As he listened, this drone grew to a sudden squealing cry that rang and echoed from wall to wall, whiles Beltane, crouched in that place of horror, felt the sweat start out upon him, yet shivered as with deadly cold, and ever the cries thrilled within the dark or sank to whimpering moans and stifled supplications.

Cleaving the morning air with a soaring cry, Nor the nightingale's dulcet melody all the balmy night Not these alone Make the sweet sounds of summer; But the drone of beetle and bee, the murmurous hum of the fly And the chirp of the cricket hidden out of sight These help to make the summer.

The drone of bees, the chatter of jays, the hurry and stir of squirrels, is incessant; the air is odorous and hot.

But here, the Waggoner's voice tailed off into a meaningless drone that became merged with the creaking of the wheels, the plodding hoof-strokes of the horses, and Bellew fell asleep.

We had the musick of the bagpipe every day, at Armidale, Dunvegan, and Col. Dr. Johnson appeared fond of it, and used often to stand for some time with his ear close to the great drone.

But to sit idle on the household hearth, A burdenous drone; to visitants a gaze, Or pitied object.

&c (drone) 683 V. be useless &c adj.; go a begging &c (redundant) 641; fail &c 732. seek after impossibilities, strive after impossibilities; use vain efforts, labor in vain, roll the stone of Sisyphus, beat the air, lash the waves, battre l'eau avec un baton

[person who is inactive] idler, drone, droil^, dawdle, mopus^; do- little faineant [Fr.], dummy, sleeping partner; afternoon farmer; truant &c (runaway) 623; bummer^, loafer, goldbrick, goldbicker, lounger, lazzarone

I was nearly dropping off to sleep, from the heat and the monotonous drone of the putwarrie, who was intoning nasally some formidable document about fishery rights and privileges.

He could catch the drone of many voices.

Outside was the vague, indefinable night drone of a city asleep, unbroken by any sound that was distinguishable, until finally there came the distant boom of a clock.

I then better'd my Condition a little, and lived a whole Summer in the Shape of a Bee; but being tired with the painful and penurious Life I had undergone in my two last Transmigrations, I fell into the other Extream, and turned Drone.

Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats his throbbing drum.

Or southern Christmas, dark and dank with mist, And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch; One twilight, without rise or set of sun, Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats Hawk the pale moths of winter?

A wise man living like a drone, an old man not devout, Youth disobedient, rich men that are charity without, A shameless woman, vicious lords, a poor man proudly stout, Contentious Christians, pastors that their functions do neglect, A wicked king, no discipline, no laws men to direct, Are twelve the foulest faults that most commonwealths infect.

Again the lightning turn of the page, and then the hunters' horns were heard departing from the garden of love, receding, receding, until they subsided into a scarce-heard drone, out of which rose another air.

Only at the window itself, when the ticket-clerk, having made me repeat my demand, went to a distant part of his lair to get my ticket, did I detect behind me a wave of impatient and inimical interest in this drone who caused delay to busy people.

"The labouring bee, when his sharp sting is gone, Forgets his golden work, and turns a drone: Such is a satire, when you take away That rage, in which his noble vigour lay.

The tavern is the drone.

ye that count Your years by thousands, and your bosoms robe With all the pageantry of Autumn's gold, And lull your sleep of ages with the wild And murmurous drone of woodland waterfalls, And multitudinous song of windy groves!

Utter silence follows, save (as Mr. BEACH THOMAS would say) for the monotonous drone of the great shells bursting outside.

Octavia was in therethe dining-roomhelping to lay the cloth, as she had been rather clumsy, too, and been sent away, and her young man was as nice as mine; and we four had a superb time, as happy as children, but Tom was nothing but a drone, for he sat with Kitty in a window seat behind some curtains, and did not do a thing.

Pilgrims with great bundles on their backs stood staring vacantly at the walls or at the sea; monks in long grey cloaks, square hats, and long hair, passed in and out like bees about a hive, and from a distance came a musical drone, the chanting of church services.

Silence continued, broken only by the dull drone of one engine still running on board the ship, by the creaking of saddle-leather, the whinny of a barb.

On that day I heard its drone, and saw the geese bathing, and throwing up the bright sparkling drops with their wings, until they fell like fountains.