Hue and cry

“ Like a dew-drop from heaven in the ocean of life,
From the morn's rosy diadem falling,
A stranger as yet to the storms and the strife,
Dear babe, of thy earthly calling!
Thine eyes have unclosed on this valley of tears;
Hark! that cry is the herald of anguish and woe;
Thy young spirit finds a deep voice for its fears,
Prophetic of all that is passing below. ”

“ Grey hounds of the wind, I hear your wistful cry,
The cry of unsatisfied hearts hungry for happiness
The house is full of whispering ghosts as you hurry by,
And my soul is heavy and dark with a great distress,
For heaven is far away, and hope is dead;
And the night is a tomb of tears, and despair, and dread.
O hunt no more wild hounds of the wind and rain,
For my soul is afraid of the sound of your hurrying feet,
And surely under the stars a beautiful joy is slain?
Fly! black wings of sorrow... ”

“ But when the soul is deeply wounded the very fairness and serenity of lovely scenery jars upon it, and the cry is akin to one bereaved who has lost its all here, and feels the day garish and the sunshine a mockery. ”

“ Suddenly in the darkness and stillness of night, an awful unearthly shriek will ring out through the galleries—a cry that will make the strongest man tremble. Never in his life elsewhere has he heard anything so heart-rending and blood-curdling. He speaks of it as the cry of a soul awake in its anguish, though the weary body may be in the torpor of sleep. ”

“ Often, when I cry At some vague beauty that has caught my eye, You laugh! You cannot dream the dreams I find, In forest places where dim pathways wind Up to the Heaven-land so far and high. I know that I should never learn to care, And yet, sometimes the blueness of your eyes Can make me half forget the smiling skies.... And, when I see the sunlight on your hair, I do not stop to reason, dear, for oh— My heart throbs faster, and I know—I know! ”

“ Vague, gesturing shapes, that loom like moonlit mists,
Their faces human but with animal forms,
Rise thick around and threaten to destroy.
No cry, no word, no whisper should there come,
Weeping, a wandering shadow like the girl
You love, or loved, now lost to you, her eyes
Hollow with tears; all palely beckoning
With beautiful arms, or censuring; her face
Sad with a desolate love ”

“ Here upon this earth—the ashes of centuries rolled into a sphere, worked into shape and form from vapour by convulsion—the cry of one dreaming in a sorrowful dream—I say, it is a disgrace that the sigh should cease only when the breast which gives it utterance is resolved into its elements, and that the tear should cease to flow only when the eye is closed in death. ”

“ But there came a day of terror, when a cry too sharp and long
Tore through the streets of the city, through the soft, sweet song.
She bade her singers be silent—silent they stood in awe;
She raised the gold from the window; she looked down and saw.
(She leaned and looked on the highway,
She looked down and saw.)
She saw men driven like cattle, she heard the woman's cry,
She saw the white-faced children toil, and the weaklings die. ”

“ Sometimes the lids droop and nearly veil the eyes, the brow contracts, and tears roll slowly down the cheeks: at times again she grows pale, her face wears an expression of the greatest terror, while she starts up with a suppressed cry. ”

“ And while I stood thus rooted to the ground, the sweat standing in large drops on my forehead, all at once close to me sounded a cry, fine and clear at first, and rising at the end to a shriek so loud, piercing, and unearthly in character that the blood seemed to freeze in my veins, and a despairing cry to heaven escaped my lips ”

“ A cry of tears goes up from blackened homesteads, A cry of blood goes up from reeking earth: Tears and blood have a cry that pierces Heaven Through all its Hallelujah swells of mirth; God hears their cry, and though He tarry, yet He doth not forget. [177] Mournful Mother, prone in dust weeping, Who shall comfort thee for those who are not? As thou didst, men do to thee; and heap the measure, And heat the furnace sevenfold hot: As thou once, now these to thee--who pitieth thee From sea to sea? ”

“ Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain. ”

“ Now it chanced once upon the break of day that he heard a cry so terrible that one would have called it a demon’s cry; nor had he ever heard a brute bellow in such wise, so awful and strange it seemed. ”

“ The cry came now most piercing from parched human lips, for the sun, blazing above their heads, poured down sheeted fire upon them, and the now almost herbless earth was like an oven beneath their feet. ”

“ There is no cry,—only a bowing down of your mother's head upon the body of poor dead Charlie!—and only when you see her form shake and quiver with the deep, smothered sobs, your crying bursts forth loud and strong. ”

“ They utter the same cry when one quarter of the day has elapsed, at midday, again when three quarters of the day are over, and, last of all, at sunset; each time repeating the cry in shrill quavering tones, the effect of which is not unpleasing, and the sound can be heard at a distance that would astonish you. ”

“ That revolted cry Is sobbed in by a woman’s voice forlorn,— Thy woman’s hair, my sister! all unshorn, Floats back dishevelled, strength in agony, Disproving thy man’s name: And while before The world thou burnest in a poet-fire, We see thy woman’s heart beat evermore Through the large flame. ”

“ Lo, how contrasted the effect of a similar cause of grief at different stages of life! Chase the first day-dreams of our youth, and we cry, "Action—Strife!" In that cry, unconsciously to ourselves, Hope speaks, and proffers worlds of emotion not yet exhausted. ”

“ Heard in some starlit cañon, the passing of a Poor-will in full cry is an indescribable experience, producing feelings somewhere between pleasure and fear,—pleasure in the delightful melancholy of the notes heard in the dim distance, but something akin to terror at the near approach and thrilling climax of the portentous sounds. ”

“ Remembrance of delight in the feel and smell of the first orange we ever see; of sorrow which makes us put up our lip, and cry hard, when one morning we run out to try and catch the dewdrops, and they melt and wet our little fingers; of almighty and despairing sorrow when we are lost behind the kraals, and cannot see the house anywhere. ”

“ And the head let a great pitiful cry of pain.
“So,” said the Prince of the Stones, “did the poor virgins cry out when thou madest them pass from life unto death; sixteen times hast thou brought death about, sixteen times shalt thou die, besides the death thou hast suffered already. The cry is the cry of the body when the soul leaves it; sixteen times hast thou drawn this cry from other bodies, sixteen times shall cry out thine own; sing, Miserable, to call the virgins to the reckoning.” ”

“ Appalling as the cry “Fire!” is at all times and to all men, it roused in this man at this time something beyond anything my girlish soul had ever imagined of terror or dismay. So intense were the feelings I saw aroused in him that I expected to see him rush into the open air with loud cries for help. But instead of that, he pushed the door to behind me, and locking me in, said, in a strange and hoarsened tone? ”

“ And we scarce know the sad reason why;
But we feel the hot tears that come trickling,
As our lonely hearts yearningly cry.
Cold and pulseless the hands we are touching,
Still and lifeless the cheek that we press ”

“ With a chorus of loud lamentations, With its dreary and hopeless refrain! 'Tis the cry of all tongues and all nations, That suffer and shudder in vain. Evil Spirits (singing) : 'Tis the cry of all tongues and all nations; Our song shall chime in with their strain; Lost spirits blend their wild exultations With the sighing of mortals in pain. Orion (sings) : With just light enough to see sorrows In this world, and terrors beyond, 'Twixt the day's bitter pangs and the morrow's Dread doubts, to despair and despond, Man lingers through toils unavailing For blessings that baffle his grasp ”

“ If he cry during some emotional part of his discourse, let it not be an old-fashioned cry, with big hands or coat sleeve sopping up the tears, but let there be just two elegant tears, one from each eye, rolling down parallel into a pocket-handkerchief richly embroidered by the sewing society, and inscribed with the names of all the young ladies' Bible class. ”

“ For some moments there had been outlined within me the tragic shape of the cry which at last came forth. It was a sort of madness of sincerity and simplicity which seized me.
And I, unveiling my life to her, though it slid away by the side of hers, all my life, with its failings and its coarseness. I let her see me in my desires, in my hungers, in my entrails. ”

“ Elizabeth Robins has let us hear a great cry out of the depths—an actual human cry.
True, many snug, comfortable people, shaken for a moment out of their apathy, dismiss it all carelessly, even contemptuously. Many who are gripped to the heart as they read brush away the tears with a sign of relief and say, “Well, it’s only a story.” ”

“ He listened to the cries: like the squeak of mice behind the wainscot: a shrill twofold note. But the notes were long and shrill and whirring, unlike the cry of vermin, falling a third or a fourth and trilled as the flying beaks clove the air. Their cry was shrill and clear and fine and falling like threads of silken light unwound from whirring spools. ”

“ Heaven be praised, no one had heard her cry that ignominious cry, stop pain, stop! She had not obviously taken leave of her senses. No one had seen her step off her strip of board into the waters of annihilation. ”

“ Like "Epochs," it is a cycle of poems, and the verse has caught the very trick of music,—alluring, baffling, and evasive. This time we have the landscape of the night, the glamour of moon and stars,—pictures half real and half unreal, mystic imaginings, fancies, dreams, and the enchantment of "faerie," and throughout the unanswered cry, the eternal "Wherefore" of destiny. Dawn ends the song with a fine clear note, the return of day, night's misty phantoms rolled away, and the world itself, again green, sparkling and breathing freshness. ”

“ Thus did the child cry through the mouth of the man, seeking vengeance upon the father; and because of the intensity of the passion and because of the conditions under which it developed and because of the nature of the buried complexes to which the cry made such a profound appeal, one fourth of the human race, and that the unchangeable one, has not been merely influenced but utterly remoulded. ”

“ You know, without my telling you, how sometimes A word or name eludes you, and you seek it Through running ghosts of shadow,—leaping at it, Lying in wait for it to spring upon it, Spreading faint snares for it of sense or sound: Until, of a sudden, as if in a phantom forest, You hear it, see it flash among the branches, And scarcely knowing how, suddenly have it— Well, it was so I followed down this music, Glimpsing a face in darkness, hearing a cry, Remembering days forgotten, moods exhausted, Corners in sunlight, puddles reflecting stars—; ”

“ What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts to-night, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more. ”

“ Within her narrow cell oppressed with dread, Bare of adornment and with grief-bowed head Lamenting, many a tear her sad eyes shed, She weeps with anguish in the gloomy night. For tears my burden seem to lighten best, Could I but weep my heart's blood, I might rest. My spirit bows with mighty grief oppressed, I utter forth my prayer within the night. Youth's charm has like a fleeting shadow gone, With eagle wings the hours of life have flown. ”

“ O, how her eyes and tears did lend and borrow!
Her eyes seen in the tears, tears in her eye;
Both crystals, where they view'd each other's sorrow,
Sorrow that friendly sighs sought still to dry;
But like a stormy day, now wind, now rain,
Sighs dry her cheeks, tears make them wet again.
Variable passions throng her constant woe,
As striving who should best become her grief;
All entertain'd, each passion labours so,
That every present sorrow seemeth chief,
But none is best: then join they all together,
Like many clouds consulting for foul weather. ”

“ Then in the night, a night of sad alarms, Bitter with pain and black with fog of fears, That drove us trembling to each other's arms— Across the gulf of darkness and salt tears, Into life's calm the wind of sorrow came, And fanned the fire of love to clearest flame. ”

“ A wailing or unusual cry heard at night, where no one is known to be, or can be, is an indication that at that place some one will break into lamentation for the death of a friend, of which he will there first receive intimation, or will have otherwise cause to cry. The voice heard is not that of the “fetch” of the man, who is to be killed or drowned, but that of some mourner—a wife, or sister, or near relation. ”

“ I suppose a cry does us all good at times—clears the air as other rain does. ”

“ In those wrecks of faces, glowed or flashed or sparkled eyes of every colour, shape, and expression. The beautiful, proud eye, dark and lustrous, condescending to whatever it rested upon, was the more terrible; the lovely, languishing eye, the more repulsive; while the dim, sad eyes, less at variance with their setting, were sad exceedingly, and drew the heart in spite of the horror out of which they gazed. ”

“ It is as though the tears were drops of blood congealed beneath the eyelids; nothing else is like those tears. After a long time we are weak with crying, and lie silent, and by chance we knock against the wood that stops the broken pane. It falls. Upon our hot stiff face a sweet breath of wind blows. We raise our head, and with our swollen eyes look out at the beautiful still world, and the sweet night-wind blows in upon us, holy and gentle, like a loving breath from the lips of God. Over us a deep peace comes, a calm, still joy ”