“You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?”
Kahlil Gibran
“A skylark wounded in the wing, / A cherubim does cease to sing.”
William Blake
“LYRE, n. An ancient instrument of torture. The word is now used in a figurative sense to denote the poetic faculty, as in the following fiery lines of our great poet, Ella Wheeler Wilcox:I sit astride Parnassus with my lyre, And pick with care the disobedient wire. That stupid shepherd lolling on his crook With deaf attention scarcely deigns to look. I bide my time, and it shall come at length, When, with a Titan's energy and strength, I'll grab a fistful of the strings, and O, The word shall suffer when I let them go! --Farquharson Harris”
Ambrose Bierce
“A superb tenor voice, like a silver trumpet muffled in silk.”
Alec Guinness
“Muffle your rage. Get smart instead of muscular.”
Roy Wilkins
“Muffled lives explode in understatements.”
Paul Gray
“There is no sound for a moment, no breathing. And then a muffled scream, like she has pressed something to her mouth.”
Ann Freeman
