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More "Linnet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heavy, and when the sun burst through the thick array of clouds that impended over the French coast, the cordage and sails discharged a sparkling shower of large pellucid drops. In the course of the forenoon, a small bird of the linnet tribe perched on the rigging in a state of exhaustion, and allowed itself to be caught. It was thoughtlessly encaged in the crystal lamp that lighted the cabin, where it either chafed itself to death, or died from the intense heat of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 395, Saturday, October 24, 1829. • Various
... the fancy occurred to me that probably the old woman's soul was as grey and timid as a linnet, and that when it should fly up to the throne of the Mother of God, and the Mother should extend to that little soul her tender, white, and gracious hand, the newcomer would tremble all over, and flutter her gentle wings until well nigh ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... mother a widow, and but for the soldiers nothing would have been more agreeable than to spend the afternoon with the old man and his books. But my heart would surely have broken had I gone. A caged linnet is a sorry enough sight in a withdrawing-room, but hang the cage on a tree in a sunlit garden, with free birds twittering and flitting about it, and you turn dull pain into shattering agony. The vicar's little study, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... days was known as the Hanley Linnet, suffered very little in the encounter. No doubt you know that a man in fine training can take an amazing number of back-falls on fair ground, clear of snags and brickbats; and, of course, the Linnet's ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... "Philosophical Transactions" for 1773 (Vol. 63); he says: "I have educated nestling linnets under the three best singing larks—the skylark, woodlark, and titlark, every one of which, instead of the linnet's song, adhered entirely to that of their respective instructors. When the note of the titlark linnet was thoroughly fixed, I hung the bird in a room with two common linnets for a quarter of a year, which were full in song; the titlark linnet, however, did not borrow ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... watched him I held myself softly still and felt just that. I did not know he was a robin. The truth was that he was too young at that time to look like one, but I did not know that either. He was plainly not a thrush, or a linnet or a sparrow or a starling or a blackbird. He was a little indeterminate-colored bird and he had no red on his breast. And as I sat and gazed at him he gazed at me as one quite without prejudice unless it might be with the slightest tinge of ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... serving-maid, among the steaming pots and boilers, this same poor Princess slips in secretly to the good woman's little room. Ah! there, behind those flower-pots, I can laugh freely and merrily—there I can let the little linnet feed from my hand, and I can say to myself that with all my troubles, with all my sorrows, I am still happier than the poor little singer in his cage. For he will never regain his freedom no matter how sweetly he may sing ... in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... when your linnet on a day, Passing his prison door, Had fluttered all his strength away And ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... moon, not three days old, would slant quite close to Hesperus, twinkling by her nether edge, to help and show the way across the ocean; and while the fair breeze filled the sails, and all the sailors sang for joy, a linnet, blown from off the land, would, shivering, perch upon the yard; and when the boatswain strove to catch the bird, for fear it flew away and should be lost, the foolish thing would stretch its wings and, fluttering, fall within the vessel's course to sink beneath ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... the linnet piped his song: Sometimes the throstle whistled strong: Sometimes the sparhawk, wheel'd along, Hush'd all the groves from fear of wrong: By grassy capes with fuller sound In curves the yellowing river ran, And drooping chestnut-buds began To spread into ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... is a marriage tie which will be broken without much pain! But she fills me with impatience, poor empty-headed linnet, with her laughter, and I turn my back upon her to ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... you Vandal! I like that stern sectarian who wants to dress Taglioni in a stuff-gown and sabots, and set Liszt's hands to turn the machinery of a wine-press, and who yet, as he lies on the grass, finds the tears come into his eyes at the least linnet's song, and who makes a disturbance in the theatre to stop Othello from murdering Malibran! The austere citizen would suppress artists as social excrescences that absorb too much of the sap; but this gentleman is fond of vocal music, and so will spare the singers. Let us hope that painters ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... there is little or no change on these coppice-woods, with their full budding branches all impatient for the spring. Yet twice have axe and bill-hook levelled them with the mossy stones, since among the broomy and briery knolls we sought the grey linnet's nest, or wondered to spy, among the rustling leaves, the robin-redbreast, seemingly forgetful of his winter benefactor, man. Surely there were trees here in former times, that now are gone—tall, far-spreading single ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... but how different, for out of the chaotic blotches there now appeared a well—a remarkably well—defined outline, the outline of a head and hand, the head of a fantastic beast, a repulsive beast, and the hand of a man. A flock of swallows swirled overhead, a grasshopper chirped, a linnet sang, and, with this sudden awakening of nature, the touch and shadow vanished simultaneously. But the hillock had lost its attractions for me, and, rising hastily, I dashed down the decline and hurried homewards. I discovered no reason other than solitude, and the possible burial-place ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... with em'ralds inlaid. Then with all the gay troop to the shrubb'ry repair'd, Where the musical Birds had a concert prepar'd; A holly bush form'd the Orchestra, and in it Sat the Black-bird, the Thrush, the Lark, and the Linnet; A BULL-FINCH, a captive! almost from the nest, Now escap'd from his cage, and, with liberty blest, In a sweet mellow tone, join'd the lessons of art With the accents of nature, which flow'd from his heart. The CANARY, a much admir'd foreign musician, ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset
... states that Shenstone's expenses were beyond his means,— that he spent his estate in adorning it—that at last the clamours of creditors "overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and that his groves were haunted by beings very different from fauns and fairies." But this is gross exaggeration. Shenstone was occasionally, indeed, in slight pecuniary difficulties, but he could always have protected ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... half-smiling lip appeared ready to give utterance. The pedestal on which she stood, or rather was perched, would have appeared unsafe had any figure heavier than her own been placed there. But, however she had been transported thither, she seemed to rest on it as lightly and safely as a linnet, when it has dropped from the sky on the tendril of a rose-bud. The first beam of the rising sun, falling through a window directly opposite to the pedestal, increased the effect of this beautiful figure, which remained as motionless as if it had been carved in marble. She only expressed her sense ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XIII, No. 370, Saturday, May 16, 1829. • Various
... He hears mass every day. He fasts through Lent. No monk is more austere and holy than Hans. Which do you love best to behold, the lamb or the lion? the eagle rushing through the storm, and pouncing mayhap on carrion; or the linnet warbling ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... and rats! Think of it. And it shows conclusively the power of kindness. I shall see to it at once that we get pets for our own children, our palm branches. They shall learn kindness early, to the dog, the cat, yes, even the rat, and the pretty linnet in ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... silent awe I hail the sacred morn, That slowly wakes while all the fields are still! A soothing calm on every breeze is borne; A graver murmur gurgles from the rill; And echo answers softer from the hill; And sweeter sings the linnet from the thorn: The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill. Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn! The rooks float silent by in airy drove; The sun a placid yellow lustre throws; The gales that lately ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... for he believed everything to be just as it pleased him and as he would have it be." But the biographer contradicted his own beautiful portrait by telling how poor Pierre sang once too well to a married woman, whose husband took him, jailed him, and pierced his linnet tongue. ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... linnet was beating at the bars of its cage. Before she was aware of it she wanted to escape from the sleepy old scene, and had begun to be consumed with longing for the great world outside. On summer evenings she would go up Peel ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... a bloom, so soft an air, All that behold must love. But, if to suit a form like thine, Thy voice be as divine; If both in these together meet, The feather'd race must own Of all their tribe there's none, Of form so fair, of voice so sweet. Who'll then regard the linnet's note, Or heed the lark's melodious throat? What pensive lovers then shall dwell With raptures on their Philomel? The goldfinch shall his plumage hide, The swan abate her stately pride, And Juno's bird no more display His ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... if she were not,' he said, 'is it likely she would look at a poor wretch of a fiddler? She is going to make her fortune. She is going to be the rage. She has never played before, but she sings like a lark, like a linnet, like a nightingale; and she walks the boards as naturally as if she had been born upon them. She is English too, in spite of her foreign name. Why on earth do professional ...
— Cruel Barbara Allen - From Coals Of Fire And Other Stories, Volume II. (of III.) • David Christie Murray
... strong belief that birds are gifted with a knowledge of herbs; the woodpecker, for instance, seeking out the Springwort to remove obstructions, and the linnet making use of the Eyebright to restore ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... near me all the time." Then, suddenly pausing for an instant, she again broke out with, "Oh, how happy I am; it seems as though my heart would break with its ecstasy!" and, springing up, she ran to the piano, and sang a song which filled the room with melody, and caused a linnet that was asleep on her perch to awaken and join her trills ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin
... thrush that carols at the dawn of day From the green steeples of the piny wood; The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The blue-bird balanced on some topmost spray, Flooding with melody the neighborhood; Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng That dwell in nests, and have the ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... on under the budding trees, how delightful it was to hear the lark and the linnet again at their cheerful songs, to be aware that now "the winter was over and gone;" and to feel that the prospect of summer, with its lengthening days, and its rich variety of fruits and flowers, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine. But how sad it is to see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet, pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings against the "wiry grate" ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... had taught Cosette music in the convent; Cosette had the voice of a linnet with a soul, and sometimes, in the evening, in the wounded man's humble abode, she warbled melancholy songs which ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... ask not of the Muse that she disclose The meaning of the riddle of her might. Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite, Save the enigma of herself, she knows. The master could not tell, with all his lore, Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped; E'en as the linnet sings, so I, he said— Ah! rather as the imperial nightingale That held in trance the ancient Attic shore, And charms the ages with the notes that o'er All woodland chants immortally prevail! And now from our vain plaudits, greatly fled, He with diviner silence dwells instead, And on no ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... return'd from conquer'd foes, How blithely will the evening close, How sweet the linnet sing repose To my young bride ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... song, thou green linnet!' rejoined lady Margaret. 'What song was it of which I said to thee that the singer deserved, for his very song's sake, that whereof he made his moan? Whence thou hadst it, from harper or bagpiper, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... f'r London, 'e said as 'ow 'e'd give two pun' fer th' best pair o' shackles wot 'is men could make. There worn't many o' us as wor 'ands at shackles, an' there wor only th' Dutchman an' a white man in it—a Cockney 'e wos, name o' Linnet——" ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... in a bad way. The wound caught an infection. Intense fever and swelling have set in. I helped Sir John Pringle to amputate the arm this afternoon, but even that may not save the patient. Here is a storm to warn the wandering linnet to his shade. A ship goes to-morrow evening. Get ready to take it. In that case your marriage will have to be delayed. Rash men are often compelled to live ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... wee brown linnet Dancing on a tree, Dancing on a tree. How her feet flew every minute As she danced at me-e-e; How her feet flew every minute As ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... on the back of a baste, Big enough, faith, to ate him, But he lather'd and bate him, And the baste to unsate him ne'er struggled the laste, And an iligant car He was dhrawing—by gar! It was finer by far than a Lord Mayor's state coach, And the chap that was in it He sang like a linnet, With a nate kag of whisky beside him to broach. And he tipped now and then Just a matter o' ten Or twelve tumblers o' punch to his ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... Tommy's seatmate, Dicky Ray, was naughty in school, and Miss Linnet called him up, opened her desk, took out a little riding whip—it was a bright blue one—and then and there administered punishment. And because he cried, when recess came, Tommy said: "Isn't Dick Ray just a reg'lar girl cry-baby?" ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... May, Initiate, I take my way— Sure as the blithest lark or linnet To touch the pulsing soul within it— Yet with no art to reach Her heart, Nor skill to teach ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... Would you have conventicle hymns twanging from every lane in every city in the world? Would you have all the birds of the forest sing one note and fly with one feather? You call me a sceptic because I acknowledge what is; and in acknowledging that, be it linnet or lark, or priest or parson, be it, I mean, any single one of the infinite varieties of the creatures of God (whose very name I would be understood to pronounce with reverence, and never to approach but with distant awe), I say that the study and acknowledgment of that variety amongst men especially ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... glimmering like a crescent moon, The dim half circle of the choir awaits Its own appointed time. Beside me now, Watching my wand, plump and immaculate From buckled shoes to that white bunch of lace Under his chin, the midget tenor rises, Music in hand, a linnet and a king. The bullfinch bass, that other emperor, Leans back indifferently, and clears his throat As if to say, "This prelude leads to Me!" While, on their own proud thrones, on either hand, The sumptuously bosomed midget ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... they all laughed in concert: partly because of Kit's triumph, and partly because they were very fond of each other. When this fit was over, Kit exhibited the bird to both children, as a great and precious rarity—it was only a poor linnet—and looking about the wall for an old nail, made a scaffolding of a chair and table and twisted it out with ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... by others of | all. Well, just as they were on | | stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what | | went up beyond them all, and | does the little rogue of a wren | | was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself | | when the gray linnet, a very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So | | small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, | | eagle's back, where it had | till the eagle was miles above | | perched unperceived, and, being | all the rest, and could not fly | | fresh and unexhausted, | another stroke, he was so ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... grass, and the daisy, and the primrose, and the violet, are its many-coloured floor of green, white, yellow, and blue; the may-flower, and the woodbine, and the eglantine, and the ivy, are its decorations, its curtains, and its tapestry: the lark, and the thrush, and the linnet, and the nightingale, are its unhired minstrels and musicians. Robin Hood is king of the forest both by dignity of birth and by virtue of his standing army: to say nothing of the free choice of his people, which he has indeed, but I pass it by as an illegitimate basis of power. ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... I have a linnet small and brown, And I to it am kind, Because it must be sad at heart, For it is quite, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... boldly turn against me, endeavoring to pick my fingers, which I durst not venture within their reach; and then they would hop back unconcerned, to hunt for worms or snails, as they did before. But one day I took a thick cudgel, and threw it with all my strength so luckily at a linnet that I knocked him down, and seizing him by the neck with both my hands, ran with him in triumph to my nurse. However, the bird, who had only been stunned, recovering himself, gave me so many boxes with his wings, on both sides of ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... exquisite viands; but neither the keen and stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat. The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet, sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those lips of fire burned all things in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... in a state of nature have never been seen paired with other birds; a Canada goose paired with a Bernicle gander; a male widgeon preferred a pintail duck to its own species; a hen canary preferred a male greenfinch to either linnet, goldfinch, siskin, or chaffinch. These cases are evidently exceptional, and are not such as generally occur in nature; and they only prove that the female does exert some choice between very different males, and some observations on birds in a state of nature prove the same thing; but there is ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... so fair, Built for the royal dwelling, In Scotland far beyond compare, Linlithgow is excelling; And in its park, in jovial June, How sweet the merry linnet's tune, How blithe the blackbird's lay; The wild-buck bells from ferny brake, The coot dives merry on the lake; The saddest heart might pleasure take To see all nature gay. But June is, to our sovereign ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... in full song now, and by degrees others joined in—thrush, and lark, and linnet, with the humbler voices of the farmyard—until the sunny air ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... by the rustle of the leaves in the summer breeze, by the note of a linnet singing in the branches ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... voice of the flood Hoarse breaking upon the rough shore, As a linnet remembers the wood And his ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen; For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... ovenbird launches into the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song — clear, ringing, copious, rivalling the goldfinch's in vivacity and the linnet's in melody." ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... where, on April 11, 1814, was launched the ship "Saratoga," which carried Macdonough's pendant in the battle five months afterwards. On May 10, Pring, hoping to destroy the American vessels before ready for service, made another inroad with his squadron, consisting now of the new brig, called the "Linnet," five armed sloops, and thirteen galleys. On the 14th he was off Otter Creek and attacked; but batteries established on shore compelled him to retire. Macdonough in his report of this transaction mentions only eight galleys, with a bomb vessel, as the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... dare contend for red, This is alive, the other dead. Her equal teeth—above, below— All of a size and smoothness grow. Where under close restraint and awe —Which is the maiden tyrant law— Like a cag'd, sullen linnet, dwells Her tongue, the key to potent spells. Her skin, like heav'n when calm and bright, Shows a rich azure under white, With touch more soft than heart supposes, And breath as sweet as new-blown roses. Betwixt this headland and the main, Which is a ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... brave little voice crying in the wilderness—of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... little hut, and in the hut there was nothing but a little bed and a looking-glass which hung in a dark corner. Now the Child cared nothing at all about the looking-glass; but as soon as the first sunbeam glided softly through the casement, and kissed his sweet eyelids, and the finch and the linnet waked him merrily with their morning songs, he arose, and went out into the green meadow. And he begged flour of the primrose, and sugar of the violet, and butter of the buttercup; he shook dewdrops from the cowslip into the cup of a harebell; spread out a ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... moral to the heart. That faithful monitor 'twas heav'n to hear! When soft it spoke a promis'd pleasure near: And has its sober hand, its simple chime, Forgot to trace the feather'd feet of Time? That massive beam, with curious carvings wrought, Whence the caged linnet sooth'd my pensive thought; Those muskets, cas'd with venerable rust; Those once-lov'd forms, still breathing thro' their dust, Still from the frame, in mould gigantic cast, Starting to life—all whisper of the past! As thro' the garden's desert paths ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... it were, out of mere idleness and sport. There never was a more playful creature made than this very Pegasus. So there he frisked, in a way that it delights me to think about, fluttering his great wings as lightly as ever did a linnet, and running little races, half on earth and half in air, and which I know not whether to call a flight or a gallop. When a creature is perfectly able to fly, he sometimes chooses to run, just for the pastime of the thing; and so did Pegasus, although it cost him some little trouble to keep ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... GREEN LINNET (Coccothraustes chloris).—Greenfinch, or Beanbird as they call it in Devonshire, is a pleasant visitor, though it has a ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... brook, though it had sung all night, and had need of a little respite, seemed to say—"No, I shall go warbling on; she shall have my very best treble of a ripple." And then there were minor performers in this nature-choir. The Blackbird and Redbreast, Goldfinch and Linnet, and Chaffinch, each took part with striking effect. Even the Swallow in his own quiet way twittered, and the Tomtit chattered, and the Beetle droned, and the Bee hummed, and the big Dragon-fly, in armour of brightest cobalt, whirred; and ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... spring morning," it said at the top of page twenty-one, "as you wander through the fields, you will hear the sweet-toned, carelessly flowing warble of the purple finch linnet. When you are older you must read all about him in Mr. ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... the 27th, a small land bird, resembling a linnet, was seen; at noon we were in 10 deg. 28' south and 146 deg. 7' east, and the current had set W. N. W., three quarters of a mile an hour, since the 25th. The wind, which had been at south-east, then ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... singing? Does the lark soar as high as ever? And does the linnet dress herself as smartly?' But here the country swallow drew ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... The linnet in the rocky dells, The moor-lark in the air, The bee among the heather-bells That hide my ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... demigods. While honoring the exploits of Cadmus and Cynoegirus, I hardly ever failed, on Sundays and Thursdays [the weekly half-holiday in French schools], to go and see if the cowslip or the yellow daffodil was making its appearance in the meadows, if the Linnet was hatching on the juniper bushes, if the Cockchafers were plopping down from the wind shaken poplars. Thus was the sacred spark kept aglow, ever ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the crevices of a tree, across which was stretched a dense web. The lower portion of the web was broken, and two small birds,—finches,—were entangled in the pieces. They were the size of the English linnet, and probably male and female. One was quite dead, the other lay dying under the body of the spider, and was smeared with the filthy liquor or saliva exuded by ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... "And now, too, the linnet you made me a present of died last Sunday. It made me cry a good deal, though I am sure ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... small, shapely head with its soft, but roughened hair, upon his breast. Sometimes he would row across the lake and they would walk side by side along the bank, and screened by the trees in which the linnet and the thrush sang the songs which make a lover's litany; at others—and these were the sweetest meeting of all, for they came in the soft and stilly night when all nature was hushed as if under the spell of the one great passion—he ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... heart foretell? What shook my spirit, as I woke, Like the vibration of a bell Of which I had not heard the stroke? Was it some happy vision shut From memory by the sun's fresh ray? Was it that linnet's song; or but A natural gratitude for day? Or the mere joy the senses weave, A wayward ecstasy of life? Then I remember'd, yester-eve I ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... Miss Wren was evidently a Quakeress; for she wore a sober dress, and a little white veil, through which her bright eyes shone. The bridegroom was a military man, in his scarlet uniform,—a plump, bold-looking bird, very happy and proud just then. A goldfinch gave away the bride, and a linnet was bridesmaid. The ceremony was very fine; and, as soon as it was over, the blackbird, thrush and nightingale burst ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... thrush may know when he sits high above the fretted boughs of an oak and his music plunges forth upon the January wind. Now when Mark was ringing the Sanctus-bell, it was with a sense of his place in the scheme of worship. If one listens to the twitter of a single linnet in open country or to the buzz of a solitary fly upon a window pane, how incredible it is that myriads of them twittering and buzzing together should be the song of April, the murmur of June. And this Sanctus-bell that tinkled so inadequately, almost so frivolously when ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... barefooted, bare-headed—such as you may see running wild and innocent, less cared for now than their sheep, over many a hillside of France and Italy. Tiny enough;—seven years old, all told, when first one hears of her: "Seven times one are seven, (I am old, you may trust me, linnet, linnet[10])," and all around her—fierce as the Furies, and wild as the winds of heaven—the thunder of the Gothic armies, reverberate over the ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... too,' said Mr. Bates, 'for she hasn't the cut of a gell as must work for her bread; she's as nesh an' dilicate as a paich-blossom—welly laike a linnet, wi' on'y joost body anoof to hold ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Linnet, who sat on a tree, Heard the speech of the Brier, and thus answered he: "'Tis not that she's fair, For you may compare In beauty with even Miss ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes
... with fashions, anyway?" screamed a linnet. "If it were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats would you be contented to stay there? Answer ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... and animated conversation ensued: the bird-nesting of his boyhood, the blackbird's nest which his father had held him up in his arms to look at when a child at Wylam, the hedges in which he had found the thrush's and the linnet's nests, the mossy bank where the robin built, the cleft in the branch of the young tree where the chaffinch had reared its dwelling—all rose up clear in his mind's eye, and led him back to the scenes of his boyhood at Callerton ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... The linnet trilled forth her jubilant music. In the midst of it the king was about to uplift his scepter in sign of choice, but checked ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... horns a little. Sir James Yeo had the command of the English fleet upon the Lakes, and Commodore Downie, in the Confiance, of 38 guns, had the command of the British squadron upon Lake Champlain, supported by Captain Pring, in the Linnet, of 16 guns; Lieutenant M'Ghee, in the Chub, of 11 guns; and Lieutenant Hix, in the Finch, of 11 guns. Lieutenant Raynham and Lieutenant Dual had the command of twelve gun-boats. The American squadron was commanded by Commodore M'Donough, in the Saratoga, of 26 guns; Captain Harley, in the Eagle, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... cloud of fragrance. As he went down the glen, into its softer sweeps, this increased, as did the song of birds. The primrose was strewn about in disks of pale gold, the white thorn lifted great bouquets, the bluebell touched the heart. A lark sang in the sky, linnet and cuckoo at hand, in the wood at the top of the glen cooed the doves. The water rippled by the leaning birches, the wild bees went from flower to flower. The sky was all sapphire, the air a perfumed ocean. So beautiful rang the spring ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It would appear then, that with the produce of the Begum's diamonds, converted into money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet's eggs—and not to take account of Mrs. Green's trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, all handed over at once to Emily—the General's present fortune was exactly one hundred and ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... bound; He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound, Then writeth in a book like any clerk. He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odours of ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... Father Thames, for thou hast seen Full many a sprightly race Disporting on thy margent green The paths of pleasure trace; Who foremost now delight to cleave 25 With pliant arm thy glassy wave? The captive linnet which enthrall? What idle progeny succeed To chase the rolling circle's speed, Or urge the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... ever harbingers To trains of peaceful images: the stirs Of a swan's neck unseen among the rushes: A linnet starting all about the bushes: A butterfly, with golden wings broad parted, Nestling a rose, convuls'd as though it smarted With over pleasure—many, many more, Might I indulge at large in all my store Of luxuries: yet I must ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats
... either through love or through fear; and who knows but I may yet reap the sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?—that were indeed a masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her counsel-keeper—let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the robbery of a linnet's nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!" He again paced the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of wine, as if to compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering, "Now for a close heart and an open and unruffled brow," he left ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... through the park of Bellecour, wandered La Boulaye, his long, lean, figure clad with a sombreness that was out of harmony in that sunlit, vernal landscape. But the sad-hued coat belied that morning a heart that sang within his breast as joyously as any linnet of the woods through which he strayed. That he was garbed in black was but the outward indication of his clerkly office, for he was secretary to the most noble the Marquis de Fresnoy de Bellecour, and so clothed in the livery of the ink by which he ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... will receive and reject with equability of temper, and act or suffer as the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. Other men may amuse themselves with subtle definitions or intricate ratiocinations. Let him learn to be wise by easier means: let him observe the hind of the forest, and the linnet of the grove; let him consider the life of animals whose motions are regulated by instinct; they obey their guide and ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Sparrow, Cedar Bird, Hermit Thrush, Cow-bird, Robin Redbreast, Martin, Song Sparrow, Veery, Scarlet Tanager, Vireo, Summer Redbird, Oriole, Blue Heron, Blackbird, Humming Bird, Fifebird, Yellow-bird, Wren, Whip-poor-will, Linnet, Water Wagtail, Pewee, Woodpecker, Phoebe, Pigeon Woodpecker, Yoke Bird, Indigo Bird, Lark, Yellow Throat, Sandpiper, Wilson's ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... home; the linnet sang, the thrush whistled, but she did not heed them. She blamed herself for having crossed the threshold of the forester's house, and yet she could not turn away her thoughts from it. The stranger made her feel uneasy and insecure. Was he thus daring because ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... celebrated among my companions, and I was derisively nicknamed the poet. Mockery, however, did not cure me, and I continued my efforts in spite of the apologue of the Principal, Monsieur Mareschal, who one day related to me the misfortunes of a linnet that tried to fly before being fully fledged. He wished, no doubt, to turn me from my inveterate habit. As I continued to read, I was continually punished, and grew to be the least active, most idle, most contemplative ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... loves the fruitful fells, The plover loves the mountains; The woodcock haunts the lonely dells, The soaring hern the fountains: Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves, The path of man to shun it; The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush, The spreading thorn the linnet. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... bosom was more vivid, running almost into orange, and the wings and tail were tipped with the same hue, giving it quite a distinguished appearance. Another small olive-green bird, which I at first took for a green linnet, was even prettier, the throat and bosom being of a most delicate buff, crossed with a belt of velvet black. The bird that really seemed most like a common sparrow was chestnut, with a white throat and mouse-colored wings and tail. These pretty little pensioners systematically avoided my neighborhood, ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... Linnet and woodpecker, red-cap and jay, Shriek that a doom shall fall One day, one day, on my pitiless way From the sky that is over us all; But the great blue hawk of the heavens above Fashioned the world for his prey,— King and queen and hawk and ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... very Arcadian and un-Cockney-like in the idea of linnet-singing in Lock's Fields. Imagination pictures so readily the green pastures and the wild bird's song, and Corydon with his pipe and his Phyllis, that it seems a pity to disabuse that exquisite faculty of our nature ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... and who knows but I may yet reap the sweetest and best revenge for her former scorn?—that were indeed a masterpiece of courtlike art! Let me but once be her counsel-keeper—let her confide to me a secret, did it but concern the robbery of a linnet's nest, and, fair Countess, thou art mine own!" He again paced the room in silence, stopped, filled and drank a cup of wine, as if to compose the agitation of his mind, and muttering, "Now for a close heart and an open and unruffled brow," he left ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... my Stronghold: stout of heart am I, Greeting each dawn as songful as a linnet; And when at night on yon poor bed I lie (Blessing the world and every soul that's in it), Here's where I thank the Lord no shadow bars My skylight's vision of ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... commission. At the opening of the season, the American vessels lay in Otter Creek; and, just as they were ready to leave port, the enemy appeared off the mouth of the creek with a force consisting of the brig "Linnet" and eight or ten galleys. The object of the British was to so obstruct the mouth of the creek that the Americans should be unable to come out. With this end in view, they had brought two sloops laden with stones, which they intended to sink in the narrow channel. But, luckily, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... that the arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—waited there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... him with sparkling eye as an old acquaintance: the cuckoo haunts him with sounds of early youth not to be expressed: a linnet's nest startles him with boyish delight: an old withered thorn is weighed down with a heap of recollections: a grey cloak, seen on some wild moor, torn by the wind, or drenched in the rain, afterwards becomes an object of imagination to him: even the lichens on the rock have ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... sleeping in their cabins, dreaming dreams of victory and glory, when Wangewaha, or the Hard Heart, sleeping in his tent, was aroused by the tread of a light foot on the earth at his side, and the music of a voice sweeter than that of the linnet or the thrush. Looking up he saw, by the beams of the moon, a tall and beautiful woman, straight as a hickory, and graceful as a young antelope. She wore over her shoulders a cloak made of the tender ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... behold must love. But, if to suit a form like thine, Thy voice be as divine; If both in these together meet, The feather'd race must own Of all their tribe there's none, Of form so fair, of voice so sweet. Who'll then regard the linnet's note, Or heed the lark's melodious throat? What pensive lovers then shall dwell With raptures on their Philomel? The goldfinch shall his plumage hide, The swan abate her stately pride, And Juno's bird no more display His various glories to the sunny day: Then grant thy Suppliant's ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Philomela's tongue, The thrush's note, or warbling song Of blackbird, lark, or linnet; I'd then more gratitude display, Striving to raise a sweeter lay, I'd sing the fleeting hours away, Nor silent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... cease," the husband cried, "to scold "And take your whim. I ne'er could hold "My own against a screaming wife; "You'll drive me mad, upon my life. "Her belly-full our Kate may get "Of nightingale or of linnet." The thing was settled. Kate obeyed, And in a trice her bed was made, And lover signalled. Who shall say How long to both appeared that day, That tedious day! But night arrived And Richard too; he had contrived ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... has fallen by the chance of fortune. METASTASIO and TIRABOSCHI received what had been accorded to PETRARCH and to POGGIO. Germany, patriotic to its literary characters, is the land of the enthusiasm of genius. On the borders of the Linnet, in the public walk of Zurich, the monument of GESNER, erected by the votes of his fellow-citizens attests their sensibility; and a solemn funeral honoured the remains of KLOPSTOCK, led by the senate of Hamburgh, with fifty thousand votaries, ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... A linnet sings and sings, A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings; White twinkletails Run frankly in their meadow ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... upon a thorn At evening chime. Its sweet refrain fell like the rain Of summer-time. Of summer-time when roses bloomed, And bright above A rainbow spanned my fairy-land Of hope and love! Of hope and love! O linnet, cease Thy mocking theme! I ne'er picked up the golden cup In all my dream! In all my dream I missed the prize Should have been mine; And dreams won't die! though fain would I, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... "When, linnet-like, confined, I With shriller note shall sing The mercy, sweetness, majesty, And glories of my king; When I shall voice aloud how good He is, how great should be, Th' enlarged winds that curl the flood ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... dove, the linnet rare, Perched on one rose tree, mellow in one note. Thou art fair Juliet and Romeo fair, Singing across the night with one ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... did my heart foretell? What shook my spirit, as I woke, Like the vibration of a bell Of which I had not heard the stroke? Was it some happy vision shut From memory by the sun's fresh ray? Was it that linnet's song; or but A natural gratitude for day? Or the mere joy the senses weave, A wayward ecstasy of life? Then I remember'd, yester-eve I won Honoria ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... the woods anon, And heard the wild birds sing How sweet you were; they warbled on, Piped, trill'd the self-same thing. Thrush, blackbird, linnet, without pause The burden did repeat, And still began again ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... smaller than the linnet; its plumage is a violet-coloured blue, and its wings, which serve it for a cope, are entirely violet-colour. Its notes are so sweet, so variable, and tender, that those who have once heard it, are apt to abate in ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... He said to the Linnet, "Thou canst fly over the tops of the tall trees and canst see the whole world. Tell me, canst thou see ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... respond to him who approaches them as though hurried by temporal care. There befits the garment of solemn leisure, the thought attuned to peace. I open the volume somewhat formally; is it not sacred, if the word have any meaning at all? And, as I read, no interruption can befall me. The note of a linnet, the humming of a bee, these are the sounds about my sanctuary. The page scarce ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you'll hear him there At Kew, at Kew in lilac time (and oh, so near to London!) The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo And golden-eyed TU-WHIT, TU WHOO of owls ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... bee; As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone, Thy northern slope, Byrone, From Ascog's rocks, o'erflung with woodland bowers, With scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers, My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue. Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew Startled, and rose the lark on twinkling wing, And soar'd away, to sing A farewell to the severing shades of night, A welcome to the morning's aureate light. Thy summit gain'd, how tranquilly serene, Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene Of continent and isle, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... seemed woven into the fabric of Peregrine's life, and he belonged to them as exclusively as the grouse or mountain linnet. He knew every rock upon their crests and every runnel of water that fretted its channel through the peat; he could mark down the merlin's nest among the heather and the falcon's eyrie in the cleft of the scar. If he started ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... thy song, thou green linnet!' rejoined lady Margaret. 'What song was it of which I said to thee that the singer deserved, for his very song's sake, that whereof he made his moan? Whence thou hadst it, from harper ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... envy not in any moods The captive void of noble rage, The linnet born within the cage, That never knew ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... the gorse is gay, And England's lanes and fallows Are decked with broom whose winsome grace The hovering linnet hallows; But the robin sings from his maple bow, "Ah, linnet, lightly won, Your bloom to my blaze of wayside gold Is the wan moon to ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... polyanthus mean—the dapper daisy, Sweet-William, and sweet marjoram—and all The tribe of single and of double pinks! Now, too, the feather'd warblers tune their notes Around, and charm the listening grove. The lark! The linnet! chaffinch! bullfinch! goldfinch! greenfinch! But O, to me no joy can they afford! Nor rose, nor wallflower, nor smart gillyflower, Nor polyanthus mean, nor dapper daisy, Nor William sweet, nor marjoram—nor lark, Linnet nor all ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... of the 27th, a small land bird, resembling a linnet, was seen; at noon we were in 10 deg. 28' south and 146 deg. 7' east, and the current had set W. N. W., three quarters of a mile an hour, since the 25th. The wind, which had been at south-east, then shifted suddenly to north, and blew fresh with squally weather; ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... Scarlet Tanager, Summer Redbird, Blue Heron, Humming Bird, Yellowbird, Whip-poor-will, Water Wagtail, Woodpecker, Pigeon Woodpecker, Indigo Bird, Yellowthroat, Wilson's Thrush, Chickadee, Kingbird, Swallow, Cedar Bird, Cowbird, Martin, Veery, Chewink, Vireo, Oriole, Blackbird, Fifebird, Wren, Linnet, Pewee, Phoebe, Yoke ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... and some are little. Knowing nothing, he generalizes in the highest degree; he simplifies, in his inability to perceive the complex. Later he will learn that the Sparrow is not the Bullfinch, that the Linnet is not the Greenfinch; he will particularize and to a greater degree each day, as his faculty of observation becomes more fully trained. In the beginning he saw nothing but resemblances; he now sees differences, but still not plainly ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... and the under-side of the wings and tail of a plain scarlet colour, though blackish above, with a crimson streak running from the angle of the mouth, a little down the neck on each side. The third and fourth, are a small bird of the finch kind, about the size of a linnet, of a dark dusky colour, whitish below, with a black head and neck, and white bill; and a sand-piper, of the size of a small pigeon, of a dusky brown colour, and white below, except the throat and breast, with a broad white band across the wings. There are also humming-birds, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... happily to eat and drink, while Thora served him, and Conall smoked and watched them with a now-and-then smile or word or two, while Rahal and Barbara talked, and Ian played charmingly—with soft pedal down—quotations from Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" and "Hark, 'Tis the Linnet!" ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... robin red-breast! Sing, birds, in every furrow! And from each bill let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow, You pretty elves, among yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow! To give my Love good-morrow! Sing, birds, in ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... loftiness, careless of pomp or insignia, all delicate dates and exquisite viands; but neither the keen and stimulating odors of savory meat, the crisp whiteness of freshest bread, nor the slow-dropping gold of honeycomb could tempt her to eat. The simplest peasant's fare, in measure too scanty for a linnet, sustained her life; but the Curse lit even upon her food, and those lips of fire burned all things in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... the woods, and sat, shadowed by the long bent branch; watching mechanically the slow rounding and yellowing of the beam of sunlight over the thick floor of moss, up against the fir-stems. The chaffinch and the linnet flitted off the grey orchard twigs, singing from new stations; and the bee seemed to come questioning the silence of the woods and droning disappointed away. The first excess of any sad feeling is half voluntary. Emilia could not help smiling, when she lifted her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... when the troubles of life are still; The bees wandered lost in the depths of June, And I paused where the chime of a silver rill Sang the linnet and lark to ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wood, and field and cottage, in one continuous blaze of glory. We had walked on in silence for the last half hour; but I could sometimes hear my companion muttering as he went; and when, in passing through a thicket of hawthorn and honeysuckle, we started from its perch a linnet that had been filling the air with its melody, I could hear him exclaim, in a subdued tone of voice, "Bonny, bonny birdie! why hasten frae me?—I wadna skaith a feather o' yer wing." He turned round to me, and I could see that his eyes were ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... also do the like in their particular seasons, as namely the Laverock, the Tit-lark, the little Linnet, and the honest Robin that loves ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... complacency on her failures. The songs of Mr. Aubrey de Vere are not well enough known; they are sometimes singularly charming. Other poets have once or twice succeeded in catching this clear natural treble,—the living linnet once captured in the elm, as Tusitala puts it; but this has not been a gift largely enjoyed by our ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... all we have related in Two long octaves, pass'd in a little minute; But in the same small minute, every sin Contrived to get itself comprised within it. The very cannon, deafen'd by the din, Grew dumb, for you might almost hear a linnet, As soon as thunder, 'midst the general noise ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... in spite of logic, then, a lack means about twelve thousand pounds: and four of them, according to Cocker, some fifty thousand. It would appear then, that with the produce of the Begum's diamonds, converted into money long ago, and some of them as big as linnet's eggs—and not to take account of Mrs. Green's trifling pinch of the five Exchequer bills, all handed over at once to Emily—the General's present fortune was exactly one hundred ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... spring, occasionally tuning his voice before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or American Linnet (Fringilla purpurea). I have frequently heard his notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard one warbling cheerily on the 18th of February. But the Linnet does not persevere ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... road, and arrived with a pocket full of emptiness. There she fell in, at the Porte St. Denise, with a company of soldiers, placed there for a time as a vidette, for the Protestants had assumed a dangerous attitude. The sergeant seeing this hooded linnet coming, stuck his headpiece on one side, straightened his feather, twisted his moustache, cleared his throat, rolled his eyes, put his hand on his hips, and stopped the Picardian to see if her ears ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... a marriage-tie which will be broken without much pain! But she fills me with impatience, poor empty-headed linnet, with her laughter, and I turn my back upon her ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... Ride Caroline E. S. Norton The Watcher James Stephens The Three Sisters Arthur Davison Ficke Ballad May Kendall "O that 'Twere Possible" Alfred Tennyson "Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead" Alfred Tennyson Evelyn Hope Robert Browning Remembrance Emily Bronte Song,"The linnet in the rocky dells" Emily Bronte Song of the Old Love Jean Ingelow Requiescat Matthew Arnold Too Late Dinah Maria Mulock Craik Four Years Dinah Maria Mulock Craik Barbara Alexander Smith Song, "When I am dead, my dearest" Christina Georgina Rossetti Sarrazine's Song to Her Dead ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... inlet, yet it proved but a deep bay, the end whereof in four hours I attained, and there leaving the boat well manned, went with the rest of my company three or four miles into the country, but found nothing, nor saw anything, save only gripes, ravens, and small birds, as lark and linnet. ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... into the air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, like certain of the finches, and bursts into a perfect ecstasy of song,—clear, ringing, copious, rivaling the goldfinch's in vivacity, and the linnet's in melody. This strain is one of the rarest bits of bird melody to be heard, and is oftenest indulged in late in the afternoon or after sundown. Over the woods, hid from view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest strain. In this song you instantly detect his relationship to the water-wagtail,—erroneously ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... me are yon humble broom bowers, Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen; For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers, A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean. ...
— Language of Flowers • Kate Greenaway
... meadows in their mantles of green and around the ruined, tenantless homes along the Meuse, how the primrose and violet were covering up the scars made by unnumbered shells. The air was filled with the joyous notes of the lark, and the linnet and the black-cap warbled among the hedgerows. Here where once had dwelt the peasant, the cuckoo called from the evergreens and nightingales made the evening breeze vocal with their rapturous notes. This wealth ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the blossom where the wild bees hum; Then through the broomy bound with ease they pass, And press the sandy sheep-walk's slender grass, Where dwarfish flowers among the gorse are spread, And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed; Then 'cross the bounding brook they make their way O'er its rough bridge—and there behold the bay! - The ocean smiling to the fervid sun - The waves that faintly fall and slowly run - The ships at distance and the boats at hand; And now they walk upon the sea-side sand, Counting ...
— The Borough • George Crabbe
... his unfinished task. The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps, Was once selected as the corner-stone 15 Of that [5] intended Pile, which would have been Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill, So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush, And other little builders who dwell here, Had wondered at the work. But blame him not, 20 For old Sir William was a gentle Knight, Bred in this vale, to which he appertained [6] With all his ancestry. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... did not enable him to celebrate his instincts; and suddenly from his thicket of forest trees and greening bushes he began to pour forth a thrilling little tide of song, with the native sweetness of some human linnet unaware ...
— A Cathedral Singer • James Lane Allen
... flood: Along whose shelving bank the violet blue And primrose pale in lovely mixture grew. High overarched the bloomy woodbine hung, The gaudy goldfinch from the maple sung; The little warbling minstrel of the shade To the gay morn her due devotion paid Next, the soft linnet echoing to the thrush With carols filled the smelling briar-bush; While Philomel attuned her artless throat, And from the hawthorn breathed ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... if you stirred a book you brought enough snuffy dust into the air to make you sneeze for ten minutes. But his own room, which was above the shop, was blithe enough, and it was there I had my lessons. Mr. Davies kept a piping bullfinch in it, and a linnet, and there was a little window garden on the sill, where tulips bloomed in their season, and under a glass case there was a plaster model of the Arch of Titus in Rome, of which he was exceedingly proud, and which I thought very pretty, and at one ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... how full of melody is an English wood, when thrush, blackbird, mavis, linnet, and a thousand warblers flit from tree to tree. How the choir rings out its full anthem of sweetest sound, till every bush and tree seems a centre of sweet strains, soft, low, liquid trills, and full ripe gushes of melody and song. But it is not thus in an Indian forest. There ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... A crown for Hope!—I dread the boasted lights That all too often are but fiery blights, Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve. Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring, The counter Spirit found in some gay church Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch In which the linnet or the thrush might sing, Merry and loud, and safe from prying search, Strains offered only ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... too, the linnet you made me a present of died last Sunday. It made me cry a good deal, though I am sure I ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... picturesque they were, feeding and flying in close order. Besides these must be mentioned the yellow-throated vireo, the bay-winged bunting, the swamp sparrow, the field sparrow, the purple finch, the red-poll linnet, the savanna sparrow, the tree sparrow, the night-hawk (whose celebrated tumbling trick may often be witnessed by evening strollers in the Garden), the woodcock (I found the body of one which had evidently met its death against the electric ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... still points its moral to the heart. That faithful monitor 'twas heav'n to hear! When soft it spoke a promis'd pleasure near: And has its sober hand, its simple chime, Forgot to trace the feather'd feet of Time? That massive beam, with curious carvings wrought, Whence the caged linnet sooth'd my pensive thought; Those muskets, cas'd with venerable rust; Those once-lov'd forms, still breathing thro' their dust, Still from the frame, in mould gigantic cast, Starting to life—all whisper of the past! As thro' the garden's desert paths I rove, What fond ...
— Poems • Samuel Rogers
... about, and he then told me that the bigger boy who had just run away was always on the common searching for nests, just to destroy them and kill the young birds; that he, my informant, had come there where he came every day just to have a peep at a linnet's nest with four eggs in it on which the bird was sitting; that the other boy, concealed among the bushes had watched him go to the nest and had then rushed up and pulled the nest out of ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... two pun' fer th' best pair o' shackles wot 'is men could make. There worn't many o' us as wor 'ands at shackles, an' there wor only th' Dutchman an' a white man in it—a Cockney 'e wos, name o' Linnet——" ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... seatmate, Dicky Ray, was naughty in school, and Miss Linnet called him up, opened her desk, took out a little riding whip—it was a bright blue one—and then and there administered punishment. And because he cried, when recess came, Tommy said: "Isn't Dick Ray just a reg'lar girl cry-baby?" (He had learned that word from some of the ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... silence, broken only by the rustle of the leaves in the summer breeze, by the note of a linnet singing in ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... out of bed! But, as the captain said, who looks at the clock at Christmas time? So Martha and her daughters curtsied themselves out of the room, and Mr. Crayshaw stood at the door talking quite cheerily with old Kiah, while Betty kept Pete back a minute to ask about her linnet, which was ill—Pete ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... sound. Before me, glimmering like a crescent moon, The dim half circle of the choir awaits Its own appointed time. Beside me now, Watching my wand, plump and immaculate From buckled shoes to that white bunch of lace Under his chin, the midget tenor rises, Music in hand, a linnet and a king. The bullfinch bass, that other emperor, Leans back indifferently, and clears his throat As if to say, "This prelude leads to Me!" While, on their own proud thrones, on either hand, The sumptuously bosomed midget queens, Contralto and soprano, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... the Drongo shrike, and a bird very like the grey linnet, with a thick reddish bill, assemble in very large flocks now that it is winter, and continue thus till November, or period ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... brevity of a short one excludes." Surely the lyric, like the short story, cannot see life steadily and whole. It reflects, as we have seen, a single situation or desire. "Short swallow-flights of song"; piping "as the linnet sings"; have not the lyric poets themselves confessed this inherent shortcoming of their art in a thousand similes? Does not a book of lyrics often seem like a plantation of carefully tended little trees, rather ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... to do with fashions, anyway?" screamed a linnet. "If it were the fashion to wear knooks perched upon women's hats would you be contented to stay ...
— American Fairy Tales • L. Frank Baum
... to them when they stepped out of doors; and they came back to the house for luncheon in the gayest of humour, Athalie chattering away blithe as a linnet in a thorn bush, and Clive not a whit ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... The sparrow and linnet will feed from your hand, Grow tame by your kindness, and come at command: Exert with your husband the same happy skill, For hearts, like your birds, may ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... bright-coloured rug on the floor, and bright coloured pictures of Mount Vesuvius and of Garibaldi on the walls. Also there was a cabinet with many interesting treasures to look at—a bit of coral and a conch-shell, a shark's tooth and an Indian arrow-head, and a stuffed linnet with a glass cover over him. A while back Hal would not have thought of such things as especially stimulating to the imagination; but that was before he had begun to spend five-sixths of his waking hours in ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... the birds say? The sparrow, the dove, The linnet, and thrush say 'I love, and I love!' In the winter they're silent, the wind is so strong; What it says I don't know, but it sings a loud song. But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather, And singing and loving—all come back together. But the lark is so brimful of gladness and ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... black-cock trims his jetty wing, 'T is morning prompts the linnet's blithest lay, All Nature's children feel the matin spring Of life reviving, with reviving day; And while yon little bark glides down the bay, Wafting the stranger on his way again, Morn's genial influence roused a minstrel gray, And sweetly o'er the lake was heard thy strain, Mixed ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Shenstone's expenses were beyond his means,— that he spent his estate in adorning it—that at last the clamours of creditors "overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and that his groves were haunted by beings very different from fauns and fairies." But this is gross exaggeration. Shenstone was occasionally, indeed, in slight pecuniary difficulties, but he could always have protected himself from ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... He has given an account of his experiments in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1773 (Vol. 63); he says: "I have educated nestling linnets under the three best singing larks—the skylark, woodlark, and titlark, every one of which, instead of the linnet's song, adhered entirely to that of their respective instructors. When the note of the titlark linnet was thoroughly fixed, I hung the bird in a room with two common linnets for a quarter of a year, which were full in song; the titlark linnet, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... acquaintance, and among them the Ferrets of Hollow-oak were the most intimate. Now it so happened that one evening, when out for a ramble in the woods, a branch of a tree on which Miss Weasel had mounted in order to get nearer to young Linnet, with whom she wished to be on intimate terms, broke suddenly off, and the poor young lady was precipitated to the ground and sadly hurt. Her cries brought to her assistance her younger brother Tom, who, as soon as he had helped her home, ran ...
— The Comical Creatures from Wurtemberg - Second Edition • Unknown
... Starling, And the wonderful Peacock; The Lapwing and Peewit, The bold Yellowhammer, The bad Willy-wagtail, The Raven so awful, And the Cock with his Hens; Stone-checker, Hedge-sparrow, And Lint-white and Lark, The Tom-tit and Linnet, And brisk little Sparrow, The King-fisher too, ...
— The Boy Who Knew What The Birds Said • Padraic Colum
... of ecstasy and wonder; Love is a poignant and accustomed pain. It is a burst of Heaven-shaking thunder; It is a linnet's fluting after rain. Love's voice is through your song; above and under And in each note to ...
— Main Street and Other Poems • Alfred Joyce Kilmer
... before strangers, was that of whistling. Few people have heard the exquisite notes that can be produced by an adept in the art, but there are whistlers and whistlers, whose notes differ as much as those of the linnet and the crow. While accompanying herself on the piano, Dexie could produce such wonderful trills and quavers, with such purity of tone, that she could almost rival the very birds themselves, and she never failed to surprise and charm all ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... and he did not improve it; his care was of his grounds. When he came home from his walks, he might find his floor flooded by a shower through the broken roof; but could spare no money for its reparation. In time his expences brought clamours about him, that overpowered the lamb's bleat and the linnet's song; and his groves were haunted by beings very different from fawns and fairies. He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said, that if he had lived ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... welcome me, and the rosiest and sweetest of lips coaxingly pressed to mine; all my cares forgotten, all my vexations subdued by her soothing caresses and tender words. And then how enchanting as she warbles like a linnet for my ear alone; how enchanting to lean her bewitching little head on my shoulder, and inhale the balmy fragrance of her breath. O! I ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... rising surpass other trees, And twinkle as moved by the scarce mountain breeze, And the wild oleander in rose-colour'd bloom, With trill of the linnet, ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... saw a wee brown linnet Dancing on a tree, Dancing on a tree. How her feet flew every minute As she danced at me-e-e; How her feet flew every minute As she danced ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... summer: thrush and linnet sung their gladsome summer-lay; Through the fir trees' cooling vista rose the cataract's white spray; And the light blue smoke of even o'er the darksome forests fell— Rose and lingered like a lover loath to bid ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... girl, a true child of Nature, fresh as a wild flower, awaking and rising every day of the year from her peaceful happy couch with the birds of heaven, always smiling and singing. Herminie was the joy, the favourite of the old man,—she was the linnet, the darling, and the life of the house. One autumnal day, (the period at which, as I have before remarked, our province abounds with strangers,) her figure attracted the attention of one of those cursed beings, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... king of | | were passed by others of | all. Well, just as they were on | | stronger wing. But the eagle | the hinges of being off, what | | went up beyond them all, and | does the little rogue of a wren | | was ready to claim the victory, | do but hop up and perch himself | | when the gray linnet, a very | unbeknown on the eagle's tail. So | | small bird, flew from the | they flew and flew ever so high, | | eagle's back, where it had | till the eagle was miles above | | perched unperceived, and, being | all the rest, and could not fly | | fresh and unexhausted, | another stroke, ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... couple, not producing young, there is evidence of another kind, that their sexual functions are thus disturbed. For many cases have been recorded of the loss by male birds when confined of their characteristic plumage. Thus the common linnet (Linota cannabina) when caged does not acquire the fine crimson colour on its breast, and one of the buntings (Emberiza passerina) loses the black on its head. A Pyrrhula and an Oriolus have been observed to assume the quiet plumage of the hen-bird; and the Falco albidus ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Quakeress; for she wore a sober dress, and a little white veil, through which her bright eyes shone. The bridegroom was a military man, in his scarlet uniform,—a plump, bold-looking bird, very happy and proud just then. A goldfinch gave away the bride, and a linnet was bridesmaid. The ceremony was very fine; and, as soon as it was over, the blackbird, thrush and nightingale burst out in a ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... eagle dancing with a linnet, or a giant with a fairy, when the big Lieutenant led out la petite Adrienne, as everybody called her. The honor of Beverley's attention sat unappreciated on Adrienne's mind, for all her thoughts went with her eyes toward Rene and Alice. Nor was Beverley so ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... given to self-analysis than her pet linnet, did not appreciate Brandon's potent reasons, and was in a flaming passion when she received his answer. Rage and humiliation completely smothered, for the time, her affection, and she said to herself, over and over again: "I hate the low-born wretch. Oh! ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... nest, but is does not improve the moss by plucking it. We pluck feathers from birds, and less directly wool from wild sheep, for the manufacture of clothing and cradle-nests, without improving the wool for the sheep, or the feathers for the bird that wore them. When a hawk pounces upon a linnet and proceeds to pull out its feathers, preparatory to making a meal, the hawk may be said to be cultivating the linnet, and he certainly does effect an improvement as far as hawk-food is concerned; ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... a Linnet shot two days ago. I next place in the cage a Bluebottle, one only, to avoid confusion. Her fat belly proclaims the advent of laying-time. An hour later, when the excitement of being put in prison is allayed, my captive is in labour. With eager, jerky steps, she explores the ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... reins of government, and womanlike she twisted them this way and that, her foolish head slightly turned by adulation and flattery. Louis adored her: he gave her a cameo brooch, a beaded footstool (which his mother had used), and the loveliest cock linnet, which used to fly about all over the place, singing songs ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... known cherry was in that garden in abundance; but even the gardener himself did not know the extent of the produce. Birds of all kinds flocked there in enormous numbers, and banqueted gloriously during the summer. No one disturbed them except the painted sportsman; and the song of the linnet and the thrush was heard all day, and that of the nightingale during ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... said gently the Puritan maiden, "Dreaming all night, and thinking all day, of the hedgerows of England,— They are in blossom now, and the country is all like a garden; Thinking of lanes and fields, and the song of the lark and the linnet, Seeing the village street, and familiar faces of neighbors Going about as of old, and stopping to gossip together. Kind are the people I live with, and dear to me my religion; Still my heart is so sad that I wish myself back in Old England. You will say it ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
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