"Chanting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear heart, Can be divided into two clear kinds,— One that, by virtue of a half-grown brain, Lives in a silly world of his own making, A bubble, blown by himself, in which he flits And dizzily bombinates, chanting 'I, I, I,' For there is nothing in the heavens above Or the earth, or hell beneath, but goes to swell His personal pronoun. Bring him some dreadful news His dearest friend is burned to death,—You'll see The monstrous insect strike ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... accordingly he produced his missal to read, without which aid it appeared that the holy father could not manage the desired prayer. But the crafty Mercurius had, by his devilish art, inserted a song in the place of the ave, so that Father Peter, instead of chanting an hymn, sang the following ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... this deep chanting struck on the ears of a little camp of Christianised half-breeds who were lumbering. They were breakfasting, but they rushed out cheerfully, quite prepared for the Second Advent. They stared at the shattered and twisted Vaterland driving before the gale, amazed beyond ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... of heaven," said Richard under his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters, and answered, in the swing of the caesura, "He might as well have ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Ramon could smell the good wine on the man's breath, and could see faintly the brightness of his eyes. The grip of the priest's hand was strong, moist and surprisingly cold. He began to talk in the low monotonous voice of one accustomed to much chanting, and this droning seemed to have some hypnotic quality. It seemed to lull Ramon's mind so that he could not think what he was going to say ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... over the hill and across the moorland to Strathavon, through which the Life Guards had marched but a few hours before in all their bravery. As their captain passed by the place where his prisoner of the morning, John King, was now lustily chanting a psalm of triumph, the reverend gentleman called out to him, with audacity worthy of Gabriel Kettledrummle, "to stay the afternoon sermon." At Strathavon the townspeople drew out to bar their passage, but the fear of their pursuers ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... in the chair. A howl of execration went up, and simultaneously the door was flung open. A double file of white-robed Druids came, chanting, into the room. ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... that followed, innumerable little familiar home-sounds came to Kate's ears; the crackling of a log in the fire, a negro voice out of doors calling "Soo-i, soo-i," to the pigs, Big Liza in the distant kitchen chanting a revival hymn while she washed the dishes. Her eyes in that one moment took in, as do the eyes of a drowning person, every detail of her surroundings; the sturdy masculine furniture covered incongruously with its wedding cretonne, the piano and books that had been a part of her childhood's ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... below them of the striking of oars in the water, and another sound of one or two men monotonously chanting a rude ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... my eyes and peer back into my obscure childish world I can see him sitting in his straight-backed cane-bottomed chair, drumming on the rungs with his fingers, keeping time to some inaudible tune—or chanting with faintly-moving lips the wondrous words of John or Daniel. He must have been at this time about seventy years of age, but he seemed to me as old as a ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... Psalm-chanting came the shaven monks, within the camp of dread; Amidst his warriors, Norman Rou stood taller by a head. Out spoke the Frank archbishop then, a priest devout and sage, "When peace and plenty wait thy word, what need of war ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... dressed, but hatless and still barefoot, he was racing over the vast dew-drenched lawn, leaving a trail of grey-green smudges on its silvered surface, chanting the opening lines of Shelley's ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... with Thockmorton, who clung to the wheel, carefully guiding his struggling boat through the night-draped waters. The skill with which he found passage through the enshrouding gloom, guided by signs invisible to my eyes, aided only by a fellow busily casting a lead line in the bows, and chanting the depth of water, was amazing. Seemingly every flitting shadow brought its message, every faint glimmer of starlight ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... he did not consider himself under any obligation "to repay what had been given to him." The other returned later, however, accompanied by several policemen, and Vaisoff's adherents then attacked the latter, while chanting religious hymns and proclaiming the greatness of their leader. They next barricaded themselves into the house, which was besieged by the police for some days, during which prayers issued from it towards heaven and stones towards the representatives ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... Vespers. The voice of the priest was answered by the deep peal of the organ and the chanting of the choir. The vast edifice was filled with harmony, in the pauses of which the ear seemed to catch the sound of the river of life as it flows out of the throne of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... lunatic, who goes about the city chanting, like a cuckoo, 'Put yourself in his place—put yourself in ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... came crowding into his mind. He could hear the sounding of matin invitatories; chimes telling a rosary of harmony over tortuous labyrinths of narrow streets, over cornet towers, over pepper-box pignons, over dentelated walls; the chimes chanting the canonical hours, prime and tierce, sexte and none, vespers and compline; celebrating the joy of a city with the tinkling laughter of the little bells, tolling its sorrow with the ponderous lamentation of the great ones. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... lost itself in the broken spaces of the London temple, dimmed rather than illumined by the electric blaze in the choir; a monotonous chanting filled the air as with a Rome of the worldliest period of the church, and the sense of something pagan that had arisen again in the Renaissance was, I perceived, the emotion that had long lain in wait for me. St. Paul's, like St. Peter's, testifies of the genius ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... midst of its exciting grandeur and all-pervading transport, executed at the Feast of Tabernacles, in the open area of the Temple, when the Jews were wont to pour upon the altar water taken from the pool of Siloam, chanting at the same time the twelfth chapter of Isaiah, and one division of the chorus had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... pieces, so fiercely did the crowd press upon him and throng him. But as I watched him in the thickest part of it, I saw that always, just at his last need, something seemed to favour him, and the crowd broke off and left room for him to struggle by. I could hear him chanting, as it were, to himself, when the crowd looked upon him the most fiercely, "I will not be afraid for ten thousands of the people that have set themselves against me round about." And even as he chanted the words, the crowd divided itself in ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce
... island are found white monkeys, the servants of the Princess, who still lives in the center of the mountain. On a quiet day high up on the mountain side one can hear the chanting and singing of the waiting-girls of ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... going off—balls whistling—one man groaning with a broken leg—another shouting because he couldn't find the way to his hole, and a third equally vociferous because he has tumbled into one—this man swearing—an other praying—a party of bacchanals chanting various ditties to different time and tune, or rather minus both. Here is one man grumbling because he has brought his wife with him, another ditto because he has left his behind, or sold her for an ounce of gold or a bottle of rum. Donnybrook Fair is not to be ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... with you all," said the good lady, covering her face with her handkerchief, for the tears started from their source in her noble soul on hearing this delightful hymn sung by the poor orphans, whose countenances looked like those of angels' while chanting it. "God forgive those," she said to herself, in a half-audible tone, "that would rob these poor children of that divine religion that teaches her children ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... undertaken by the Scuola di San Rocco. The funeral train is of ten or twenty facchini, wearing tunics of white, with caps and capes of red, and bearing the society's long, gilded candlesticks of wood with lighted tapers. Priests follow them chanting prayers, and then comes the bier,—with a gilt crown lying on the coffin, if the dead be a babe, to indicate the triumph of innocence. Formerly, hired mourners attended, and a candle, weighing a pound, was given to any one who chose to carry it ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... itself to sculpture; afterwards one of his daughters copied the figures, and the result of the mutual interest in the design was an order from Cooper for a group which in a few months Greenough executed in marble. It was exhibited in America under the title of "The Chanting Cherubs." It was Cooper's "Chanting Cherubs"—the first group of its kind from an American chisel —that led to Greenough's order for the statue of Washington, and inspired the pen of Richard Henry ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy paws, laughing the while like the dawn,—that's better than holding a candle at vespers, and chanting ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... have retired to lie with both eyes shut tight lest they see one of the guests, death-singers make their rounds, chanting ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... and was conducted to a pew. Here, as elsewhere in Europe, the young and the old of both sexes occupy the same seat together. One of the little boys of the family occupying the same pew with me, gave me a hymn-book. A part of the exercises consisted in chanting psalms. The eagle lectant and the Bible characters represented in the stained glass of the windows, soon enlisted my attention, but the meaning of having two birds perched upon a high stand in the middle of the church, I could not unfold, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... expressive. The head of the "Light of the World" is worthy in this respect to be placed beside Raphael and Da Vinci; and the "Ophelia" of Hughes, though inexcusably incorrect in the figure, has a refinement of drawing in the face, and especially in the lines of the open, chanting mouth, which no draughtsman of the French school can equal. It is where the idea guides the hand that the Pre-Raphaelites are triumphant; everywhere else they fail. But this is a fault which will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... they are also much afraid; but have an ideal that by chanting some particular words, and breathing hard, they can dispel it. Instances ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... booming of the thunder came echoing back to us from the hills. Above its roll sounded a barbaric chanting to which the drums of angry heaven formed a ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... the Sudbury men would do all honour to those who had fallen fighting beside them, for they made a great mound over Olaf's men, and Ailwin our priest was there with us to see that they had Christian burial with such solemnity as might be in those troubled days. There might be no chanting of choir or swinging of censer at that burying; but when the holy rites were ended Ottar the scald sang the deeds of those who were gone, while the mound was closed. And that would be what those valiant warriors loved ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... quietly. Everything was settled by that tearful and tender embrace, for, though Mrs Meg speedily detached her daughter, it was only to take her place; while Demi shook Nat's hand with brotherly warmth, and Josie danced round them like Macbeth's three witches in one, chanting in ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Stapleton if he got leave from a master. "But you said that Mr Merevale did not give you leave," said he. "Friend of my youth," I replied courteously, "you are perfectly correct. As always. Mr Merevale did not give me leave, but," I added suavely, "Mr Dacre did." And I came away, chanting hymns of triumph in a mellow baritone, and leaving him in a dead faint on the sofa. And the Bargee, who was present during the conflict, swiftly and silently vanished away, his morale considerably shattered. And that, my gentle Welch,' concluded Charteris ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... the meeting, who were vociferously chanting, by way of grace, previous to the attack on the "roast geese," the characteristic anthem of the "King of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... of virtue in America," he went on. "A crowd of painted women; faces green and lavender, moving like a procession of bizarre automatons and chanting in Chinese, 'We are pure. We are chaste and pure.' A parade of psychopathic barbarians dressed in bells, metals, animal skins, astrologer hats and Scandinavian ornaments. A combination of Burmese dancer and Babylonian priest. I ask for ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... so melting in the tones that they saddened as well as delighted. How the heart can melt out at the finger-points when touching the keys of a sweetly-toned instrument! It is thrown to the air, and in its plaint makes sweet music of its melancholy. Like harmonious spirits chanting in their invisibility, making vocal the very atmosphere, it died away as though going to a great distance, and stillness was in the whole house. He stole gently to the door. There seated was Alice; her elbow on her instrument, and her brow upon her hand. The bell rang for dinner. The ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... ward in one wide white grin before turning to the next syllable, "M—A—N." Once more the puzzled frown on the black face, once more the whispered hints from neighbouring beds, once more the triumph of perseverance, "M—A—N—MAN!" He was just enjoying his success and chanting his pidgin-French paean of happiness, "Y a bon! Y a bon!" when Soeur Antoinette paused by his bed. "Tres bien, Sidi," she said, "mais il faut les mettre ensemble," and with her white finger she guided his black one back ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... suggestibility. The more complex and solemn the ritual, the more archaic and universal the symbols it employs, so much the more powerful—for those natures able to yield to it—the suggestion becomes. Music, rhythmic chanting, symbolic gesture, the solemn periods of recited prayer, are all contributory to this, effect In churches of the Catholic type every object that meets the eye, every scent, every attitude that we are encouraged to assume, gives us a push in the same direction ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... group of that exiled troop Have here sung songs of home, Chanting aloud to a wondering crowd The glories of old Rome! Or lying at length have basked their strength Amid this heather and gorse, Or down by the well in the larch-grown dell Water'd ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... almost a rival to the Morte d'Arthur. It is of an early date, after Arthur Hallam's death, and Thackeray speaks of the poet chanting his ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... title of the Green Wolf, and donned a peculiar costume consisting of a long green mantle and a very tall green hat of a conical shape and without a brim. Thus arrayed he stalked solemnly at the head of the brothers, chanting the hymn of St. John, the crucifix and holy banner leading the way, to a place called Chouquet. Here the procession was met by the priest, precentors, and choir, who conducted the brotherhood to the parish church. After hearing ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... these two great shadows in the spacious night, Shadows folding America close between them, Close to the heart... And I know how my own lost youth grew up blessedly in their spirit, And how the morning song of the might bard Sent me out from my dreams to the living America, To the chanting seas, to the piney hills, down the railroad vistas, Out into the streets of Manhattan when the whistles blew at seven, Down to the mills of Pittsburgh and the rude faces of labor... And I know how the grave ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... vestments of J. Watson, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, and become simply Uncle James. This alone is a tonic. To-day as I ascended the steps of the temple there floated down to me the voices of the priestesses chanting, evidently in a kind of frenzy, and to the air of a famous ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 8, 1916 • Various
... mountainous clouds. The setting sun glared wildly from the summit of the hills, and sank like a burning ship at sea, wrecked in the tempest. Thus the evening set in; and winter stood at the gate wagging his white and shaggy beard, like an old harper, chanting an old rhyme:—"How cold it is! how cold ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... of write; but when I wake they have all vanished. Sometimes on an evening of late summer, when the winds are blowing softly through the roses and filling the air with odors almost unbearably sweet, it seems to me as if the sweet voices of lovers were chanting those lines, and that I have only to listen heedfully to have them for my own again. But it is all in vain that I try to remember them to any profit. A few phrases buzz in my own brains, but they are no more than phrases, such as I, or any man that was at all nimble in the spinning ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... the child to see that he came to no harm, and presently returned to report that Alfred had been met by a servant and gone away chanting a new verse of his poem, in which peacocks, donkeys, and "the flowers of ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... and weary and British, they sang cheerily. Packs a-swing, rifles on shoulder, they tramped through shell-torn waiting room and booking hall and out again into wind and wet, and I remember the burden of their chanting was: ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... courts of chancery vile but sacrosanct, Despoiling Shelley of his children; Southey, The turn-coat panegyrist of King George, An old, mad, blind, despised, dead king at last; A realm of rotten boroughs massed to stop The progress of democracy and chanting To God Almighty hymns for Waterloo, Which did not stop democracy, as they hoped. For England of to-day is freer—why? The revolution and the Emperor! They quench the revolution, send Napoleon To St. Helena—but the ashes soar Grown finer, grown invisible at last. And all ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation; that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced,—in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours,—but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... moonlight, attracted by the camp-fire, came the crater cattle to peer and challenge. They were rolling fat, though they rarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass taking its place. It was because of this dew that the tent made a welcome bedchamber, and we fell asleep to the chanting of hulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cowboys, in whose veins, no doubt, ran the blood of ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... prayers; But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, Before him still the old temptation came, And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his staff ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... said she, 'when these Venetians were rough men, chanting like our Huguenots, how cold ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... be gratified. In that hope I am content to drag on the brief remnant of my days. Meanwhile, I must not omit the stimulant. In a short time I may not require it." Draining the bottle to the last drop, he flung it from him, and commenced chanting, in a high key and cracked voice, a wild ditty, the words ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... scrambled up fearful paths to a spot so high that trees could not grow there. Caravans of the sick and dying were conveyed, God knows how, across ravines to drink the water; and maimed limbs recovered, and tumours melted away to the chanting of canticles. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... tape from the medicine-chest. One of the memories that comes to me from those days is of Crean singing at the tiller. He always sang while he was steering, and nobody ever discovered what the song was. It was devoid of tune and as monotonous as the chanting of a Buddhist monk at his prayers; yet somehow it was cheerful. In moments of inspiration Crean would attempt ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... voice of choral song Floats upon the breeze along, Chanting clear, in solemn lays,— "Man ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... The poet's chanting voice rose with a triumphant swell in the climax, and "There," he said, "isn't it so? The cellar and the well—they can't be thrown down or burnt up; they are the human monuments that last longest and defy decay." He rejoiced openly in the sympathy that recognized ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... old child game. The child would hop to the stone and kick it away and hop to it again until she missed, the object being to beat her opponent in the distance traveled. And I saw some exquisite little Japanese girls playing jump rope and chanting one of the numerous litanies that go with that ...
— Vignettes of San Francisco • Almira Bailey
... vast edifice, on which time had cast its dingy mantle, marked its furrows, and shed its chill humidity, its lichen, mosses, and rank herbs. The darkened dwelling was wrapped in silence, broken only by the bells, by the chanting of the offices heard through the windows of the church, by the call of the jackdaws nesting in the belfries. The region is a desert of stones, a solitude with a character of its own, an arid spot, which could only be inhabited by beings who had either attained to absolute ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... convenient intervals, each made a slight bow behind his screen, his head touching it. As they did this with the regularity of drilled soldiers, and to the pounding of a tom-tom, they evidently were chanting in chorus, although the ear would have failed to distinguish it. The tom-toms and wooden drums were beaten at the pleasure of the parties in charge: nothing like time was apparent to any but ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... tawdry perhaps, for the village is but poor and with the best heart in the world can only imitate the real splendours from afar. Then following the doyen (who, by the way, marched under a canopy like the roof of an old-fashioned four-post bedstead) came the male choir of the church, chanting a musical service, which harmonised indifferently with the strains of the military band in front. Then the big gun, drawn by the two big Flemish horses. Then Jacques, Jules, Andre, Francois, Chariot, ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... was gray, with a dying moon in the west, and the north ridge loomed like a low black shadow against the sky. There was a weird chanting voice in the night wind, pouring endlessly across the open plains. And everywhere an eyeless, voiceless, motionless land, whereon my pony's hoof-beats were big and booming. Nature made my eyes and ears for the trail life, and matched my soul to its ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... thunderous afternoon of summer;"—then across his chant ran the old man's shrill voice: "On an October day, packed close with heavy-lying mist, which was more than mere autumn-mist:"—the solemn stately chanting dropped, the shrill voice went on; Giles sank down again, and Hugh standing there, swaying to and fro to the measured ringing of his own shrill voice, his long beard moving with ...
— The World of Romance - being Contributions to The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine, 1856 • William Morris
... seat and began chanting one of the airs she was generally heard singing, and then, once more gliding down the centre of the cave, she took her departure unquestioned by any of the rebels. Again in the open air she quickly descended the mountain, dark as it was, and in spite of the roughness of ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... the meaning of his words, Madelon slid off the bed and prepared to obey. At that moment there came a tremendous knocking at the door of the room, and a voice half chanting, half shouting,— ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... seen the souls caged here, To learn celestial speech From angels chanting love so near ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... muttered certain conventional expressions, not over-nice either in their form or application. He then began to sing, performing a series of cantabile movements in the most ludicrous manner possible; sometimes chanting a Miserere or an Ave, then breaking into some wild northern ballad or roundelay of unintelligible import. It was in the midst of a cadence which he was terminating with great earnestness and effect that the first deep rumble, the result ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words. Mozart's twelfth mass: Gloria in that. Those old popes keen on music, on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting, regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... solitudes, Or drops with griding wing. The stilly woods Grow dark and deep and gloom mysteriously. Cool night winds creep, and whisper in mine ear, The homely cricket gossips at my feet, From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear, Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogs break sweet In full Pandean chorus. One by one Shine out the stars, and the great ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... frequently indulge a great degree of indolence at the expense of the women, who are compelled to sit in their canoe, exposed to the fervour of a mid-day sun, hour after hour, chanting their little song, and inviting the fish beneath them to take their bait; for without a sufficient quantity to make a meal for their tyrants, who are lying asleep at their ease, they would meet but a rude reception on their landing.—COLLINS' ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... lie prostrate there before the hills, like pilgrims come at last to their journey's end. The silence of the landscape was broken by the even rhythm of the strokes of the oar; it seemed to find a voice for the place, in monotonous cadences like the chanting of monks. The Marquis was surprised to find visitors to this usually lonely part of the lake; and as he mused, he watched the people seated in the boat, and recognized in the stern the elderly lady who had spoken so harshly to him ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... laughter swimming in thine eye, That told youth's heart-felt revelry; And motion changeful as the wing Of swallow waken'd by the spring; With accents blithe as voice of May, Chanting glad Nature's roundelay; Circled by joy like planet bright That smiles 'mid wreaths of dewy light, Thy image such, in former time, When thou, just entering on thy prime, And woman's sense in thee combined Gently with childhood's simplest mind, First ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... could not prevail, he sometimes resorted to force. The monks of one of the convents in Toledo, being ejected from their dwelling, in consequence of their pertinacious resistance, marched out in solemn procession, with the crucifix before them, chanting, at the same time, the psalm De exitu Israel, in token of their persecution. Isabella resorted to milder methods. She visited many of the nunneries in person, taking her needle or distaff with her, and endeavoring by her conversation ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... and from the graver evil of reproaches that are just. Ranke used to say that Church interests prevailed in politics until the Seven Years' War, and marked a phase of society that ended when the hosts of Brandenburg went into action at Leuthen, chanting their Lutheran hymns.[29] That bold proposition would be disputed even if applied to the present age. After Sir Robert Peel had broken up his party, the leaders who followed him declared that no-popery was the only basis on which it could be reconstructed.[30] ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... reverently on one knee to ask his blessing, said to his train, "They look for all the world like young angels! It is a shame and a sin that two such fair innocents should be compelled to join in aught ruder than the chanting of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... cleared the rivers of three counties (Staffordshire being one) of all the otters, and the number captured and killed in the last few years was mentioned. "Good otter-hounds," as an old writer observes, "will come chanting, and trail along by the river-side, and will beat every tree-root, every osier-bed, and tuft of bulrushes; nay, sometimes they will take the water and beat it like a spaniel, and by these means the otter can hardly escape you." ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... a crowd of town and country folk is being herded to the back of the terrace by the Ducal Guard, under Cesario. Within the Chapel, to the sound of an organ, boys' voices are chanting ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... their stealthy murmur of talk distilled a rare savour of illicit joy. Unholy hilarity, indeed, seemed lurking in the deep tree-shadow, before the wan Inn, whence from a single lighted window came forth the half-chanting sound of a man's voice reading out loud. Laughter ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that hundreds of years ago knew no other way to write its poems than with the chisel. The interior is very magnificent also, and has some splendid stained glass. At eight o'clock, the priests were chanting vespers to a larger congregation than many churches have on Sunday: their voices were rich and musical, and, joined with the organ notes, floated sweetly and impressively through the dim and vast interior. We sat near the great portal, and, looking down the long, arched nave and choir ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... owner of four hundred slaves, whom he endeavours to bring up in a religious manner. He tolerates no religion on his estate but that of the Church. He baptizes all the children, and teaches them the Catechism. All, without exception, attend the Church service, and the chanting is creditably performed by them, in the opinion of their owner. Ninety of them are communicants, marriages are celebrated according to the Church ritual, and the state of morals is satisfactory. Twenty infants had been baptized by the bishop ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... But it grows, it gains in power till its raucous din breaks upon the waiting multitude, and immediately a responsive murmur rises from ten thousand voices. Those who hear know the meaning of the discordant noise. The "med'cine" men of the tribe are approaching, chanting airs which accord with their "med'cine," and serve at the same time to herald the coming of the great Sioux chief, ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... a mighty hymn, A song of collisions and cries, Rumbling wheels, hoof-beats, bells, Welcomes, farewells, love-calls, final moans, Voices of joy, idiocy, warning, despair, The unknown appeals of brutes, The chanting of flowers, The screams of cut trees, The senseless babble of hens and wise men— A cluttered incoherency that says at the stars; "O God, ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... to the chapel, half the soldiers of the National Guard exclaimed, "Long live the King!" and the other half, "No; no King! Down with the veto!" and on that day at vespers the choristers preconcerted to use loud and threatening emphasis when chanting the words, "Deposuit potentes de sede," in the "Magnificat." Incensed at such an irreverent proceeding, the royalists in their turn thrice exclaimed, "Et reginam," after the "Domine salvum fac regem." The tumult during the whole time of divine ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... mountain passes The winds, like anthems, roll; They are chanting solemn masses, Singing, "Pray for this poor soul, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... somehow, with you; when twenty years are wasted, maybe," she answered sadly. "There's the first bell! I haven't a word yet of my rhetoric lesson," opening her book and chanting, "'Man, thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.' Are you going to Professor Simpson's class?" shutting it again. "I know the new dance"; and she began to execute it on the walk. The door of a house opposite us opened, and a tall youth came out, hat in hand. Without evincing surprise, he advanced ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... many throats, a tumult of exultant cries passing down towards the beach, whooping and howling, and excited shrieks that seemed to come to a stop near the water's edge. The riot rose and fell; I heard heavy blows and the splintering smash of wood, but it did not trouble me then. A discordant chanting began. ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... and it is a good place they had there, and a troop of young men, and great troops of horses and of greyhounds; and they had three sorts of music that comely kings liked to be listening to, the music of harps and of lutes, and the chanting of Trogain's son; and there were three great sounds, the tramping on the green, and the uproar of racing, and the lowing of cattle; and three other sounds, the grunting of good pigs with the fat thick on them, and ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... were lighted by attendant slaves. The stirring, shaken sistra wrought a miracle of sound that set the nerves all tingling as the high priest, followed by his boys with swinging censers and the members of the priestly college, four by four, came chanting down the temple steps. To an accompanying pleading, sobbing note of flutes the high priest laid an offering of fruit, milk, wine and honey in the midst of the heaped-up garlands (for Apollo was the god of all fertility as well as of healing and war and ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... already woven a great deal of her shining hair into a curious braid, so broad and intricate as to be almost a golden web. A strange fascination held Anthrops spell-bound; it was as if her song were weaving her web, and her fingers chanting her song, and as if both song and web were made of the wavering cloud that still shifted into endless dioramas. Once more ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... (group chanting), accompanied by the harmonium and hand-played Indian drums, was in progress on the second floor. Sri Yukteswar listened appreciatively; his musical ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... shopkeepers' wives (Paris women dare anything), ladies' maids, common women - in fact, a crowd of all classes, though by far the greater number were of the better dressed class - followed. Indeed, it was a splendid sight: the mob in front chanting the "MARSEILLAISE," the national war hymn, grave and powerful, sweetened by the night air - though night in these splendid streets was turned into day, every window was filled with lamps, dim torches ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... before the world was astir, a few of Colonel Lane's family met the chaplain in the private chapel, and there in low voices the morning prayers were read, and the responses breathed. There was no singing nor chanting; that would have been too much to dare. The men who had themselves suffered so much for holding secret conventicles, and preferring one style of prayer to another, now drove their fellow-countrymen into the very same acts, and imposed on them the ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... then abandoned by them, and then going down into the grave with no other attendance than that of Knowledge and Good Deeds. The pathos and sincerity of the little drama were shown finely and adequately by the simple cloths and bare boards of a Shakespearean stage, and by the solemn chanting of the actors and their serious, unspoilt simplicity in acting. Miss Wynne-Matthison in the part of Everyman acted with remarkable power and subtlety; she had the complete command of her voice, as so few actors or actresses have, and she was able to give vocal expression to every shade ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... late as the year 1878.[27] In modern days with equal knowledge of danger and defilement, tenderness and compassion temper the feeling of disgust, and prevail over it. Horror of uncleanliness was so great that the priests bathed and put on clean garments before making the sacred offerings or chanting the liturgies, and were accustomed to bind a slip of paper over their mouths lest their breath should pollute the offering. Numerous were the special festivals, observed simply for purification. Salt also was commonly used to sprinkle over the ground, and those who attended ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... rough at the rustic plough, Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough; The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush, Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush; The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill, Or deep-ton'd plovers grey, wild-whistling o'er the hill; Shall he—nurst in the peasant's lowly shed, To hardy ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... them composing the airs to which their verses were adapted. Every chief had his bard. The aged minstrel was in attendance on all important occasions: at birth, marriage and death; at succession, victory, and defeat. He stimulated the warriors in battle by chanting the glorious deeds of their ancestors; exhorted them to emulate those distinguished examples, and, if possible, shed a still greater lustre on the warlike reputation of the clan. These addresses were delivered with great vehemence of manner, and never failed to raise the feelings of the listeners ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... small deeds. All that he did she found ill done, and told him of it. His sober, godly garments of sombre hue afforded her the first weapon of scorn wherewith to wound him. A crow, she dubbed him; a canting, psalm-chanting hypocrite; a Scripture-monger, and every other contumelious epithet of like import that she should call to mind. ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... course in operatic Palestine. The insurrection is but begun with the slaying of Abimelech, yet as the Philistines, bearing away his body, leave the scene, it is only to make room for the Israelites, chanting of their victory. We expect a sonorous hymn of triumph, but the people of God have been chastened and awed by their quick deliverance, and their paean is in the solemn tone of temple psalmody, the first ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... treated him with a sumptuous banquet in the Vatican. The entertainment of Palaeologus was friendly and honorable; yet some difference was observed between the emperors of the East and West; [9] nor could the former be entitled to the rare privilege of chanting the gospel in the rank of a deacon. [10] In favor of his proselyte, Urban strove to rekindle the zeal of the French king and the other powers of the West; but he found them cold in the general cause, and active only in their domestic quarrels. The last hope of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Lucifer, Washed by the soft blue oceans of young air. It is a favoured place. Famine or Blight, Pestilence, War, and Earthquake, never light Upon its mountain-peaks; blind vultures, they Sail onward far upon their fatal way. The winged storms, chanting their thunder-psalm To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, From which its fields and woods ever renew Their green and golden immortality. And from the sea there rise, and from the sky There fall, clear exhalations, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... in one day in the Latin quarter, before the Government intervened. From Spain, Holland, Russia had come in other names. In Dusseldorf eighteen men and boys, surprised at their singing of Prime in the church of Saint Laurence, had been cast down one by one into the city-sewer, each chanting as he vanished: ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... a dugout, driven by half-a-dozen paddles in the hands of lusty natives, came racing down stream. As the canoe drew abreast of us, the paddlers chanting a barbaric chorus, there was a sudden swirl in the water and the object which I had taken for a log abruptly dropped ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... to one side of the main formation, and his eye caught the gleam of silver horns, the rise and fall of a drummer's arm, the fierce beating of a director with a baton. It was the ship's musicians. The band was playing, the men were chanting the battle hymn of the empire; out of the heart of the foundering cruiser, out of the souls of the passing warriors rose triumphantly, "Die ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... of creative power, had attempted to rival the celestial splendors of the one above us. There was no sound of drum or fife or bugle; the sweet notes of the 'good-night' call had floated into space and silence a half hour before; only on the still air were heard the voices of a hand of negroes chanting solemnly and slowly, to a familiar sacred tune, the words of some ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... reels, the damsels once more mazed, the blossoms shaking from their brows; till Hautia, glided near; arms lustrous as rainbows: chanting some wild invocation. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... gasped, "they'll be chanting me next! Good-bye! I'm off!" And she darted back to the company of her ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... the distance a bird called sleepily from one of the fortress turrets and was answered by some creature Kennon couldn't identify. A murmur of blended sound came from the valley below, punctuated by high-pitched laughter. Someone was singing, or perhaps chanting would be a better description. The melody was strange and the words unrecognizable. The thin whine of an atomotor in the fortress's generating plant slowly built up to a keening undertone that blended into the pattern ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... sea talk poetry and legend as it does round those dark rocks of old "Dundagel." I thought as I leaned out from my balcony, a lonely, unappreciated Juliet—that the sound was like the chanting voice of an ancient bard, telling stories of the golden days to himself or to all who might care to listen. I fancied ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Day! The birth of the young year is ushered in by no remarkable signs of festivity. More ringing of bells, more chanting of mass, gayer dresses amongst the peasants in the streets, and more carriages passing along, and the ladies within rather more dressed than apparently they usually are, when they do not intend to pay visits. In passing through ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... squinted. A blue blouse, as long as a shirt, hung down to his knees, and his yellow hair, which was scanty and plastered down on his head, gave his face a worn-out, dirty look, a dilapidated look that was frightful. He had been nicknamed "the cure" because he could imitate to perfection the chanting in church, and even the sound of the serpent. This talent attracted to his cafe—for he was a saloon keeper at Criquetot—a great many customers who preferred the "mass at Cornu" to ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... sitting, and is evidently a building of much older date. It is a mere shell now. It is quite roofless, ivy covers it in part; the stone tracery of the great western window is yet intact, but the coloured glass is gone with the splendid vestments of the abbot, the fuming incense, the chanting choirs, and the patient, sad-eyed monks, who muttered Aves, shrived guilt, and illuminated missals. Time was when this place breathed actual benedictions, and was a home of active peace. At present it is visited only by the stranger, and delights but the antiquary. The village people have ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... of a musical storm came the subdued voices of the choristers from the closed vestry. The door was gradually opened, and the music swelled out into the church. The crucifer, a beautiful lad, attired in a blood-red cassock and a white, lace-trimmed cotta, entered. Behind him, chanting, came a long train of choir-boys, followed by two acolytes who swung by chains of brass censers from which rose clouds of fragrant smoke. Two priests brought up the rear; one, the celebrant of the Holy Communion, was magnificently ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... handful of mould from the churchyard saying, "Sis mortuus mundo—Dead be thou to the world, but living anew to God," and turfs from the churchyard were laid on the roof of the hut. Thus in his grey gown and hood was Waldo committed alive to his grave, and the brethren, chanting a requiem, returned ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... was obliged to get out of my carriage into the open air. But my anguish continued to increase until it became actual physical pain. Soon I seemed to hear the strains of a solemn chorale floating in the air; the sounds continued to grow more distinct; I realized the fact that they were men's voices chanting a church chorale. "What's that? what's that?" I cried, a burning stab darting as it were through my breast. "Don't you see?" replied the coachman, who was driving along beside me, "why don't you see? they're burying somebody up yonder in yon churchyard." And indeed we were near the churchyard; ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... their calling, and lightening their labors with song, the burden of which, "Guadiana, Guadiana," fell often on the ear, while the sun-beams bleached the linen spread out on the banks of the stream, and tanned the faces of the industrious choir chanting its praise. ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Penitentes order, which is peculiar by reason of the self-flagellations inflicted by its members in excess of pietistic zeal. Unlike their ilk of India, they do not practice self-torture for long periods, but only upon a certain day in each year. Then, stripped to the waist, these poor zealots go chanting a dolorous strain, and beating themselves unsparingly upon the back with the sharp-spined cactus, or soap-weed, until they are a revolting sight to look upon. Often they sink from the exhaustion of long-sustained suffering and loss of blood. One of the ceremonies among these peculiar people is ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... rose, and died away in the distance. We moved on once more. Then sounded the rattling clang of iron bars—but it came from behind us. The bell had ceased to ring; but as we moved slowly on I heard the voice of the padre chanting in a low and solemn key. Then utter silence fell, except the unshod footfall of my bearers and a murmur as of night-winds in the trees. Suddenly an owl hooted overhead, ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... received extreme unction. The chanting choir had gone. The priest had closed his pale fingers upon the crucifix, when he desired to be ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... or so later, as I stood one morning basking in the sun at that gate of the palace gardens which overlooks the temple of Ptah, idly watching the procession of priests passing through its courts and chanting as they went (for because of the many sicknesses at this time I left the palace but rarely), I saw a tall figure approaching me draped against the morning cold. The man drew near, and addressing me over the head of the guard, asked if he could see the ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... Porthos, "if I am not mistaken, we are going to have a representation now, for I think I heard something like chanting." ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... labor and craft, and of Wealth in the pot and the garner; Chanting of valor and fame, and the man who can, fall with the foremost, Fighting for children and wife, and the field which his father bequeathed him, Sweetly and solemnly sang she, and planned ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... for a joke,' said he. Then he suddenly began to sing the 'Vespers,' beating time on the palm of his left hand with his cards. When his gaiety reached a climax, and he could find no adequate means of expressing it, he always took to chanting the 'Vespers,' which he repeated for hours at a time. La Teuse, who well knew his habits, cried out to him, amidst the bellowing with which he ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... chanting his psalm. Gerda followed Kay. As she dropped from the hedge onto the path she turned round once and met Barry's eyes, her own wide and grave, and she was thinking "I can bear anything if he is behind me and sees it happen. I couldn't ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... stake, traversed by a horizontal piece, ten or twelve inches from the point, on which the ploughman might set his foot and force it into the ground. Six or eight strong men were attached by ropes to the stake, and dragged it forcibly along, —pulling together, and keeping time as they moved by chanting their national songs, in which they were accompanied by the women who followed in their-train, to break up the sods with their rakes. The mellow soil offered slight resistance; and the laborer., by ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... had been chanting the service and the responses, set off in a sort of duetto, enumerating the advantages ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... finale of the B flat minor Sonata. In the middle section (in C sharp minor) of the following number (in D flat major), one of the larger pieces, rises before one's mind the cloistered court of the monastery of Valdemosa, and a procession of monks chanting lugubrious prayers, and carrying in the dark hours of night their departed brother to his last resting-place. It reminds one of the words of George Sand, that the monastery was to Chopin full of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... Gregory, at the head of a penitential procession, saw hovering over the mausoleum of Hadrian the figure of the archangel Michael, who was just sheathing a flaming sword, while three angels were heard chanting the Regina Coeli. The legend continues that the Pope immediately broke forth into hallelujahs for this sign that the plague was stayed, and, as it shortly afterward became less severe, a chapel was built at the summit of the mausoleum and dedicated to St. Michael; still ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... be a golden, mellow land, with purple hazes over the bluffs, in a normal fall," assured Kate. "Even now if the sun were just to shine out for a day and a good 'chinook' blow you'd see a surprising change. I feel like chanting continually that old rhyme I learned in the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... passages of the Scripture in his "funeral voice," which was entirely different from his "marriage voice" and his "Sunday voice." It had deep cadences in it and chanting inflections, not unlike the negro preachers or the ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland |
