"Trill" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... once slept now they seemed wide-awake. Keen eyes saw every moving thing, from the bees in the bluebells to the slow fishing-boats far out at sea; sharp ears that were cocked like a collie's heard every chirp and trill and rustle, and a nose that understood everything was holding up every vagrant breeze and searching it for its message. For the cubs were coming out for the first time to play in the big world, and no wild mother ever lets that happen without ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... aisle was heard a solitary tread, As of one musing sadly on the dead— 'Twas Julio; it was his wont to be Often alone within the sanctuary; But now, not so—another: it was she! Kneeling in all her beauty, like a saint Before a crucifix; but sad and faint The tone of her devotion, as the trill Of ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... her hardened face— She had not wept for years; But the robin's trill, as some sounds will, Jarred open the door of tears. She thought of the old home far away; She heard the whr-r-r of the mill; She heard the turtle's wild, sweet call, And the wail of ...
— The Kingdom of Love - and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... all speeches are brisk.... A rattling conversation is in progress about a well-known songstress. The people are lauding her as divine, immortal.... Oh, how finely she had executed her last trill that evening! ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... Nehushta rarely left her own part of the palace until the evening. But when the sun was low, she loved to linger among the roses in the garden, till the bright shield of the moon was high in the east, or till the faint stars burned in their full splendour, and the nightingales began to call and trill their melancholy song from end to end of the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... she assented, "let me have it"; and with a voice that reflected, to this young man's ears, at least, at one moment the rippling of silver brooks, the trill of woodbirds, the sigh of zephyrs scented with daffodils, and the next the full, round resonance of an animated day in ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... wild bird, called again with a mellow, warbling trill, and then struck up the quaint old madrigal with the bird's song running through it. Carew leaped to his feet, with a flash in his dark eyes. "My soul! my soul!" he exclaimed in an excited undertone. "It is not—nay, it cannot be—why, ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... Trill-ll! It was not a cheer, but a subdued, breathless gasp that rose from the two camps of fans as the opposing lines rushed at each other. Dick could not help a slight groan, for Adams, of Cobber, reached the pigskin first. But Adams kicked ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... and unsuitable places, creating the inevitable commotion which the blunder and tactless are born to make. As it whisks aimlessly around, it may hit the clergyman's nose in the most pathetic sentence of his sermon, or drop into the soprano's mouth at the supreme climax of her trill. Satan himself could scarcely produce a more complete absence of devotion than is often ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... That trill of tiny song with which the eaves-birds of London welcome the approach of day found him limp and rumpled and bloodshot, and with a mind still vacant of resource. He rose and looked forth unrejoicingly on blinded windows, an empty street, and the grey daylight dotted ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... which had fallen there crept also those minors that seemed to belong rather to an exaggerated quiet than to sound: the trill of a bird, voicing an overflow of joy and the humming of bees among the vines of the church yard, where slanting headstones bore quaintly archaic names and life dates of sailors home from the sea. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... of silks and a hum of voices, and now and then a silvery laugh would ring out above these like the trill of a bird in a breezy grove. Later, light airy music floated through the rooms, followed by the rhythmic cadence of feet. A thinly clad shivering little match-girl stopped on her weary tramp to her cellar and caught ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... eaves of the house. Great bronze butterflies fluttered in the sunshine, brilliant humming-birds plunged deep into the long trumpet-flowers; from the topmost bough of a locust, heavy with bloom, came the liquid trill of a mock-bird. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... enough. The bride rides a mare, led by one of Shaheen's brothers, and as we pass the fountain, the people pour water under the mare's feet as a libation, and Handumeh throws down a few little copper coins to the children. The women in the company set up the zilagheet, a high piercing trill of the voice, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. When we reach the house of Shaheen, he keeps out of sight, not even offering to help his bride dismount from her horse. That would never do. He will stay among the men, and she ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... shining down on a world of light and beauty; green verdant slopes and wide sweeps of meadowland glistening still with the early dew; flowers blossoming everywhere, from the modest daisy and golden buttercup to the queenliest rose and fairest lily; birds singing from every bush and tree their morning trill of flute-like melody; bees humming busily hither and thither; butterflies flitting idly by or resting snugly in the heart of a flower; in short, the world of nature all awake and joying with a pure, glad joy in ...
— Aunt Judith - The Story of a Loving Life • Grace Beaumont
... the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange-flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea. The lark, his lay who trill'd all day, Sits hush'd his partner nigh; Breeze, bird, and flower confess the hour, But where is ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... first spreads her sable wings, All earthly things to darken, The woodland choir grows mute and still, To thy sweet trill to hearken; Though 'gainst thy breast there lies a thorn, And thou woeworn art bleeding, Yet, till the bright day dawns again, Thou ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... a peacock had but the nightingale's trill It would make all prima donnas feel ill. If the nightingale had but the peacock's tail It would merit a headline in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... what the act was like. Suddenly the first piping notes of a canary bird's song were heard, rising so clear and lifelike that even the boys themselves were deluded at first into thinking that they were listening to an actual bird. The canary song ended with a sustained trill, and then, soft and melodious, came the limpid notes of the mocking bird's song. By this time the audience had comprehended that this was in reality a clever human imitation of bird notes, ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... produced by it is soft and low, plaintive and melancholy, resembling in general features Chinese music, with its ever recurring and prolonged trill, its sudden rises and falls, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... rising surpass other trees, And twinkle as moved by the scarce mountain breeze, And the wild oleander in rose-colour'd bloom, With trill of the linnet, and shrubs ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... a beldame now, Time-trenched on cheek and brow, Whom I once heard as a maid From Keinton Mandeville Of matchless scope and skill Sing, with smile and swell and trill, "Should he upbraid!" ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... Approach, Smiles, and be introduced to Thespis. His charge is three shillings. At the price of three shillings behold, Smiles, the golden age returned! Comedy carted home through leafy ways shall trill her woodnotes—her native ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Jess and Jill can trill and sing With a flute-like voice, Dance as light as bird on wing, Laugh for careless joys: Yet it's I ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... music, and the beautiful bel canto singing; do nothing to strain your voice; preserve its velvety quality.' Patti's voice went to C sharp, in later years; mine has several tones higher. In the great aria in Lucia, she used to substitute a trill at the end instead of the top notes; but she said to me—'Luisa, you ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... 'phial' and 'vial'; 'pother' and 'bother'; 'bursar' and 'purser'; 'thrice' and 'trice'{110}; 'shatter' and 'scatter'; 'chattel' and 'cattle'; 'chant' and 'cant'; 'zealous' and 'jealous'; 'channel' and 'kennel'; 'wise' and 'guise'; 'quay' and 'key'; 'thrill', 'trill' and 'drill';—or in the consonants in the middle of the word, as between 'cancer' and 'canker'; 'nipple' and 'nibble'; 'tittle' and 'title'; 'price' and 'prize'; 'consort' and 'concert';—or there is a change in both, as ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to the earth, stone dead!" While she did speak, The hunter breathless fell to earth, stone dead, As falls a tree-trunk blasted by the bolt. That ravisher destroyed, the lotus-eyed Fared forward, threading still the fearful wood, Lonely and dim, with trill of jhillikas[22] Resounding, and fierce noise of many beasts Laired in its shade, lions and leopards, deer, Close-hiding tigers, sullen bisons, wolves, And shaggy bears. Also the glades of it Were filled with ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... disengaged and alone, revolved with the utmost displeasure her present situation. "How happy," cried she, "are the virgins of the vale! To them every hour is winged with tranquility and pleasure. They laugh at sorrow; they trill the wild, unfettered lay, or wander, chearful and happy, with the faithful swain beneath the woodland shade. They fear no coming mischief; they know not the very meaning of an enemy. Innocent themselves, they apprehend not guilt ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... still whistling herself back to familiar things as she ran lightly up the stairs; had warmed to a long final trill as she stood in the doorway. The girl looked up in amazement. She had been sitting there, elbows on her knees, face in her hands. It was hard to see what might have been seen in her face because at that moment the chief thing seen was astonishment. Katie slipped down among ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon that age could not overcome he ran and jumped to ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... lights twinkled among the barren trees. All in that wilderness seemed asleep save himself. The myriad insects that sing through the spring and summer months had not yet found their voices; there was no trill of frogs, not even the hooting of an owl,—no sound ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... a trill of a laugh,—it was so evident that he had been going to say "carriage." "Thank you, with the greatest of pleasure. Indeed, it is rather a relief to me, for they generally keep me waiting. And ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... attend, and hear a friend Trill forth harmonious ditty; Strange things I'll tell, which late befell In ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... Hues, colors. Ca'lyx, the outer covering of a flower. 4. Ho-ri'zon, the line where the sky and earth seem to meet. 5. War'ble, a trill of the voice. Spears, shoots ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... in the direction of Upton Wood, thoroughly enjoying their walk. Occasionally, they stopped to gather a few wild flowers, or listen to the joyous trill of a bird. They were at the edge of the wood, when Grace suddenly put up ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... read her eyes widened to lakes of limpid brown. Then they crinkled at the corners, and her laugh rose from the mid-tone contralto, to a high, bird-like trill of joyousness. The infection of it tugged at the young man's throat, but he successfully preserved his mask ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... still and hot and the cheep and trill of the gophers, and the chatter of the kingbirds alone broke the silence. A cloud of butterflies were fluttering about a pool near, a couple of big flies buzzed ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... chain of echoing phrases runs a gamut of moods, fitful, anxious, soothed, until the bright upward trip begins anew, with the enchanting burst of chord and descending harmonies. A climactic height is stressed by a rough meeting of opposing groups, in hostile tone and movement, ending in a trill of flutes and ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... beating her fan restlessly on the empty air, and breathing rapid and audible breath. And now, at this last word of Israel, though so sadly spoken, and so solemn in its note of suffering, she broke into a trill of laughter, and said lightly, "Ah! I thought your love of the poor was young. Not yet cut its teeth, poor thing! A babe in swaddling clothes, eh? When ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... her statue-like pose as long as the young man's footsteps resounded on the stony paths; but when they died gradually away in the distance, when nothing could be heard save the monotonous trill of the grasshoppers basking in the sun, she threw herself down on the green heap of rubbish; she covered her face with her hands and gave way to a passionate outburst of tears ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... This was a common ancient practice; the very words "thrall," "thralldom," are etymologically connected with the roots "thrill," "trill," "drill," (Compare Exod. xxi. 6; Deut. xv. 17; Plut. Cic. 26; ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... paradox. What I mean is this, in our 'Women's Hotel,' We'll have no such thing as the 'Curfew Bell,' And no fixed hour for the cry, 'Out lights!' We will give free way to true 'Woman's Rights,' Which are to thump, strum, tap, twirl, trill, From morn till night at her own sweet will. That's why we cherish, despite male spleen, Typewriter, Piano, and Sewing-Machine! The 'woodpecker tapping' is, indeed, not in it With Emancipate Woman—no, not for a minute! Our Hotel will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... 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
... put his arm upon the broad, handsome, young shoulder. "But you'll try to be a good boy, won't you—" he repeated. "Just try hard to be a good boy, Tom—that's all any of us can do," and turning away he whistled into the house and a girlish trill answered him. ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... I said; "but I have never forgotten your voice, nor a lovely song you sang which I have never heard since, called 'Happy Birdling of the Forest.' And your trill! Just like the ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... is an old silver trill copied from the bubbling spring. [He imitates in grotesque fashion the singing ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... Bill for this pension (unreceived) New medall, where, in little, there is Mrs. Steward's face Not thinking them safe men to receive such a gratuity Only because she sees it is the fashion (She likes it) Prince's being trepanned, which was in doing just as we passed Proud that she shall come to trill Receive the applications of people, and hath presents Seems she hath had long melancholy upon her Sermon upon Original Sin, neither understood by himself Sick of it and of him for it The world do not grow old at all Then home, and merry with my wife Though ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Diary of Samuel Pepys • David Widger
... performance by one of their number. Once it was a deep musical whistle, much like the too-loo-loo of the blue jay (who is the crow's cousin, for all his bright colors), but deeper and fuller, and without the trill that always marks the blue jay's whistle. Once, in some big woods in Maine, it was a hoarse bark, utterly unlike a bird call, which made me slip heavy shells into my gun and creep forward, expecting some strange beast that I had ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... heretofore, saintly Madame Etalage had, it was said later, much to do with the unhappy taking-off of that ostentatious and haughty lady. It had Mlle. Affettuoso, songstress, with, it is true, an occasional break in her trill; and, last, but not least, that general friend of mankind, more puissant, powerful and necessary than all the nightingales, butterflies, or men of letters—who, nevertheless, are well enough in their places!—Tortier, ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the terrace was a favourite one with each of us. In the mysterious morning twilight there seemed something supernaturally sentient in the atmosphere, as though it quivered in expectation of the dawn. A soft trill, faint with rapture, filtered through the foliage of the neighbouring wood. It was a solitary nightingale calling his mate; and presently he was answered by flute-like notes which soared above the soft murmur of a viol still strumming in the villa as a skylark cuts the mists. It was not ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... in an insect otherwise allied to the Neuroptera. This structure, as Dr. Dawson observes, if rightly interpreted by Mr. Scudder, introduces us to the sounds of the Devonian woods, bringing before our imagination the trill and hum of insect life that enlivened the solitudes of ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... native ballads Mr. Cameron, on his part, had a good stock of Scottish songs, and would trill them out in a fine baritone voice, the audience joining with enthusiasm in the choruses of such favorites as "Bonny Dundee," "Charlie is my Darling," and ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... for I saw her there, and she looked so blithe and young; (Not white and still, as I saw her last) and the rose that she wore was red; And her voice soared up in a bird-like trill, at the end of the song she sung, And she mimicked a soldier's warlike stride, and tossed back her ...
— Poems of Optimism • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... silver pike and salmon leap. The rising moon, o'er isle and dune, looks laughing down on lake and lea; Weird o'er the waters shrills the loon; the high stars twinkle in the sea. From bank and hill the whippowil sends piping forth his flute-like notes, And clear and shrill the answers trill from leafy isles and silver throats. The twinkling light on cape and height; the hum of voices on the shores; The merry laughter on the night; the dip and plash of frolic oars,— These tell the tale. On hill and dale the cities pour their gay and fair; Along the sapphire lake ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... play Or sleep delighted in her Monarch's breast, Feeling her nothingness her giddiest boast, As being the charm for which he loved her most? What if this reed, Through which the King thought love-tunes to have blown, Should shriek, "Indeed, I am too base to trill so blest a tone!" Would not the King allege Defaulted consummation of the marriage-pledge, And hie the Gipsy to her native hedge?' 'O, too much joy; O, touch of airy fire; O, turmoil of content; O, unperturb'd desire, From ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... from the edge of the sheep-pasture floated a shrill, kite-like trill. A child tending cattle had picked it up from a brother or sister on the far side of the slope ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... In the inland fanning districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter Day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the bluebird, or the faint trill of the song sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle, or an ellipse ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... Teddy asked regretfully. They went into the pushing and crowding of the streets; heard the shrill trill of the crossing policeman's whistle again; caught a glimpse of Broadway's lights, fanning lower and higher, and as the big signs ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... one corner. Her cheeks were flushed, and a defiant curl was on her lips, and then without a moment's hesitation she seated herself and sang "The Last Rose of Summer." She had sung it many, many times before, and every trill and exquisite quiver of its wondrous pathos was as familiar to her as the music of the brook where she had played in childhood. I am not certain but some of that brook's sweet melody came as an inspiration ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... fingers lifted high from the stops), I began playing "Money Musk," and "Old Dan Tucker." Oh, I put vim into it, I can tell you! And bad as my playing was, I had from the start an absorption of attention from my audience that Paderewski himself might have envied. I wound up with a lively trill in the high notes and took my whistle from my lips with a hearty laugh, for the whole thing had been downright good fun, the playing itself, the make-believe which went with it, the surprise and interest in the children's faces, the ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... But as spring began to stir his blood he changed a little; he grew somewhat belligerent, refused to let any one alight in his chosen places, and even drove others away from his side of the room. Now, too, he added to his already melting song an indescribable trill, something so spiritual, so charged with the wildness of the woods, that no words—even of a poet—can do it justice. Now, too, he began to turn longing glances out of the window, and evidently his heart was no longer with us. So, on the first perfect day in May he was taken to ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... the warm incense of the pines. It was hot weather, and insects vexed the ear with an unwearied trill. But the heat of despair was greater in the girl than any such assault. Her cheeks had each a deep red spot. Her eyes were dark with feeling, and on the long black lashes hung fringing drops. She walked lightly, with springing strides. Beyond the pine woods, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... the text, "Thou, God, seest me."' When wasn't I tempted to do wrong? and I had for a long time the uncomfortable feeling that two great eyes were always staring at me. But this isn't sleigh-riding chit-chat," and she broke into a merry little trill from a ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Each in your voice perfection seem,— Rare, rich, melodious. We might deem Some angel wandered from its sphere, So sweet your notes strike on the ear. In song or ballad, still we find Some beauties new to charm the mind. Trill on, sweet sisters from a golden shore; Emma and Anna, sing for us once more; Raise high your voices blending in accord: So shall your fame be widely ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the swift trill of rifle-cracks rang out on the soft evening silence. As swiftly as they could press finger on trigger, the three comrades emptied their magazines completely into the fringe of forest three hundred yards away. This storm of tiny, whirling slips ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... to room in the bright September sunshine—now sitting down to the piano to trill out a ballad, or the first page of an Italian bravura, or running with rapid fingers through a brilliant waltz—now hovering about a stand of hot-house flowers, doing amateur gardening with a pair of fairy-like, ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... I was but about half awake in the morning, that those robin-songs sounded the most distinctly, and I seemed to hear every note and trill ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... Song's excess, Sings the blackbird late and early: Nor the bobolink's trill the less Laughs for very happiness, Gurgling ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... this morning. This is Miss Melville, whom I went to meet. She is going to marry Richard very soon." Marion did not, Ellen noticed with exasperation, make any adequate response to this generous little trill of greeting. The best she seemed able to do was to speak slowly, as if to disclaim ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... always indulged himself, however, in one shot at a mark, and was becoming sure in his aim at stationary objects. One evening, however, when we were almost ready to retire, a strange sound startled us. At first it reminded me of the half-whining bark of a young dog, but the deep, guttural trill that followed convinced me that it was a screech-owl, for I remembered having heard these ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... along to the well-known tunes—"That Wellington was a greater man than Napoleon," "That Shakespeare was a greater poet than Homer," "That women's rights are not desirable," "That the execution of Charles the First was unjustifiable," etcetera, etcetera. But when, six months ago, Trill, of the Sixth, the old secretary, left Grandcourt, and Wake, at the solicitation of the prefects (who lacked the energy to undertake the work themselves), consented to act as secretary, the society entered upon a new career. The new ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... Muse, Did wisely one sweet instrument to choose— The native reed; which, tutored with rare skill, Brought other Muses[1] down to aid its trill! A cheerful song that sometimes quaintly masked The fancy, as the affections sweetly tasked; And won from England's proud and foreign[2] court, For native England's tongue, a sweet report— And sympathy—till ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... pathos there! It's just one trill of laughter and merriment, a sunbeam and effect. Play ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... districts, I used to notice her, on some bright morning about Easter-day, proclaiming her arrival with much variety of motion and attitude, from the peak of the barn or hay-shed. As yet, you may have heard only the plaintive, homesick note of the Bluebird, or the faint trill of the Song-Sparrow; and Phoebe's clear, vivacious assurance of her veritable bodily presence among us again is welcomed by all ears. At agreeable intervals in her lay she describes a circle or an ellipse in the air, ostensibly prospecting for insects, but really, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... harp, nor longer leave it Sighing on the willow tree; Pass thy gentle fingers o'er it, And awake its melody; The streams tho' icy chains may bind them, Still will murmur back thy trill, And the roses wild, though blasted, On ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... be werie, Then to be merie, To laugh and sing they be free With chip and cherie Heigh derie derie, Trill on the berie, ...
— Roister Doister - Written, probably also represented, before 1553. Carefully - edited from the unique copy, now at Eton College • Nicholas Udall
... his azure plumes, the thrush clad all in brown, the robin jerking his spasmodic throat, the oriole drifting like a flake of fire, the jolly bobolink and his happy mate, the mocking-bird imitating the notes of all, the red-bird with his one sweet trill, and the busy little wren, are all making the trees in our front yard ring with ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... nod from Ledscha confirmed this conjecture, and she added hesitatingly: "'Only far from the haunts of men,' he said, 'when the light had vanished, did we hear the nightingale trill in the dark thickets. Those are his own words, and though it angers ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... half-past three, a song-sparrow above our heads gave one liquid trill, so inexpressibly sudden and delicious, that it seemed to set to music every atom of freshness and fragrance that Nature held; then the spell was broken, and the whole shore and lake were vocal with song. Joining in this jubilee of morning, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... thou, MUNATIUS, whether Fate ordain The Camp thy home, with glancing javelins bright; Or if the graces of that fair domain, Umbrageous Tivoli, thy steps invite; If trumpets sound the clang that Warriors love, Or round thee trill the choirings of the grove, In flowing bowls drown every vain regret, Enjoy the PRESENT, and the ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... absurdities. To punish this daring, the Jinkomba brought a man masked like a white, with beard and whiskers, who is supposed to strike the stranger with awe: it was all in vain, I had learned to trill the R as roundly as themselves, and they presently left me as a "perdido," ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... but even more with nervousness. This was a bad preparation for the coming interview, and with an irritation born of despair she pressed the bell-button to such good purpose that she could hear footsteps approaching, almost before the trill of the ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... moon poured its full splendor upon the quiet city. Through the haze the convent on La Popa sparkled like an enchanted castle, with a pavement of soft moonbeams leading up to its doors. The trill of a distant nightingale rippled the scented air; and from the llanos were borne on the warm land breeze low feral sounds, broken now and then by the plaintive piping of a lonely toucan. The cocoa palms throughout the city stirred ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... thrilling adventure into the forest, which had ended with his carrying her in his arms, she had gone to the piano and had played for him. Now her fingers touched softly the same notes. A little humming trill came in her throat, and it seemed to David that she was deliberately recalling his thoughts to the things that had happened before the coming of St. Pierre. He had not lighted the lamp over the piano, and for a flash her dark eyes ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... three little notes of the same quality as before and then a little trill, and the whole accompanied by a smile so sweet that I suddenly began to wish the doctor had been blown off the top of the moon. It was a wicked thought and I put it away from me as quickly as possible, being assisted by the recollection that the doctor had a charming wife already, ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... A sudden trill sounded down the street behind her. Turning her head, Grace saw Arline Thayer bearing down upon her. "I thought I'd never make you hear me," panted the little girl. "Ruth is going home with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... simple ditty all about the Willow, Dainty-fine and delicate as any bending spray That dandles high the happy bird that flutters there to trill a Tremulously tender song ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... loud vent to the laughter which I had been holding in when, just behind me, as if from some person who had been watching the scene over my shoulder and was as much amused as myself at its termination, sounded a clear trill of merry laughter. I started up and looked hastily around, but no living creature was there. The mass of loose foliage I stared into was agitated, as if from a body having just pushed through it. In a moment the leaves and fronds were motionless again; still, I could not be sure ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... in visiting from everywhere— The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, Their sweet liquidity diluted some By dewy orchard spaces they ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... like a shell; The muffled tramp of the Museum guard Once more went by me; I beheld again Lamps vainly brighten the dispeopled street; Again I longed for the returning morn, The awaking traffic, the bestirring birds, The consentaneous trill of tiny song That weaves round monumental cornices A passing charm of beauty: most of all, For your light foot I wearied, and your knock That was the glad reveille of my day. Lo, now, when to your task ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... The trill of an electric signal, followed by a clanging bell, brought them both to a pause, and they stood only two or three yards apart. Presently a light flashed through the thickening dusk; there was roaring, ...
— Eve's Ransom • George Gissing
... paused again. And at that moment the red thrush gave a little low trill, as much as to say: "Listen to me now." Then he twittered and chirped in a tentative way as if he had not made up his mind about singing, and the party on the terrace felt ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton
... beautiful universe—a rapture of love awakened by a morning in spring, by the blue infinity of the sky, by the eternal loneliness and sublimity of the sea. Or, in some moment of susceptibility, the smiles of dear home faces, the tender trill of a voice, a surge of solemn music, may have power over the young heart to change its entire future. And again, it is some vivid experience of temptation and suffering that shapes the great hereafter. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... A low trill came from the throat of Carolyn June. The two horses stopped feeding and looked around toward the gate. The bird-like call was repeated. The Ramblin' Kid was astonished to see Captain Jack and the outlaw mare move eagerly in the direction from whence the sound had come. He heard Carolyn ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... complain, in piteous strain, Grief-laden, tear-evoking, shrill; Ah woe is me! woe! woe! Dirge-like it sounds; mine own death-trill I pour, yet breathing vital air. Hear, hill-crowned Apia, hear my prayer! Full well, O land, My voice barbaric thou canst understand; While oft with rendings I assail My byssine vesture and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune. As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so I had my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest. My days were not days {158} of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity, nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock; for I lived like the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... unknown Mystery toward which her life was drifting was embodied in this infinite silence. So sleep would not come to her until dawn. Then the stir of the wind in the trees, the bleat of sheep, the trill of ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... sounds which suggest other birds and beasts, but only by association of idea; separated from title or text they suggest merely what they are—musical phrases. A reiteration of the rhythmical figure called the "Scotch snap," breaking gradually into a trill, is the common symbol of the nightingale's song, but it is not a copy of that song; three or four tones descending chromatically are given as the cat's mew, but they are made to be such only by placing the syllables ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could not be an insect. It was worth while to look and make sure ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... bower, beside a crystal spring,[27] Where opening flowers, refreshing odours fling, Cheerful he sits, and forms the banquet scene, In regal splendour on the crowded green; And as around he greets his valiant bands, Showers golden presents from his bounteous hands;[28] Voluptuous damsels trill the sportive lay, Whose sparkling glances beam celestial day; Fill'd with delight the heroes closer join, And quaff till midnight cups of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... laugh trilled high with a note of silver, above the chatter of the crowd and the blare and rhythmic trill of the orchestra. "I've had an ice-cream, and I'm going to have a new doll and a doll-carriage," said she. "Oh, Ellen!" She left her father and mother for a second and clung to Ellen, kissing ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... and attitudinised before that glass, and, honestly, that was just exactly what I looked! I took hold of my dress, and it bagged! I put my fingers inside my belt, and the whole hand slipped through! My face of rapture made Vere laugh with almost the old trill. ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... little sorry! But the morning was perfect and the air clear as crystal, and she was going to New York, and fame and fortune were to be hers for the working. Jane Lavinia's spirits rose and bubbled over in a little trill of song. Then she stopped in dismay. She had forgotten her watch—her mother's little gold watch; she had left it ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... so lovely and fragrant that in my admiration for them I almost forgot my pain. The sun went down, but no house appeared in sight. Over the western heavens flamed the brilliant hues of the afterglow, and from the long grass came the sad, monotonous trill of some night insect. Troops of hooded gulls flew by me on their way from their feeding grounds to the water, uttering their long, hoarse, laughter-like cries. How buoyant and happy they seemed, flying with their stomachs full to their rest; while I, dismounted and supperless, dragged painfully ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... streams the frogs all day and night Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, From the pale-weeded shallows trill and trill, Tremulous sweet voices, flute-like, answering One to another ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... way would I also sing, My dear little hillside neighbor! A tender carol of peace to bring To the sunburnt fields of labor, Is better than making a loud ado. Trill on, amid clover and yarrow: There's a heart-beat echoing you, And blessing you, ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... the ship-fever?" said Potts, in a low voice which sent a sharp trill through every fibre of Brandon's being. He ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... the day, how tender the tone of every voice. The road under the moon was white and from a persimmon tree in an old field came the trill of a mockingbird. Two happy men were riding toward an ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... against the stone breast of the image, and the darkling eyes seemed to keep watch over its slumbers. The lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector, and during the day it would sit from time to time on some rainshoot or other abutment and trill forth its sweetest music in grateful thanks for its nightly shelter. And, it may have been the work of wind and weather, or some other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. Every day, through ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... a clear, sharp, chirruping trill, and Abel and Tregelly darted into the light as if urged forward by the same spring, while Dallas stood for the moment petrified—unable to stir. For from the upright logs close to which he stood a great hand seemed to dart out, holding him fast, while simultaneously ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrilling in her bowels: a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous to her. She caught her hand to her flank. And Ciccio was looking up for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... effort Gretchen passed from one note to another, now high, now low, or strong or soft; a trill, a run. The violinist, of his own accord, began the jewel song from Faust. Gretchen did not know the words, but she carried the melody without mishap. And then, I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls. This song she knew ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... flute, The melancholy lute, Were night-owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo - Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo - Were ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... Willard, with solicitous helpfulness. The girl broke into a little trill of mirth, too liquid for laughter; being rather the sound of a brooklet chuckling musically ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the more people of the right sort know a secret, the better it will be kept." Gwen had to release her lips from two paternal fingers to say this. She followed it up by using them—she was near enough—to run a trill of kisslets across ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... the delicious trill of her mirth rang in his ears. "I should imagine that to be the ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the line. It was all red with lights; long streaks of red, the reflection of the lighted windows, stretched over the dark sea. The captain of the ship was giving a ball. The gay music floated across to me in snatches at long intervals. I recall in particular the trill of a little flute in the midst of the deep blare of the trumpets; it seemed to flit, like a butterfly, about my boat. I bade the man row to the ship; twice he took me round it. ... I caught glimpses at the windows ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... to speak—or was that speech? Certainly the flow of sound had little in common with the clicking tongue Ross had caught earlier. This trill of notes possessed the rise and fall of a chant or song which could have been a formula of greeting—or a warning. And the lines of warriors escorting the chanter stood to attention, ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... do not retire—not just yet. Instead, on a pretext, any pretext, I knock out the ashes from my old pipe, fill it afresh, and wait. I wait patiently, because, inevitable as Fate, inevitable as that call from out the dark void of the sky, I know there will come a trill of the telephone on the desk at my elbow; my own Polly—whose name happens to be Mary—is watching as I take down the receiver ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... would bow at nights or noons That chanced to find him bent to lute a measure, When he made you speak his heart As in dream, Without book or music-chart, On some theme Elusive as a jack-o'-lanthorn's gleam, And the psalm of duty shelved for trill of pleasure. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... of roses in a still As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, As th' almighty balm of th' early East, Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. And on her neck her skin such lustre sets, They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets: Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' brow ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... blackened the slow dawn. Then, without a word, they ran across the road, and, in a few minutes, were lost in the thick underbrush of the little forest. It was past four o'clock and the dawn began to trill over the rim of night; the east burst into stinging sun rays, while the moving air awoke the birds and sent scurrying around the smooth green park a cloud of golden ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... boughs I sat and listened still, I could not have my fill. 'How comes,' I said, 'such music to his bill? Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill.' ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer |
