Sweet are the little brooks that run
O'er pebbles glancing in the sun.
Singing in soothing tones. [ Hood ]

What is glory? what is fame?
The echo of a long-lost name;
A breath, an idle hour's brief talk;
The shadow of an arrant naught;
A flower that blossoms for a day.
Dying next morrow;
A stream that hurries on its way.
Singing of sorrow. [ Motherwell ]

Dashing in big drops on the narrow pane,
And making mournful music for the mind,
While plays his interlude the wizzard wind,
I hear the singing of the frequent rain. [ William H. Burleigh ]

The singing man keeps his shop in his throat. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

So work the honey-bees;
Creatures, that by a rule in nature teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage they, with merry march, bring home.
To the tent royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-ey'd justice, with his surly hum.
Delivering over to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone. [ William Shakespeare ]

And otherwhyles with amorous delights
And pleasing toyes he would her entertaine.
Now singing sweetly to surprise her sprights,
Now making layes of love and lover's paine,
Bransles, ballads, virelayes, and verses vaine!
Oft purposes, oft riddles, he devys'd;
And thousands like which flowed in his braine,
With which he fed her fancy, and entys'd
To take to his new love, and leave her old despys'd. [ Spenser ]

You are always singing the same tune, (i.e. harping on one theme). [ Ter ]

Home should be an oratorio of the memory, singing to all our after life melodies and harmonies of old-remembered joy. [ Henry Ward Beecher ]

Music was a thing of the soul; a rose-lipped shell that murmured of the eternal sea; a strange bird singing the songs of another shore. [ J. G. Holland ]

What a pity flowers can utter no sound! A singing rose, a whispering violet, a murmuring honeysuckle - oh, what a rare and exquisite miracle would these be! [ Beecher ]

Do not fancy, as too many do, that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to Him in church once a week, and disobeying Him all the week long. He asks of thee works as well as words; and more. He asks of thee works first and words after. [ Charles Kingsley ]

Every modulated sound is not a song, and every voice that executes a beautiful air does not sing. Singing should enchant. But to produce this effect there must be a quality of soul and voice which is by no means common even with great singers. [ Joubert ]