Shrill Quotes
More Shrill Quotes
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing, Or where the beetle winds His small but sullen horn, As oft he rises midst the twilight path, Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.
william collins— 1747 Odes on Several Descriptive and Allegoric Subjects,'Ode to Evening', l.9-14.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing Morn, The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed, The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
thomas gray— 1751Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.13-20.
I must be mad, or very tired, When the curve of a blue bay beyond a railroad track Is shrill and sweet to me like the sudden springing of a tune, And the sight of a white church above thin trees in a city square Amazes my eyes as though it were the Parthenon.
Amy Lowell— 1925 'Meeting-House Hill'.
The merry cuckoo, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.
Edmund Spenser— 1595 Amoretti, sonnet19.
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat,With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,Or where the beetle windsHis small but sullen horn,As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path,Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum.
william collins— line 9.
Some love to roam o’er the dark sea’s foam,Where the shrill winds whistle free.
charles mackay— "Some Love to Roam".
Old age is a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare trees above a snow glaze. Gaining and failing they are buffeted by a dark wind — But what? On harsh weedstalks the flock has rested — the snow is covered with broken seed husks and the wind tempered with a shrill piping of plenty.
william carlos williams— "To Awaken an Old Lady", originally publised in The Dial (August 1920)
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Percy Bysshe Shelley— St. 4. (To a Skylark (1821))
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife.
william shakespeare— William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act III, scene 3, line 349.
His voice no touch of harmony admits, Irregularly deep, and shrill by fits. The two extremes appear like man and wife Coupled together for the sake of strife.
Charles Churchill— Charles Churchill, The Rosciad (1761), line 1,003.
The merry cuckow, messenger of Spring, His trumpet shrill hath thrice already sounded.
Edmund Spenser— Edmund Spenser, Sonnet 19.
None but the lark so shrill and clear; Now at heaven's gate she claps her wings, The morn not waking till she sings.
john lyly— John Lyly, Alexander and Campaspe, Act V, scene 1.
O Love-star of the unbeloved March, When cold and shrill, Forth flows beneath a low, dim-lighted arch The wind that beats sharp crag and barren hill, And keeps unfilmed the lately torpid rill!
— Aubrey De Vere, Ode to the Daffodil.
Thou art a female, Katydid! I know it by the trill That quivers through thy piercing notes So petulant and shrill. I think there is a knot of you Beneath the hollow tree, A knot of spinster Katydids, Do Katydids drink tea?
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., To an Insect; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 415.
Some love to roam o'er the dark sea's foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.
charles mackay— Charles Mackay, Some Love to Roam.
Conscience avaunt, Richard's himself again: Hark! the shrill trumpet sounds, to horse, away, My soul's in arms, and eager for the fray.
— Act V, scene 3. Altered by Colley Cibber.
