wailful

I also thought of a line from Keats's "Ode to Autumn": "Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn."

languagehat.com: CHOIRS/QUIRES. 2004

My suggestion is born out by an intertextual reference in Miriam Allott's note to the "wailful choir" of "small gnats" mourning in "To Autumn."

The Loves of Plants and Animals: Romantic Science and the Pleasures of Nature 2001

Enter a manly protest against all forms of wrong and injustice, but do not pass your days in wailful lachrymations against the regulations of

The American Missionary — Volume 52, No. 3, September, 1898 Various

From behind his wailful voice the gentle knocking was heard running on.

Little Novels of Italy Madonna Of The Peach-Tree, Ippolita In The Hills, The Duchess Of Nona, Messer Cino And The Live Coal, The Judgment Of Borso Maurice Henry Hewlett

Jud could not see, being down on his knees in the little stream, washing his eyes, but he first heard demoniacal barks proceed from Bonaparte, ending in wailful snorts, howls and whines, beginning at the foot of the tree and echoing in a fast vanishing wail toward home.

The Bishop of Cottontown A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills John Trotwood Moore

There the witch fed her upon milk, and wine dark as a carbuncle, and pomegranates, and purple grapes, and birds that dwell in marshy places; and she played to her mournful tunes, and caused wailful violins to attend her, and told her sad tales, thus holding her ever in an atmosphere of sweet sorrow.

Harper's Young People, December 2, 1879 An Illustrated Weekly Various

Only after creeping quite close to the performers could I discern certain wailful breathings; this brave instrument, all splotched with variegated colours, gave forth a succession of anguished and asthmatic whispers, the very phantom of a song, like the wind sighing through the branches of trees.

Fountains in the Sand Rambles Among the Oases of Tunisia Norman Douglas 1910

One explained to him: "It is a wailful woman seeking her lost child; she has become this forlorn bird".

Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Donald Alexander Mackenzie 1904

At night, when he was asleep, his dark-brown friend would raise from some black corner a wild, wailful cry, a song of infinite lowliness and despair, that would go shuddering and sobbing among the buildings of the block and cause people to swear.

A Dark-Brown Dog. 1901

The men wavered in indecision for a moment, and then with a long, wailful cry the dilapidated regiment surged forward and began its new journey.

The Red Badge of Courage 1895