nights how many birds, Flittering above the fields and streams all frozen, Watched hungrily the tended flocks and herds— Earth's chosen nourished by earth's wise self-chosen! How many birds suddenly stiffened and died With no plaint cried, The starved heart ceasing when the pale sun ceased! And when the new day stepped from the same cold East The dead birds lay in the light on the snow-flecked field, Their song and beautiful ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... And rails and fallen stones bestrew the ground: In loosen'd garb derang'd, with scatter'd hair, His bosom open to the nightly air, Lone, o'er a new heap'd grave poor Basil bent, And to himself began his simple plaint. ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... This was the plaint that was often on Florentin's lips. Although he had never been a gambler—and for sufficient reason—in his eyes everything was decided by luck. There are those who are born under a lucky star, others under an unlucky one. There are those who, in the battle of life, receive ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... banished from my stead, Straight in my heart a dolorous plaint there grew, That yet therein hath power, And oft I curse the day and eke the hour When first her lovesome visage met my view, Graced with high goodlihead; And more enamoured Than eye, my soul keeps up its dying strain, Faith, ardour, hope, blaspheming still amain. How void my misery ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... of unfeeling laughter greeting her familiar plaint, Madame Carlotti took a hitch in her gown and reimprisoned some of her person which had escaped ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr. Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen's letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie's statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, "Oh, I must go," had remained with him as the sign that she was ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... building the foundation of the dam. Later, he crossed the basin, followed the well-beaten trail up the slope to the level, and shortly he was in Hanrahan's saloon across the street from Braman's bank, listening to the plaint of Jim Lefingwell, the Circle Cross owner, whose ranch was east of town. Lefingwell was big, florid, and afflicted with perturbation that was almost painful. So exercised was he that he was ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... hunger for bitter herbs. That the American has lost somewhat in animal resources is incontestable; but Mr. Knox's ever-implied premise, "The animal is the man," from which his Jeremiad derives its plaint, is but a provincial paper-currency, of very local estimation, and can never, like gold and silver, pass by weight in the world's marts of thought. The physical constitution of the New Man is comparatively delicate and fragile; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... belcheth up heavy steam clouds from the smouldering wound. And no bird spreading its light wings can cross that water; but in mid-course it plunges into the flame, fluttering. And all around the maidens, the daughters of Helios, enclosed in tall poplars, wretchedly wail a piteous plaint; and from their eyes they shed on the ground bright drops of amber. These are dried by the sun upon the sand; but whenever the waters of the dark lake flow over the strand before the blast of the wailing wind, then ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... eyes of civilization are upon her, and there is legitimate curiosity from Christiania to Yokohama to discover what she is going to do. To me as a philosopher, and taking into account one consideration with another, including Josephine's plaint, it seems as though woman would have much plainer sailing in her progress toward reconstruction if it were not that she is so exceedingly good-looking in spots and bunches. Let her distinction as an ornamental factor ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... of what have hitherto been almost exclusively man's rights—the profession of architecture—she would in truth become the architect, not only of her own fortune, but of the fortunes of a suffering sisterhood, whose great plaint is, "So many things and no place to put them!" For who ever knew a mere man, architect and artist of the beautiful though he were, who had even the beginning of a realization of the absolute necessity for closets—large ones, light ones, and plenty of them? In his special castle, ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... and language are not devoid of poetry, the names they have given to this bird (the whip-poor-will) sufficiently evidence. Some call it the "Muckawis," others the "Wish-ton-wish," signifying "the voice of a sigh," and "the plaint for the lost." Those, who in its native glens at twilight, have listened to its indescribably melancholy song, will know how beautifully appropriate ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... insect tone. A Flicker, a Wood-pewee, and a Phoebe follow in quick succession. Then a Tufted Titmouse squeals. To display his versatility, he gives a dull performance which couples the 'go-back' of the Guinea fowl with the plaint of the Wood-pewee, two widely diverse vocal sounds. With all the performance there is such perfect self-reliance and consciousness of superior ability that one feels that the singer has but to choose what ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... If so, it must befall That Death, whene'er he call, Must call too soon. Though fourscore years he give Yet one would pray to live Another moon! What kind of plaint have I, Who perish in July? I might have had to ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... upon the valley, a hush in which the voice of the stream was audible, cool—a sound immemorially old, lingering from the timeless past through vast, dim changes, cataclysms, carrying the melancholy, eloquent, incomprehensible plaint of primitive nature. ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... answered Jupiter; "I have heard thy plaint, and have come hither to show thee how greatly thou dost wrong me. Hark! I, who am sovereign lord of this world, promise to grant in full the first three wishes which it will please thee to utter, whatever these may be. Consider well what things can bring thee joy ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... the first robin in Hackensack, the stirring of the maple sap in Bennington, the budding of the pussy willows along the main street in Syracuse, the first chirp of the blue bird, the swan song of the blue point, the annual tornado in St. Louis, the plaint of the peach pessimist from Pompton, N.J., the regular visit of the tame wild goose with a broken leg to the pond near Bilgewater Junction, the base attempt of the Drug Trust to boost the price of quinine foiled in the ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... the word "Priapus" when he spoke of Goethe. Even "Wilhelm Meister" seemed to be only a symptom of decline, of a moral "going to the dogs". The "Menagerie of tame cattle," the worthlessness of the hero in this book, revolted Niebuhr, who finally bursts out in a plaint which Biterolf(8) might well have sung: "nothing so easily makes a painful impression as when a great mind despoils itself of its wings and strives for virtuosity in something greatly inferior, while it renounces more lofty aims." But the most indignant of all was the cultured ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... it," was his plaint. "I had a feelin' when I took that last glass it was one too many. I never did know when to stop. I'd like to know how I got here, and where my hoss is, and who ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... signalling national events. She sprang before Aminta to stop her retreat, and stamped and gibbed, for sign that she would not be driven. She fell away to Mr. Morsfield, for simple hearing of her plaint. He appeared emphatic. There was a passage ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... plaisir a aimer qu'a admirer." On his death, Rapin thus speaks of him: "Il n'y eut jamais une plus belle ame jointe a un plus bel esprit. Le plus grand de tous les eloges est, que le peuple l'a pleure; et chacun s'est plaint de sa mort comme de la perte d'un ami, ou de ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... short before me, "perhaps not." She sat down and leaned her head on her hand thoughtfully. The silence lasted for several minutes. During that time I remembered the evening of his atrocious confession—the plaint she seemed to have hardly enough life left in her to utter, "It is impossible to be more unhappy...." The recollection would have given me a shudder if I had not been lost in wonder at her force and her tranquillity. ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... prose, avoid words and phrases that are merely poetical: such as, morn, eve, plaint, corse, weal, drear, amid, oft, steepy;—"what time the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... unlucky in little things. After all, not many of us back horses, and presently fewer of us than ever will be able to do more in the gambling line than play Beg-o'-my-Neighbour with somebody's old aunt for a thr'penny-bit stake. Let me give a few instances of this ill-luck, in the hope that my plaint will strike a responsive chord in the hearts of ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... (Being the Plaint of Adolphe Culpepper Ferguson, Salesman of Fancy Notions, held in durance of his Landlady for a failure to connect on ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... doubt already excessive, for an irresistible stupor once more took possession of him, his head dropped, his eyes closed, and he seemed to fall asleep again, continuing his plaint, as if in a dream, moaning ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... a bear outa season, no!" Strawmyer continued his plaint. "But a bear comes an' kills my stock an' my dog; that there's all right! That's the kinda deal a farmer always gits, in this state! I don't like t' use ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... sitting near the spot where Morgan had laved his bruised feet in the river not many nights past. A whippoorwill was calling in the tangle of cottonwoods and grapevines that grew cool and dark on a little island below them, its plaint as sad as the mourner's ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... the plaint of the wind on the moor, Crying at dawning, and crying at shut of the day, And the call of the gulls that is eerie and dreary and dour, And the sound of the surge as it breaks on ...
— Sprays of Shamrock • Clinton Scollard
... means that the malady is not yet seriously regarded: once a day is still sufficient. Nevertheless, he is a woeful wreck to look at; and the doctor looks at him with the greatest respect, and listens to his querulous plaint patiently. For that great dome of silence, his brain, repository of so many state-secrets, is still a redoubtable instrument: its wit and its magician's cunning have not yet lapsed into the dull inane ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... "Chastelard," since he has gone to live at Putney, he has contributed to the Nineteenth Century, and published an interesting little volume entitled, "A Century of Rondels," in which he continues his plaint about his mother ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... wailings and half-sobs, and was more the pleading of life, the articulate travail of existence. It was an old song, old as the breed itself—one of the first songs of the younger world in a day when songs were sad. It was invested with the woe of unnumbered generations, this plaint by which Buck was so strangely stirred. When he moaned and sobbed, it was with the pain of living that was of old the pain of his wild fathers, and the fear and mystery of the cold and dark that was ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... Judgment on a Plaint lodged by Marco Polo, called Marcolino, regarding a legacy from Maffeo Polo the Elder. (See I. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... yacht's saloon below a violin sang its very soul out upon the summer night, weaving its plaint into the soft, adagio rippling of a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... the crew looked forward to working for Ben, the farmer, and dreaded the meals prepared by Bella, his wife. She was notoriously the worst cook and housekeeper in the county. And all through the years, in trouble and in happiness, her plaint was the same: "If I'd thought I was going to stick down on a farm all my life, slavin' for a pack of men folks day and night, I'd rather have died. Might as well ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... in the plaint that nobody now buys books, meaning thereby second-hand books? The late Mark Pattison, who had 16,000 volumes, and whose lightest word has therefore weight, once stated that he had been informed, and verily believed, that there were men of his own University of Oxford ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... the dire effect Of loitering here, of death defrauded long; Of old so gracious (and let that suffice), MY VERY MASTER KNOWS ME NOT. I've been so long remembered I'm forgot. * * When in his courtiers' ears I pour my plaint, They drink it as the Nectar of the Great; And squeeze my hand, and beg me come to-morrow. * * Twice told the period spent on stubborn Troy, Court favour, yet untaken, I BESIEGE. * * If this song lives, Posterity shall know One, though in Britain born, with courtiers bred, Who thought, ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... this is the noxious herb intended by Shakespeare, in the play of Hamlet, when the ghost of the murdered king makes plaint, that: ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... the other answered as before: "Go, in the Potter's ear thy plaint outpour, For what am I! His hand has fashioned me, And I in humble faith that ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... anyhow. Children are born; there's no time to look after them on account of the work that doesn't give us bread." She walked up to the mother, sat down next to her, and spoke on stubbornly, no plaint nor mourning in her voice. "I had two children; one, when he was two years old, was boiled to death in hot water; the other was born dead—from this thrice-accursed work. Such a happy life! I say a peasant has no business to marry. ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... attention of the garrulous twelve was finally given to the presiding officer. For a moment, silence fell. It was broken by Ruth Howard, a girl with large, soulful brown eyes and a manner of rapt earnestness, who uttered her plaint in ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... countenance of Blanche,—an expression of unutterable grief, like Eve's retrospective look at Eden. Quivering with strange tremor, again she stood before me, with clasped hands and tearful eyes, in the very attitude of that memorable apparition, and again fell upon my ears the mysterious plaint and the uncompleted question,—'You have been the cause of all this; oh, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... oft-times did Tyri make plaint to King Olaf, and cried bitterly thereover, because albeit had she such great possessions in Wendland yet had she none in this country, and that she should have such deemed she but seemly for a Queen; & thinking ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... le plaint de tout son c[oe]ur, mais qu'il ne se dcourage pas. Grce son travail acharn, il pourra dans deux on trois ans passer l'examen qui lui permettra ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... cried at the comical idea which Sandy's plaint always brought up, of half-a-dozen negro preachers sitting in solemn judgment upon that cakewalk,—it had certainly been a good cakewalk!—and sending poor Sandy ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... of the twain, Sir Gawain nor Sir Lancelot, but the tears fell from their eyes when they heard the knight's tale. Such pity had they for him, they waxed pale, and red, and discovered their faces, when they heard his plaint. ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... silent, lone, From her lips came no plaint or stifled moan, But the seal of anguish, hopeless and wild, Was stamped on the brow of the forest child, And her breast was laden with anxious fears, And her dark ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... to get away, for he feared his mother's plaint for money. He knew nothing of the three five-hundred-dollar bills now sewed up ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... instances de l'Ambassadeur qui a fait valoir, comme un bon cote de la proposition, le groupement mixte des Puissances grace auquel on evitait l'opposition de l'Alliance a l'Entente, ce dont s'etait si souvent plaint Jagow lui-meme. ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... observe it's no easy thing Making the journey to Bumpville, So I think, on the whole, it were prudent to bring An end to this ride to Bumpville; For, though she has uttered no protest or plaint, The calico mare must be blowing and faint— What's more to the point, I'm blowed if I ain't! So play we have got ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... weep with your sweet tears, and mourning chant, O'er this dread loss of Heaven's queen. With her, O sisters, join your sweetest plaint O'er our dear Tammuz, Tammuz slain. Come, all ye spirits, with your drooping wings, No more to us sweet joy he brings; ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... thy senses leave thee? / Cunning rare was this. How let his love deceive thee, / since he thy liegeman is? And all in vain," quoth Kriemhild, / "the plaint I hear thee bring." "In sooth," then answered Brunhild, / "I'll tell it ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... moments to him. He heard the low hum of the insects, the murmur of running water, the rustle of the wind. A coyote cut the keen air with high-keyed, staccato cry. The owls hooted, with dismal and weird plaint, one to the other. Then a wolf mourned. But these sounds only accentuated the loneliness and wildness of the ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... declared to be from thenceforth incapable of any office or employment whatsoever, and shall forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred pounds, one-half thereof to his Majesty, and the other half to such person or persons that shall sue for the same by any action of debt, bill, plaint, or information, in any court of record whatsoever."—7 Will. III. ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... and longs for their power of flight; the tide has its ebb and its flow, and the sea-breezes blow whither they list: for her alone there is no power of motion, she must remain on earth. At last, touched by her plaint, the fisherman consents to return the feather suit, on condition that the fairy shall dance and play heavenly music for him. She consents, but must first obtain the feather suit, without which she cannot dance. The fisherman refuses to give it up, lest she should ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... who has many times heard the same plaint; and answers as one who has as often made ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... whole story. "Nonsense of Emily's!" he began. "Yes, it is nonsense,—worse than you think. But she doesn't want to go abroad." The father's plaint needn't be repeated to the reader as it was told to the baronet. Though it was necessary that he should explain himself, yet he tried to be reticent. Sir Alured listened in silence. He loved his cousin ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... arranged them, and began to strike their keys in unison; this seemed to him for the first time childish. Then he played some lively bars on the piano alone; they sounded too light and trivial, and he turned to the other instrument. As the plaint of the reeds arose, it filled his sense like a solemn organ-music, and transfigured the place; the notes swelled to the ample vault of a church, and at the high altar he was celebrating the mass in his sacerdotal robes. He suddenly caught his fingers away ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... nearer came the chunk of coal and the slouching little bear, a touch of caution in each pretended careless action. Awful and more awful grew Grimalkin's battle plaint—her eyes ...
— Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters • Henry Wallace Phillips
... "Make our plaint to the devil," said Catherine impatiently, "and accuse his dam at the foot of his burning throne!—The Queen still sleeps—we must gain time. The poisoning hag must not know her scheme has miscarried; the old envenomed spider has but too many ways of mending ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Forrest did was to whisk the half-drowsing infant out of her attendant's arms, clasp it frantically to her breast, and then go parading up and down the room weeping over the wondering little face, speedily bringing on a wailing accompaniment to her own mournful plaint. It was more than Miss ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... cannot help him, though his plaint Brings tears of wistfulness; Still must he grieve and mourn, forlorn and faint, None may his ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... In Olaf's hall Now sits in state on high; Whilst up in heaven Amidst the shriven Sits Olaf's majesty. For not in cell Does our hero dwell, But in realms of light for ever: As a ransom'd saint To heal our plaint, Be glory to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... these lovers eke. Whoso that will his large volume seek Called the Saintes' Legend of Cupid: There may he see the large woundes wide Of Lucrece, and of Babylon Thisbe; The sword of Dido for the false Enee; The tree of Phillis for her Demophon; The plaint of Diane, and of Hermion, Of Ariadne, and Hypsipile; The barren isle standing in the sea; The drown'd Leander for his fair Hero; The teares of Helene, and eke the woe Of Briseis, and Laodamia; The cruelty of thee, Queen ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... streaked with lines of froth, across the illumined circle thrown round the brig by the lights on her poop. Air bubbles sparkled, lines of darkness, ripples of glitter appeared, glided, went astern without a splash, without a trickle, without a plaint, without a break. The unchecked gentleness of the flow captured the eye by a subtle spell, fastened insidiously upon the mind a disturbing sense of the irretrievable. The ebbing of the sea athwart the lonely ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... old, old summer-house, where everything is like a dream of five hundred years ago,—and where there is a great shadowing of high woods, and a song of water leaping cold and clear from caverns, and always the plaint of flutes unseen, blown softly in the antique way,—a tone-caress of peace and sadness blending, just as the gold light glooms into blue over a ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... receives such devoted care is a pretty little creature in dull yellow, and the most persistent cry-baby I know in the bird-world, though several are not far behind him in this accomplishment. His plaint begins when he mounts the edge of the nest preparatory to his debut, and ceases hardly a minute for days, a long-drawn shuddering wail, that suggests nothing less than great suffering, starvation, or some other affliction hard to be borne. What makes the case still worse, the nursery is high, ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... misunderstood. The heart has lost— not something, but everything. The tones, however, do not always bear the impress of a quiet, melancholy resignation. More passionate impulses awaken, and the still plaint becomes a complaint against cruel fate. It seeks the conflict, and tries through force of will to burst the fetters of pain, or at least to alleviate it through absorption in a happy past. But in vain! The heart has not lost something—it has lost everything. The musical poem divides ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... promenading in the garden. The golden sickle of the moon shed dim rays over the landscape and made the towers and steeples of the town, standing out at some distance, appear like misty silhouettes. In the deep green of the bushes a nightingale pealed forth his liquid plaint into the balmy night air, while from the ballroom inside the tuning of violins mingled inharmoniously. From the town gusts of warm wind carried snatches of a martial song, ground out on the barrel-organ of a carrousel. All these noises rose in a confused mass into the still air, ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... Camille's improvisation; it seemed like the cry of a soul de profundis to God—from the depths of a grave! The heart of the young lover recognized the cry of despairing love, the prayer of a hidden plaint, the groan of repressed affliction. Camille had varied, modified, and lengthened the introduction to the cavatina: "Mercy for thee, mercy for me!" which is nearly the whole of the fourth act of "Robert le Diable." She now suddenly sang ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... once and never again. What a confession this is of personal partiality! A single instance will suffice to prove my point: Shakespeare makes Antony cast the blame for the flight at Actium on Cleopatra, and manages almost to hide the unmanly weakness of the plaint by its infinitely ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... hills or in the yard, or along the highway, and which seems to be expressive of a kind of unrest and vague longing,—the longing of the imprisoned Io for her lost identity. She sends her voice forth so that every god on Mount Olympus can hear her plaint. She makes this sound in the morning, especially in the spring, as she goes ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... that some ladies came to call, who were not at all the sort I was used to. They suffered from a grievance, so far as I could gather, and the burden of their plaint was Man—Men in general and Man in particular. (Though the words were but spoken, I could clearly discern the capital ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... year with me, Whate'er you bring us, plaint or jest, Or passion and wild revelry, Or, like a gentle wine-jar, rest; Howe'er men call your Massic juice, Its broaching claims a festal day; Come then; Corvinus bids produce A mellower wine, and I obey. Though steep'd in all Socratic lore He will not slight you; do not fear. ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... The plaint gave Wallie such a pang that he could not answer, but with a twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby to a person ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... to the use of the poor called Christ's Hospital within Newgate for the time being, and the other moiety thereof shall be to the use of him or them that will sue for the same in any Court of Record within same City by bill, original plaint, or information, to be commenced and sued in the name of the chamberlains of the said city for the time being, wherein none essoyne [exemption] or wages of law for the defendants shall ...
— Old St. Paul's Cathedral • William Benham
... thus the root of prosperity; but we must not fall into the easy fallacy which makes Smith deaf to the plaint of the poor. He urged the employer to have regard to the health and welfare of the worker, a regard which was the voice of reason and humanity. Where there was conflict between love of the status quo and a social good which Revolution alone could achieve, he did not, at ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... observe what was going forward. He shrieked out for mercy from every saint in the calendar, and entreated one or all of them to carry him on shore, even if it was but to the sandy coast of Africa. "Ah! misericordia, misericordia, misericordia!" was the burden of his plaint. ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... of plaint, Or the starling's courtship quaint, Heart made much of; 'twas a boon Won from silence, and too soon Wasted in the ample air: Building rooks far distant were. Scarce at all would speak the rills, And I saw the idle hills, In their amber hazes ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... pre-contracts in my time; but the good girls have not claimed upon them of a long while,] consanguinity, affinity, or any other lawful cause whatsoever, there be no lawful impediment on this behalf; and that there be not at this time any action, suit, plaint, quarrel, or demand, moved or depending before any judge ecclesiastical or temporal, for or concerning any marriage contracted by or with either of you; and that the said marriage be openly solemnized in the church above-mentioned, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... You hear my plaint, and ask me, why? You ask me when this deep distress Began to rage without redress? ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and night it lasted, nor two. For four days the uproar showed no sign of ever lessening, and on the fifth the eighteen hundred voices were so hoarse that the calves merely whispered their plaint, gave over in disgust and began nosing the scattered piles of hay. The cows, urged by hunger, strayed from the blackened circle around the corrals and went to burrowing in the snow for the ripened grass whereby they must live ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... it, and where my eye first falls—well, no, not Morrison's Pills—but here, sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: "TWO HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.—The above reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed yesterday in the neighbourhood of the Green Park. He was over six feet in height, with ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... went onward with no word or plaint, Clasping the child unto her bosom still, Unflagging when all else began to faint, Intent to save her little one from ill; And they look'd on her as she sped along, Wond'ring what made so frail ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... neigh, and lamb's meek plaint, The hum of bees, and vesper hymn of birds, The rural harmony of flocks and herds, The song of joy, or praise, and man's sweet words— Come to me fainter—yet more faint Was my poor soul to God's great works so dull. That they ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... through that ablutionary process known as washing their hands of her. Thus ideally mismated they tried to make the best of it—and failed. At least, Sam Pardee failed. Milly Pardee said, "Goodness knows I tried to be a good wife to him." The plaint of ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... exaggerated idea of the value of their services. It is difficult to get them to name a price at the beginning; and in the rare cases where a set sum is agreed upon, the final reckoning will invariably include certain extras or a plaint that "the job was different than you claimed and I don't do heavy work like that for nobody without I get extra pay and I was just working to accommodate—" and so forth. Usually you end by paying him and charging it off ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley
... nests; but the demeanor of the red-eyed, on such an occasion, is an exception to this rule. The parent birds move about softly amid the branches above, eying the intruder with a curious, innocent look, uttering, now and then, a subdued note or plaint, solicitous and watchful, but making no ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... of the Pen, Maker of sunshine for the minds of men, Lord of bright cheer and master of our hearts— What plaint is fit when such a friend departs? Not with mere ceremonial words of woe Come we to mourn—you would not have it so; But with our memories stored with joyous fun, Your constant largesse till your life was done, With quips, that flashed through frequent twists and bends, Caught from ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... reaching eaves. It sets the door creaking with a sound that startles the occupants. It passes on and forces its way through the dense, complaining forest trees. The opposition it receives intensifies its plaint, and it rushes angrily through the branches. Then, for awhile, all is still again. But the coming of that breath from the mountain top has made a difference in the outlook. Something strange has happened. One looks about and cannot tell what ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... and weeping in the barrio. Piang, their beloved charm boy was dead. A mournful tilick (death signal) was sounded on the tom-toms, and the wail soon gathered volume until the jungle and river seemed to take up the plaint. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... set out for Lyonnesse" A Thunderstorm in Town The Torn Letter Beyond the Last Lamp The Face at the Casement Lost Love "My spirit will not haunt the mound" "Wessex Heights In Death divided The Place on the Map Where the Picnic was The Schreckhorn A Singer asleep A Plaint to Man God's Funeral Spectres that grieve "Ah, are you digging on my grave?" Satires of Circumstance At Tea In Church By her Aunt's Grave In the Room of the Bride-elect At the Watering-place In the Cemetery Outside the Window In the Study At the Altar-rail In the Nuptial Chamber ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... she will work woman's service for me, but whom none else shall compel . . . Yea, but what is all this to thee; or to me that I should tell it to thee? I will not drive thee away; but if thine entertainment please thee not, make no plaint thereof to me, but depart at thy will. Now is this talk betwixt us overlong, since, as thou seest, I and this King's Son are in converse together. Art thou a ...
— The Wood Beyond the World • William Morris
... had died, leaving a heavy silence, and neither noticed. For of old Death young Life is ever heedless; ever the brazen fanfare of life's trumpets drowns the thin reed-plaint of death. In the passage their ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... did submit to have appeals made to the Commissioners, who have heard but one plaint made to them, which was that the Governor would not let a man enjoy a farm four miles square, which he had bought of an Indian. The complainant soon submitted to the Governor when he understood the unreasonableness ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... idea has a strength of its own that is not to be found in the most magnificent plaint, the most exquisite expression of sorrow. The vast, profound thought that brings with it nothing but sadness is energy burning its wings in the darkness to throw light on the walls of its prison; but the timidest thought of hope, or of cheerful ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... and went and came again, through the melody, until the last tones fell on that note and were held suspended in a tremulous plaint. ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... is the aged Priam's lament that he must needs kiss the hands that slew his dear son Hector, and, kneeling, clasp the knees of his son's murderer! How sad is Cuchulain's plaint that his son Connla must go down to the grave unavenged, since his own father slew him, all unwitting! One remembers, too, Beowulf's words: "Better it is for every man that he avenge his friend than ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... except the monotonous plaint of the screw, no sound was to be heard. A footstep came from the cabin, where Dave was at work, or appeared to be, for he had been stationed there for his part of the programme which was presently to ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... plaint of his sister which caused the Terror to say: "I've got a penny. We'll go ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... high;[60] Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage 120 With Amalek's ungracious progeny;[61] Or, how the royal Bard[62] did groaning lie Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint,[63] and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; 125 Or other holy Seers that tune the ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... lives—men who in a fortnight had fallen from a high plane of life to the pitiful level of brutes. Only here and there was an exception. This man, Crittenden, was one. When sane, he was gentle, uncomplaining, considerate. Delirious, there was never a plaint in his voice; never a word passed his lips that his own mother might not hear; and when his lips closed, an undaunted spirit ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... affectionate; then came, herself, As golden Venus or Diana fair, Forth from her chamber to her son's embrace, The chaste Penelope; with tears she threw Her arms around him, his bright-beaming eyes And forehead kiss'd, and with a murmur'd plaint Maternal, in wing'd accents thus began. 50 Thou hast return'd, light of my eyes! my son! My lov'd Telemachus! I had no hope To see thee more when once thou hadst embark'd For Pylus, privily, and with ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... of my plaint complaining, If she was a woman at all half discreet, Would shudder to think every day she is maiming Her stomach with trash, and such stuff ...
— Nothing to Eat • Horatio Alger [supposed]
... were no other, it is considered a sufficient answer to the German Chancellor's plaint that the United States "brusquely" broke off relations without giving "authentic" ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... know what he means so well," she ended helplessly. David's short fingers moved over the keys. A music wild and pagan rose up, filled the room with rhythms of free dancing creatures, sank to a minor plaint, and broke off on a harsh discord as ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... has learned that practical politics is a game that taxes all a man's technique in Christianity. Autocratic Hydro and Mackenzie the loosening octopus; New Ontario preaching up the old plaint of secession; better roads and prodigal Mr. Biggs; what to do with Education that Cody had not started to do; how to stave off commissions on reform of the school system; the constant queues of moral reformers; the new menace of the movies and the censorship ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... country, at the horizon of which were a few palms overshadowing dingy, sun-baked mud buildings, houses formed of the brick made of straw now as in the days when the taskmaster-beaten Israelitish bondmen put up such pitiful plaint. ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... transiently recorded by stray painted feathers. But the fright soon passes, and the magnificent fruit pigeon—green, golden-yellow, purplish-maroon, rich orange, bluish-grey, and greenish-yellow, are his predominant colours—resumes his love-plaint in bubbling bass. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," he says over and over again in unbirdlike tone, without emphasis or lilt. "Bub-loo, bub-loo maroo," a grievance, a remonstrance and a threat in one doleful phrase; but ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield |
