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More "Raven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half-uttered cry, a convulsive struggle, and the deed was accomplished. One slight shiver crept over the limbs, and then the body hung limp and lifeless where it had fallen,—the head resting upon the floor, on which the long raven hair was spread abroad in a disordered mass. The victor gazed coolly on her work while recovering breath; and then, to make assurance doubly sure, took up, as she thought, a stocking from the bed and deliberately tied it tight round the neck of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... "Be silent, you croaking raven," shouted the Broom-Squire. "If you think to mock me, you are wrong. I know well enough what I am about. As for that painting chap, he is gone—gone ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... boasting only one loose white garment, walk with the air and grace of queens, or as though pure Inca blood ran in their veins. Their only adornment is a necklace of red corals and a few inches of red or blue ribbon entwined in their long raven-black hair, which hangs down to the waist in two plaits. Their houses are palm-walled, with a roof of palm-leaves, through which the rain pours and the sun shines. Their chairs are logs of wood, and their beds are string ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... the top of the highest church tower in Rome and fling myself off it, cursing Heaven. Woman! woman! what are you doing?" And he seized her rudely by the shoulder. "What are ye weeping for?" he cried, in a voice all unlike his own, and loud and hoarse as a raven. "Would ye scald me to death with your tears? She believes it. She believes it. Ah! ah! ah! ah! ah! ah!—Then there is ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... not in "long-clothes," at least in longish and flowing clothes, of the petticoat sort, which look as of dark-blue velvet, very simple, pretty and appropriate; in a cap of the same; has a short raven's feather in the cap; and looks up, with a face and eyes full of beautiful vivacity and child's enthusiasm, one of the beautifulest little figures, while the little drum responds to his bits of drumsticks. Sister Wilhelmina, taller by some three years, looks on in pretty marching attitude, and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... He wore his raven hair in long and flowing curls, which hung quite down upon his shoulders—a fashion that was held in Rome to the last degree effeminate, indeed almost infamous—while his trim whiskers and close curly beard reeked with the richest ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... sitting alone in the minister's pew, a strange gentleman was shown into it, whose appearance and demeanor strongly arrested her attention. The slenderness of his frame, the pale yellow of his complexion, and the raven blackness of his hair, seemed only to bring out into grander relief his ample forehead, and to heighten the effect of his deep-set, brilliant eyes. At this period of his life there was an air of delicacy and refinement about his face, joined to a kind of strength ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... The real Napoleon, after all, was Poupart. Ah, never think my hatred of thee slumbers! 'Twas for thy shape's sake first I hated thee, Thou vampire-bat of bloody battle-fields, Hat that seemed fashioned out of raven's wings. I hated thee for pitilessly soaring Above the fields which witnessed our defeats, Half-circle, seeming on the ruddy sky The orb half-risen of some sable sun! And for thy crown wherein the devil lurks, Thou juggler's hat, laid with a sudden hand ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... the trumpets to stern-minded foemen The dewy-winged eagle watched them march onward, The horny-billed raven rejoiced in the battle-play, The sly wolf, the forest-thief, soon saw his heart's desire As the fierce warriors rushed at each other. Great was the shield-breaking, loud was the clamour, Hard were the hand-blows, and dire was the downfall, When first the heroes felt the keen arrow-shower. Soon did ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... reported by good authors, that grasshoppers and some fish have no mouths, but are nourished and take breath by the porousness of their gills, man knows not how: and this may be believed, if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said, in the Psalms, "to feed the young ravens that call upon him ". And they be kept alive and fed by a dew; or ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... "Only a raven," said Vince quickly. "Why, I say, Mike, this must be where that pair we have seen build every year! We must find the nest, and get a young one ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... sixteen or eighteen species, among which is the Raven, which here takes the place of the Crow, the two species not being able to live together, as the stronger robber drives away the weaker. Of the insectivorous birds, some sixty or seventy species are found here, among which is the Mocking-Bird, in the middle and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... with a full figure. The contour of her face suggested Spanish blood. Her hair—what a wealth of it there was—was blue-black, finer than such hair usually is, and with a sheen on it like unto a raven's wing. Her eyes were large, black, and melting in their fullness. Her lips were full, ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore: Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door,— Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,— Perched, and sat, and ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... de Orac. defectu ii. 415 C: 'A chattering crow lives out nine generations of aged men, but a stag's life is four times a crow's, and a raven's life makes three stags old, while the phoenix outlives nine ravens, but we, the rich-haired Nymphs, daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder, outlive ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... other black seamen, who are knocking about here," he added. "This fever has made us terribly short-handed; but I hope the fellows who are sick will come round when we are in blue water again. Harry, go forward and see how they are getting on, and send Tom Raven to me." Raven was one of the two men who had hitherto escaped the lever, and being a good seaman, had been promoted to the rank ...
— The African Trader - The Adventures of Harry Bayford • W. H. G. Kingston
... hags and giants of mountain and desert, of river and ocean. Demons might possess the pig, the goat, the horse, the lion, or the ibis, the raven, or the hawk. The seven spirits of tempest, fire, and destruction rose from the depths of ocean, and there were hosts of demons which could not be overcome or baffled by man without the assistance of the gods to ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... steed, and well armed withal. He was all black, even as I tell ye: his head, his body, and his hands were all black, saving only his teeth. His shield and his armour were even those of a Moor, and black as a raven. He rode his steed at full gallop, with many a forward bound. When he beheld the knights, and drew nigh to them, and the one had greeted the other, he cried aloud to Sir Lancelot: "Knight, now give me to wit of one thing which I desire, ...
— The Romance of Morien • Jessie L. Weston
... being passionately attached to one another. Mrs Lovatt was small, and rather plain; content to be her husband's wife, she had no activities beyond her own home. Mrs Peake was tall, and strikingly handsome in spite of her fifty years, with a brilliant complexion and hair still raven black; her energy was exhaustless, and her spirit indomitable; she was the moving force of the Wesleyan Sunday School, and there was not a man in England who could have driven her against her will. She had a fortune of her own. Enoch Lovatt treated her with the respect due to an equal who had ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... but now She dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint, Hope of the flock- an ill, I mind me well, Which many a time, but for my blinded sense, The thunder-stricken oak foretold, oft too From hollow trunk the raven's ominous cry. But who this god ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... with the long shadows of the gravestones across the bright green hillocks, and at the glowing autumn colours of the Rectory trees beyond. Before such calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear is more distinctly felt—like a raven flapping its slow wing across the sunny air. Nancy wished more and more ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... that, Monkbarns," said Sir Arthur; "where the slaughter is, the eagles will be gathered together. I am like a sheep which I have seen fall down a precipice, or drop down from sicknessif you had not seen a single raven or hooded crow for a fortnight before, he will not lie on the heather ten minutes before half-a-dozen will be picking out his eyes (and he drew his hand over his own), and tearing at his heartstrings before the poor devil has time to die. But that dd long-scented vulture ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... than Mr. Poe's crow! Or was it a raven? What's the difference, anyhow? Now don't tell me they're both anthropeds or pods, or whatever it is, because I'm onto you as a disseminator of knowledge! I never got even with you yet for calling me 'something ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... how it was. You know the waterfall at the head of Raven's Nook? Well, I have long wanted to take that, so I went up with father and Mr Mabberly. We found the captain and McGregor sitting there smoking their pipes, and when I was arranging the camera, the ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... His raven locks, that richly curled, His eye, that proud defiance hurled. Have stol'n my Marian's love! Had I been blest by nature's grace, With such a form, with such a face, Could I ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... entered. Tall she was, and of imperial mien. Diamonds glistened in the coils of her raven hair. Her face was beautiful, her smiling lips and deep, soft eyes, full of sympathy and tenderness, seemed incapable of any stern expression of anger. A woman born to rule, born to lead, but not the woman ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... his side should sit that beauty whom he had seen in the twilight; to be sure she now seemed of taller stature, for she was in full dress, and costume may make one seem larger or smaller. But the hair of the first had seemed short and of a bright golden colour, while this lady had long, curling, raven tresses. The colour must have come from the sun's rays, which at evenfall shed a glow over everything. At that time he had not noticed the girl's face—she had vanished too quickly. But thought is wont to guess a lovely face; he had imagined ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... the south at Mossfell: he was the wealthiest of men, and had a priesthood south there about the nesses. He was married, and his wife was called Geirny. She was the daughter of Gnup, son of Mold-Gnup, who settled at Grindwick, in the south country. Their sons were Raven, and Thorarin, and Eindridi; they were all hopeful men, but Raven was in all wise the first of them. He was a big man and a strong, the sightliest of men and a good skald; and when he was fully grown he fared between sundry lands, and was well ...
— The Story Of Gunnlaug The Worm-Tongue And Raven The Skald - 1875 • Anonymous
... it. Whatsoever is bred in ye sea is fed in the sea; no plant, no tree, no hearbe commeth out of the ground that is not moystened, and as it were noursed of the moysture and mylke of the earth; the lyonesse nurseth hir whelps, the raven cherisheth hir byrdes, the viper her broode, and shal a woman cast away ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... introduced, I may say that many of the mysterious archaic markings on rocks, and decorations of implements, in other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design of the totem animal. Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a triple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design, to our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set of bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on. {64a} Equivalent marks, such as spirals, and tracks of emu's feet, occur on sacred stones found ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... Yet as there can be in logic nothing good excepting by its own comparison with things evil, so in that great pilgrimage of arms the worst followed the best in a greedy throng, as the jackal and the raven cross the desert in the lion's track. And the roads by which they had marched, and the lands wherein they had camped, lay waste as lie the wheat-fields of Palestine in June, when the plague of locusts has eaten its way ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... instinctively that he was exactly the man for Jennie's mate. She was nineteen, dark and slender, a bundle of quick, sensitive, nervous intelligence. Her brown eyes were almost black and her luxuriant hair seemed raven-hued beside his. He had always imagined it nestling beside his big blond head in perfect contentment since the first summer he had spent with Tom Barton at their cottage ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the woman in white that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... mutual benefit to each other, and to spend many a pleasant hour during the long winter afternoons in each other's company. But Edith had a very keen sense of humor, and could hardly restrain her secret amusement when she heard him reading Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" and Poe's "Raven" (which had been familiar to her from her babyhood), often with false accent, but always with intense enthusiasm. The reflection that he had had no part of his life in common with her,—that he did not love the things which she loved,—could not ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the righteous reign seems to be sane and sweet, after all," she said. "Even my father is complacent and purring this morning. Which has he eaten, do you know—the raven of contention or the dove ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... with her request, watching her curiously, as she laid both hands in the warm sunshine, which bathed her fair, round arms and shone upon her raven hair. She felt what she could not see, and Louis Kennedy ne'er forgot the agonized expression of the white, beautiful face which turned toward him as the wretched Maude moaned piteously, "Yes, brother, 'tis morning to you, but dark, dark night to me. I'm blind! ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... fantasy to work? The Dove, the winged Columbus of man's haven? The tender Love-Bird—or the filial Stork? The punctual Crane—the providential Raven? The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young? Nay, must we cut from Saturday till Monday That feathered marvel with a human tongue, Because she does not preach upon a Sunday— But what is your ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... their hands clasped as age swept over their raven locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the local priest. Whether he was subscribing for a Catholic Orphans' ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... his wife went to the side of a pool, in order to wash their linen. As they were making a beginning with their linen by beating it upon the plain and using soap to it, a raven coming seized the soap and flew away with it. 'O Cogia,' shrieked the wife, 'the raven has taken away the soap.' 'Say nothing, wife,' said the Cogia, 'it was dirty enough after our using it; let him take ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... me, and which almost seem to throw a light upon the paper. Since I cannot break the spell, I will describe the owner of them. She is a young married lady, about four or five and twenty, middle sized, finely modeled, a Grecian outline of face, a complexion sallow yet healthful, raven black hair, eyes dark, large, and beaming, softened by long eyelashes, lips full and rosy red, yet finely chiseled, and teeth of dazzling whiteness. She is dressed in black, as if in mourning; on one hand is ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... art of attitudinizing, she had made herself thoroughly comfortable; and as the light streamed full upon her, all the marvellous beauty of the delicate face and the perfect modelling of the small hands and feet were clearly revealed. The glossy raven hair clung in waving masses around her white full forehead, and the long silky lashes lay like jet fringe on her exquisitely moulded cheeks; while the remarkably fine pencilling of her arched brows, which had ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... is bright upon this beechen spray! Spring wakes thy harp! I hear—I see—again, Thy wild steeds foaming thro' the crimson fray, The raven on the white breast of thy slain, The tumult of thy chariots, far away, The weeping in the glens, the lustrous hair Dishevelled over the stricken eagle's fall, And in thy Druid groves, at fall of day One gift that Britain gave her valorous there, One gift of lordlier pride Than aught—save ...
— The Lord of Misrule - And Other Poems • Alfred Noyes
... swallowed up by Rahu; or like the ocean reft of water. The mighty car-warriors of thy army beholding Abhimanyu whose face had the splendour of the full moon, and whose eyes were rendered beautiful in consequence of lashes black as the feathers of the raven, lying prostrate on the bare earth, were filled with great joy. And they repeatedly uttered leonine shouts. Indeed, O monarch, thy troops were in transports of joy, while tears fell fast from the eyes of the Pandava heroes. Beholding the heroic ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... arrow, Jupiter places them both among the Constellations. Juno having complained of this to Oceanus, is borne back to the heavens by her peacocks, who have so lately changed their colour; a thing which has also happened to the raven, which has been lately changed from white to black, he having refused to listen to the warnings of the crow (who relates the story of its own transformation, and of that of Nyctimene into an owl), and having persisted in ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... few moments, she hesitated, and I seized the opportunity to examine her more attentively. Hair as black as the raven's wing, large blue eyes, a face perfectly oval, a mouth of the smallest and the most expressive mold, lips the reddest and most faultless it is possible to imagine, composed the details of the lovely whole, which at the first glimpse ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... three years' captivity, and, traversing Poland and Lithuania, arrived safely at Moscow. Dmitri was now forty years of age. He was a man of colossal stature, and of vigorous health. His hair and beard were black as the raven's wing, and his ruddy cheek and piercing eye seemed to give promise of a long life. But suddenly he was seized with a fatal disease, and it was soon evident that death was near. The intellect of the dying prince was unclouded, and, with much fortitude, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... watched her while she slept. Then he observed a knot in a golden clasp, and unfastening it, he found the three rings which he had given her. He laid them on the grass, and, as chance would have it, a black raven flew past, picked up the rings and flew with them on to a tree. Peter climbed up the tree to catch the bird; but, as he was just about to seize it, the raven flew into another tree, and so from one tree to ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... is blasphemous egotism. One of the tenderest, devoutest, richest, writers of the century has unflinchingly affirmed that if man who trusted that love was the final law of creation, although nature, her claws and teeth red with raven, shrieked against his creed be left to be blown about the desert dust or sealed within the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Mother of Ibor. Singing of Wendel men, Ambri and Assi; How to the Winilfolk Went they with war-words,— 'Few are ye, strangers, And many are we: Pay us now toll and fee, Cloth-yarn, and rings, and beeves: Else at the raven's meal Bide the sharp bill's doom.' Clutching the dwarfs work then, Clutching the bullock's shell, Girding gray iron on, Forth fared the Winils all, Fared the Alruna's sons, Ayo and Ibor. Mad at heart stalked they: Loud wept the women all, Loud the Alruna wife; ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... the tree as if driven by the most violent force. Meanwhile, a red cloth must be placed near the nest, which will so scare the woodpecker that it will let the fabulous root drop. There are several versions of this tradition. According to Pliny the bird is the raven; in Swabia it is the hoopoe, and in Switzerland the swallow. In Russia, there is a plant growing in marshy land, known as the rasir-trava, which when applied to locks causes them to open instantly. In Iceland similar properties ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... should be necessary, and abundant provisions of an anti-scorbutic character, in order to preserve the officers and crew from the common Arctic maladies. The vessel was furnished with a heater, in order to preserve an even temperature, and also with a portable observatory called a "raven's nest," which they could hoist to the top of the highest mast, in those regions where they meet with floating ice, to signal ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... their never-changing vesture of gloom despise the bright garniture of Spring, and where, instead of the joyous carolling of little birds awakened anew to gladness, nothing is heard but the ominous croak of the raven and the whirring scream of the storm-boding sea-gull. A quarter of a mile distant Nature suddenly changes. As if by the wave of a magician's wand you are transported into the midst of thriving fields, fertile arable land, and meadows. You see, too, the large and prosperous village, ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... men discussed, with glee or dolour, The question of the Creature's colour. "Black as my hat," cries one, "I know." "Nay!" shouts another, "white as snow!" Whether the thing revealed should prove To ape the Raven or the Dove, Was matter of dispute most furious; Angry were most, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... opened and he looked up as the angel, the lovely weaver of peace, had bidden him. Above the roof of clouds he saw the Tree of Glory with its words of promise. The great battle came, when the Holy Sign was borne forth. Loud sang the trumpets. The raven was glad thereof, and the dewy-feathered eagle looked on at the march, and the wolf lifted up his howling. The terror of war was there, the clash of shields and the mingling of men, and the heavy sword-swing ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... about 1579. The half-timbered hall of the Drapers' Guild, some old houses in Frankwell, including the inn with the quaint sign—the String of Horses, the ancient hostels—the Lion, famous in the coaching age, the Ship, and the Raven—Bennett's Hall, which was the mint when Shrewsbury played its part in the Civil War, and last, but not least, the house in Wyle Cop, one of the finest in the town, where Henry Earl of Richmond stayed on his way to Bosworth field to win ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... garnished with furs, over which flowed his long robe of spotless white, in ample folds. The eight-pointed cross of his order was cut on the shoulder of his mantle in black velvet. The high cap no longer invested his brows, which were only shaded by short and thick curled hair of a raven blackness, corresponding to his unusually swart complexion. Nothing could be more gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had they not been marked by a predominant air of haughtiness, easily acquired by the exercise of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... a day before the evening when you restored me to the waters the second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought me to you I should have been changed into a hooting owl; if you had not done so the second night, I should have been changed into a croaking raven. But, thanks to you, Enda, I am now a snow-white swan, and for one hour on the first night of every full moon the power of speech is and will be given to me as long as I remain a swan. And a swan I must always remain, unless you are willing to break the spell of enchantment ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... matron, while her countenance fell, "can the dove mate with the raven? the rabbit ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... with scant foliage and affording but little shade. Among the white-ant hillocks shot upwards here and there euphorbias, with boughs like the arms of a candle-stick. In the sky vultures soared, and lower there flew from acacia to acacia birds of the raven species with black and white plumage. The grass was yellow and, in spike, looked like ripe rye. But, nevertheless, that dry jungle obviously supplied food for a great number of animals, for several times each ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... The raven's croak, the low wind choked and drear, The baffled stream, the grey wolf's doleful cry, Were all the sounds that mariner could hear, As through the wood he wandered painfully; But as unto the house he drew anigh, The pillars of a ruined shrine ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... and efface yourself and watch life. It's an all-day process of the stronger annihilating the weaker. The one inexorable thing in the world is Nature. The eagle dominates the hawk; the hawk, the falcon; the falcon, the raven; and so on down to the place where the hummingbird drives the moth from his particular trumpet flower. The big snake swallows the little one. The big bear appropriates ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... temperament is nervous bilious; he is tall, slender, and straight as an Indian; has a superb head; his brow looks like a white cloud under his raven hair; eyes large, black as sloes, and glowing with expression, . . . those star-like eyes flashing ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... "To Fortune" (Dykes Campbell's Edition of the "Poems", p. 27), was also prefaced by a short letter to the editor of the "Morning Chronicle". Among Coleridge's letters are several of this sort, and each affords a glimpse into his character. Those with the "Raven" and "Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" are characteristic specimens of his drollery ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... and portentous meagreness; his nose was like an eagle's bill, his teeth white as ivory, his eyes black (Oh how black!) and fraught with a strange expression, his skin was dark, and the hair of his head like the plumage of the raven. A deep quiet smile dwelt continually on his features; but with all the quiet it was a cruel smile, such a one as would have graced the countenance of a Nero. "Mais en revanche personne n'etoit plus honnete." "Caballero," said he, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Georgian, and the French and English the Greek. When they do appear, they are generally disposed of at a high price. [Sidenote: GEORGIAN SLAVE.] This beautiful captive, who proved to be a Georgian, was neither bashful nor timid. She saluted us with smiles, severing her raven locks, and trying to captivate the spectators, by making her beauty appear to the greatest advantage. However, it did not seem to possess any power over the Turks; and as to the Christians, they are not allowed to purchase slaves publicly, though sometimes it is done indirectly, and by ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... threaten, I had the body opened. There were no traces of poison, and it appeared he died of influenza. He has left considerable property, chiefly in cheese and halfpence, buried in different parts of the garden. The new raven (I have a new one, but he is comparatively of weak intellect) administered to his effects, and turns up something every day. The last piece of bijouterie was a hammer of considerable size, supposed to have been stolen from a vindictive carpenter, who had ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... not go back in any case," said the lad; "William has the earldom and the titles. I may at least be allowed part of the fun. Sholto, if William dies without heirs and I become Earl, my first act will be to hang you on the dule tree with a raven on either side, for a slow-bellied knave and prophet ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... people with hoes and rakes in their hands, and asked them if they had seen her sheep. But they only laughed at her, and said, No. One man was very cross, and threatened to beat her. At last she came to a stile, on which an old Raven was perched. He looked so wise that Little Bo-Peep asked him whether he had seen a flock of sheep. But he only cried "Caw, caw, caw;" so Bo-Peep ran on again ...
— My First Picture Book - With Thirty-six Pages of Pictures Printed in Colours by Kronheim • Joseph Martin Kronheim
... Rome's Founder-King beside his Augur standing Noted twelve ravens borne in sequent flight O'er Alba's crags. They emblem'd centuries twelve, The term to Rome conceded. Eight are flown; Remain but four. Hail, sacred brood of night! Hencefore my standards bear the Raven Sign, The bird that hoarsely haunts the ruined tower; The bird sagacious of the field of blood Albeit far off. Four centuries I need: Then comes my day. My race and I are one. O Race beloved and holy! From my youth Where'er a hungry heart impelled my feet, Whate'er I found of glorious, have ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead—it was faultless—how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so divine!—the skin rivaling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant, and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the Homeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of the nose—and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... her hood and looked at me with laughing eyes, I saw how dark those eyes were, and how raven black her wandering ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... stretched and a cold wind has blown for centuries. There are among them phlegmatic natures, and also ardent mystical ones, and others redolent of reality. Some of them have hair black as the darkest raven wing—others have eyes the colour of the sky. There are among them white and also swarthy foreheads; strong, hardy natures, and others nervous, quivering with passion, imbued with dreaming, and consumed with ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... was made on this wise. I was sitting one morning on a log of wood opposite this holly-bush, reading the story of Goody Twoshoes, and thinking to myself how much I should like to be like her, and to go about in the village with a raven, a pigeon, and a lark on my shoulders, admired and talked about by everybody. All sorts of nonsense passed through my head as I sat, with the book on my lap, staring straight before me; and I was just fancying the ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... was Satan himself, whose delight it was to appear in person ensnaring or terrifying every one he met. With this object, he assumed various forms. One day he would visit the earth as a black dog, on another day as a raven, on still another day he would be heard in the distance roaring like a bull. He appeared sometimes as a white man in black clothes, and sometimes he became a black man in black clothes, when it was remarked that his voice was ghastly, that he wore no shoes, and that ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... now that beauty? where those movements? where That colour? what of her, of her is left, Who, breathing Love's own air, Me of myself bereft! Poor Lyce! spared to raven's length of days; That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, A firebrand, once ablaze, Now smouldering ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... nearly a quarter of a mile to the main road—I wandered back towards the higher ground, joining a waterproof figure, a member of the Green Committee, who was sadly regarding the water-logged links with the disconsolate air of the raven let loose from the ark! We agreed that this was a remarkably good opportunity for observing the drainage system, and taking notes for future guidance, and in company we went over as much of the links as possible, finishing below the second hole, where the cross stream which comes ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... and as he simultaneously passed the servant-girl under a minute inspection, he found that though she wore several articles of clothing the worse for wear, she was, nevertheless, with that head of beautiful hair, as black as the plumage of a raven, done up in curls, her face so oblong, her figure so slim and elegant, indeed, supremely beautiful, sweet, and spruce, and Pao-y eagerly inquired: "Are you also a girl attached to this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... on the cheek that is so fair to look on Swoop the grim fiends of hunger and decay, Tigers shall spring and raven, ere the ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... fell King Ali and a great part of his host. And King Adils took from the dead prince the helmet Battleboar and his horse Raven. Then the Berserks of Rolf Stake asked for their wage, three pounds of gold apiece; and further they asked to carry to Rolf Stake those costly things which they in his behalf should choose. These were the helmet Battleboar, and the corslet Finnsleif, which no weapon ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... gone, even the midges seemed to have forgotten their calling. No place on earth can be so deathly still as a deer-forest early in the season before the stags have begun roaring, for there are no sheep with their homely noises, and only the rare croak of a raven breaks the silence. The hillside was far from sheer-one could have walked down with a little care-but something in the shape of the hollow and the remote gleam of white water gave it an extraordinary ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... maturity are usually found in the exact opposite party to that which they espoused in their youth, so men who loved blondness in boyhood are almost certain to be found at the feet of the raven-haired in their middle age, and vice versa. The change is but a part of that general change which overtakes us with the years, substituting in us a catholic appreciation of the world as it is for idealist notions of the world as we see it, or desire it to be. It is ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... was heard to ring, An aerial voice was heard to call, And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing Around ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... dwarf was meant to be funny. Humour of a horrible kind, but still humour, is the purpose of Quilp's existence and position in the book. Laughter is the object of all his oddities. But laughter is not the object of Barnaby Rudge's oddities. His idiot costume and his ugly raven are used for the purpose of the pure grotesque; solely to make a certain ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... compelled to shake hands. He did it very graciously. She was certainly a fine girl—tall, strong, full-breasted, with dark colour and raven black hair; curious, her eyes, very large and bright. They stared full at you, but past you, as though they had decided that you were of ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... with the view of the wide plains that roll out like a vast green sea from the back of the fort, studded here and there with little islets and hillocks, around which may be seen hovering a watchful hawk or solitary raven. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... of her cottage home, and eagerly scanning the moors, stood Miriam Heap. An exultant light gleamed in her dark eyes, and her bosom rose and fell as though swept with tumultuous passion. Ever womanly and beautiful, she was never more a queen than now, as the wind tossed the raven tresses of her crown of hair, and wrapped her dress around the well-proportioned limbs until she looked the draped statue of a classic age. There was that, too, within her breast which filled her with lofty and pardonable pride, for she awaited her husband's return ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... path we'll go, And leave the Raven Rocks below, And creep inside the caves of snow, ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... pensive eyes would close, And bid their lids each other seek, Veiling the azure orbs below; While their long lashes' darken'd gloss Seem'd stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek, Like raven's plumage ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... and black are of totemic significance and relate to the ceremonial life of the Indian. In earliest times this blanket was undecorated, a plain field of white; then color was introduced on the white field in stripes of herring-bone pattern typifying raven's tail, because similar to the vanes of the tail feathers; and later the elaborate geometric designs of present day blankets developed. These designs are first painted upon a pattern board the size and shape of those which are to appear upon the blanket, and it is from this pattern board ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell
... liners dumped out at Ellis Island a lump of protozoa which was expected to evolve into an American citizen. A steward kicked him down the gangway, a doctor pounced upon his eyes like a raven, seeking for trachoma or ophthalmia; he was hustled ashore and ejected into the city in the name of Liberty—perhaps, theoretically, thus inoculating against kingocracy with a drop of its own virus. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... seemed not likely to blow over so soon as was desirable. Leicester's brother the Earl of Warwick took a most gloomy view of the whole transaction, and hoarser than the raven's was his ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... church one day, and sat on the organ enjoying the music; for every one was singing, and I joined in, though I didn't know the air. Opposite me were two great tablets with golden letters on them. I can read a little, thanks to my friend, the learned raven; and so I spelt out some of the words. One was, 'Love thy neighbor;' and as I sat there, looking down on the people, I wondered how they could see those words week after week, and yet pay so little heed to them. Goodness knows, I don't consider myself ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... utter! Dost thou grudge The king his bride? Or hast thou lamed thy tongue In battle? That was never known before. But no, for thou could'st use it fast enough To tell me of Brunhilda's dark brown eyes And raven tresses. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... she permitted her daughter-in-law to decide as she pleased. A second time he presented himself, and Lady Mar, still indifferent, allowed Helen a second time to refuse him. Years flew over the heads of the ill-joined pair; but while they whitened the raven locks of the earl, and withered his manly brow, the beauty of his countess ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... "The Dead Raven." A poor weaver in Edinburgh lost his situation one winter, on account of business being so dull. He begged earnestly of his employer to let him have work; but he said it was impossible. Well said he, "I'm sure the Lord will help." When he came home and told his wife the sad news she was ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... grew the fighting Around Valerius dead; For Titus dragged him by the foot And Aulus by the head. "On, Latines, on!" quoth Titus, "See how the rebels fly!" "Romans, stand firm!" quoth Aulus, "And win this fight or die! They must not give Valerius To raven and to kite; For aye Valerius loathed the wrong, And aye upheld the right: And for your wives and babies In the front rank he fell. Now play the men for the good house ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sitting up. "If I were a bird, riding in yon nest would be easier." The last of his sentence ended in a hoarse croak. Sir Hokus vanished, and a great raven flopped down in the center ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... Translator and the Children Opportunity Destroyer of Ships, Men, Cities War Song of the Saracens Joseph and Mary No Coward's Song A Western Voyage Fountains The Welsh Sea Oxford Canal Hialmar speaks to the Raven The Ballad of the Student in the South The Queen's song Lord Arnaldos We that were friends My Friend Ideal Mary Magdalen I rose from dreamless hours Prayer A Miracle of Bethlehem Gravis Dulcis Immutabilis Pillage The Ballad of Zacho Pavlovna in London ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the mists of death,' and covered with a great lid, hotter than the fires themselves. On the lid sat a huge multitude of souls, burning, 'till they were melted, like garlic in a pan with the glow thereof.' Reaching the nethermost hell, he was shown the Prince of Darkness, black as a raven from head to foot, thousand-handed and with a long thick tail covered with fiery spikes, 'lying on an iron hurdle over fiery gledes, a bellows on each side of him, and a crowd ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... rose in her raven hair Whose curls forbade the plait and braid, The bride slid down the oaken stair, And mantled like a bashful maid, As, ...
— The Mistress of the Manse • J. G. Holland
... upwards as he croaked again. He was answered by a similar croak, and a large raven was seen flying homewards over the fiord for the night. Then the echoes all croaked, till the whole region seemed ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... said the little woman. "But I should be in demand, I think. For who is there now? A couple of old slow-coaches, that rattle at every move they make, and your friend the old raven-mother, Frau Kummerfelden, whose rough paws would kill anything ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... understand the contrary; but the specks of blood on her brow, her hands and naked arms, as well as on the blade of her sword which she continued to hold in her hand—her flushed countenance, and the disordered state of the raven locks which escaped from under the red bonnet and plume that formed her head-dress, seemed all to intimate that she had taken an immediate share in the conflict. Her keen black eyes and features expressed an imagination inflamed by the pride of gratified revenge, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... upon the shore, and from their prison lead out their possessions. And Noah, the helmsman of the ark, made trial whether the seafloods yet were ebbing under heaven. After many days, while the high hills yet harboured the seed and treasure of the tribes of earth, the son of Lamech let a dusky raven fly forth from the ark over the deep flood. And Noah was sure that in its need, if so be it should find no land upon this journey, the raven would return to him again within the ark across the wide ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... have yielded, at the rate of three and a half miles per hour, thirteen plus one third miles. But only two and a half hours were given to walking; the other one and a half to riding. No day was a day of rest; absolutely none. Days so stormy that they "kept the raven to her nest," snow the heaviest, winds the most frantic, were never listened to as any ground of reprieve from the ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... black as the raven's back, And her face—what a queenly one; And her voice ripples out like the trembling shout Of a Lark when he sings to the sun; But her form is filled with a soul self-willed That would lord o'er a luckless he; Pride reigns in her breast, like ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... of the Hesperus" between her pearly teeth and shook it to death. Then she got a half-Nelson on Poe's "Raven" and put ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... the woman came forward and held out her hand. She wasn't handsome, but she certainly was pretty, even though her nose was retrousse, which is French for pug. Her hair was raven-black, her eyes sparkling, her lips red and her ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the eagle ravine-eager, Raven of my race, to-day Better surely hast thou catered, Lord of gold, than for thyself; Here the morn come greedy ravens Many any a rill of wolf (1) to sup, But thee burning thirst down-beareth, Prince of ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... strong party of Indians, whom they repulsed with loss. Some of the party showed me several bloody scalps of warriors they had killed. I could not help remarking the beauty of the hair, which was raven-black, and shone with a beautiful gloss. They had several captured Indian women with them, and half-a-dozen children; the former were absorbed in grief, and one in particular, whose young husband ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... death!" interrupted the King loudly and in haste,— "'Tis a raven note that hath been croaked in mine ears too often and too harshly already! What! ... hast thou been met by the mad Khosrul who lately sprang on me, even as a famished wolf on prey, and grasping my bridle-rein bade me prepare to die! 'Twas an ill jest, and one not to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... toilette. She was assisted in this serious and important occupation by two skillful maids, one of whom was clasping a necklace of large, sparkling diamonds around the white throat of her charming mistress, while the other adjusted a magnificent diadem of the same precious stones on the raven black hair. ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... therewith, nor with the rest of the idols of the heathen, also introduced brute beasts as gods. Some of them worshipped the sheep, some the goat, and others the calf and the hog; while certain of them worshipped the raven, the kite, the vulture, and the eagle. Others again worshipped the crocodile, and some the cat and dog, the wolf and ape, the dragon and serpent, and others the onion, garlic and thorns, and every other creature. And the poor fools do not perceive, concerning these things, that they have no power ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... piece of work," said Red Gil in a voice like a raven's, "and the sooner it's done with, and we are aboard again and booming back to the Indies, the better I'll like it. ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... inclination of his glass to the ladies, who were sitting now tired and huddled together on the bench, and over their heads to Elizabeth, who was standing in the background, awake enough for both of them. The light from the fire fell upon his handsome brown face, with the raven black curly hair, and the dark eyes that it was said he had inherited from his recently deceased mother, who was from Brest; and with his flow of animal spirits, that sufficed for the whole party almost, he certainly ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... said Iris, resting her chin on her hand, and proceeding to consider the subject. "I could buy presents for them all at home: lop-eared rabbits for Max, and a raven for Clement, and wax dolls for Susie and Dottie—they've only ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... skin destroyed, the face haggard with care and sorrow, the eyelids swollen by watchful nights. She almost smiled at the contrast to the brilliant, flashing-eyed, nut-brown maid in the scarlet-wreathed coronal of raven hair, whom she had seen the last time she cared to cast a look in ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Arcas being about to pierce her with an arrow, Jupiter places them both among the Constellations. Juno having complained of this to Oceanus, is borne back to the heavens by her peacocks, who have so lately changed their colour; a thing which has also happened to the raven, which has been lately changed from white to black, he having refused to listen to the warnings of the crow (who relates the story of its own transformation, and of that of Nyctimene into an owl), and ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... of the convert, surnamed "The Prophet." In the first, behold a long-bearded man, the hair almost white, with uncouth face, and clad in reindeer skin, like the Siberian savage. His black foreskin cap is topped with a raven's head; his features express terror. Bent forward in his sledge, which half-a-dozen huge tawny dogs draw over the snow, he is fleeing from the pursuit of a pack of foxes, wolves, and big bears, whose gaping jaws, and formidable teeth, seem quite capable ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was a young man of twenty-four, tall and slim of figure, with a strikingly handsome face. His eyes were almond-shaped, not large but very dark, with much charm of expression. The finely-marked eyebrows served by their raven blackness to emphasize the whiteness of the forehead, which was crowned by an abundant mass of curling black hair. His fresh complexion had still the bloom of early youth, and would hardly have betrayed his age, if it had not been shaded by a dark ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Carabas Robert Brough A Modest Wit Selleck Osborn Jolly Jack William Makepeace Thackeray The King of Brentford William Makepeace Thackeray Kaiser & Co A. Macgregor Rose Nongtongpaw Charles Dibdin The Lion and the Cub John Gay The Hare with Many Friends John Gay The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven Guy Wetmore Carryl The Friend of Humanity and the Knife-Grinder George Canning Villon's Straight Tip to all Cross Coves William Ernest Henley Villon's Ballade Andrew Lang A Little Brother of the Rich Edward Sandford Martin The World's Way Thomas Bailey Aldrich For My Own Monument ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... waves of morning air came down the mountains, cool, chill, and moist. The grey light became tinged with red. Then the sun rose somewhere. It had not yet appeared, but the peak of the western hill was flushed and a raven flew out and perched on the point of light. Israel's breast expanded, and he strode on with a firmer step. "She will be waking soon," he ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... daughter sitting alone in the minister's pew, a strange gentleman was shown into it, whose appearance and demeanor strongly arrested her attention. The slenderness of his frame, the pale yellow of his complexion, and the raven blackness of his hair, seemed only to bring out into grander relief his ample forehead, and to heighten the effect of his deep-set, brilliant eyes. At this period of his life there was an air of delicacy and refinement about his face, joined to a kind of strength that women can admire, without ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... home. The American bird, who is bigger and stands on a bigger rock, is sleek enough except about the head which is a bit ruffled. But he is more of a raven than an eagle in his sable plumes of professional cut, and he is obviously not at ease. He does not look the other in the face. He stares straight in front of him at nothing with a forced, hard and fixed smile, obviously assumed because he ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... poem among the children, letting each child learn a part. The sustained interest of a long poem is worth while. "The Merman," "The Battle of Ivry," "Horatius at the Bridge," "Krinken," "The Skeleton in Armour," "The Raven" and "Herve Riel" may all profitably be learned that way. Nevertheless, the child enjoys most the poem that is just long enough, and there is much to be said in favour of the selection that is adapted, in length, to the average ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Bourse. She cries all night, but discovers that tears make her eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted, with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life, she teaches ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... passions have laid dark smears on those fine forms, when grief had furrowed that network of delicate veins. Esther's nationality proclaimed itself in this Oriental modeling of her eyes with their Turkish lids; their color was a slate-gray which by night took on the blue sheen of a raven's wing. It was only the extreme tenderness of her expression that could moderate ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... pass swiftly by a single river to the sea. Sixty islands lie upon this water, the haunt and home of innumerable birds. Each island holds an eyrie, where none but eagles repair to build their nests, to cry and fight together, and take their solace from the world. When evil folk arrive to raven and devour the realm, then all these eagles gather themselves together, making great coil and clamour, and arraying themselves proudly one against another. One day, or two days, three or four, the mighty birds will strive together; and the interpretation ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... enjoy with me his present extraordinary tour. I could not resist the impulse of writing to you from this place. The situation of the old castle corresponds exactly to Shakspeare's description. While we were there to-day, it happened oddly, that a raven perched upon one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... brunette, with the rich colors of her type—eyebrows like the raven's wing, ripe, red lips, and hair whose darkness and length, released from the crown into which she wound it, might have spun her garments. Her eyes were of a steel-blue, in which the lights had the effect of black. She was dark with sky breaking through, like ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... the Bible," said Miss Laura, "animals are often spoken of. The dove and the raven, the wolf and the lamb, and the leopard, and the cattle that God says are his, and the little sparrow that can't fall to the ground without our ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... he is," quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail, and was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all like little birds in the sight of Heaven, and therefore was not above speaking to the sparrows, and giving them information. "I know who the old man is. ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... not bark again, but instead there happened another surprising thing. We were walking near together, carefully picking our way, when suddenly a big raven, coming from we knew not where, flew between us, so close that we felt the flap of his wings and heard their soft fluff-fluff in the moisture-laden air, and disappeared again into the fog before us ...
— The Boys of Crawford's Basin - The Story of a Mountain Ranch in the Early Days of Colorado • Sidford F. Hamp
... company which I have already mentioned, but even the beautiful Rehan and the nice old Mrs. Gilbert seemed thoroughly awed in the presence of "the Guv'nor." He was a most crusty, dictatorial party, as I remember him with his searching eyes and raven locks, always dressed in black and always failing to find virtue in any actor or actress not a member of his own company. I remember one particularly acrid discussion between him and my father in regard to Julia Marlowe, who was then making her first bow to the public. ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... and she soon won a fearful name at Kentish cottage-hearths, though she 'was not black to see, nor old. No, she was very young. But she did all the things that soldiers do,—was a bit of a foreigner;—she brought a reputation up from the Welsh land, and it had a raven's croak and a glow-worm's drapery and a ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they celebrated mysteries which consisted (says Origen against Celsus) in imitating the motion of the stars, the planets and the heavens. The initiated took the name of constellations, and assumed the figures of animals. One was a lion, another a raven, and a third a ram. Hence the use of masks in the first representation of the drama. See Ant. Devoile, vol. iii., p. 244. "In the mysteries of Ceres the chief in the procession called himself the creator; the bearer of the torch was denominated ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... his wife, Louise. A Georgian by birth, her beauty and ingenuousness had won her great popularity at the court of St. Petersburg, to which she had been introduced by the Governor of Tiflis. She was neither tall nor short, possessed a wealth of raven black hair, perfect teeth, lustrous black eyes, a smile that would inspire poets and a voice that was all music and melody. When Count Drentell carried her off in the face of a hundred admirers, he was considered lucky indeed. Dimitri never confessed, even ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... Jess inquired casually, the scarlet poppy set among the blue-black raven's wings, and brushing his beard in a ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... haunt the hall Of the Tantalidae, And in a woman showed A man's strength to my bane, See how upon the dead, Perched like a raven dire, She ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... people saw the buffalo coming they led a big band of them to the piskun, but just as the leaders were about to jump over the cliff a raven came and flapped its wings in front of them and croaked, and they turned off and ran down another way. Every time a herd of buffalo was brought near to the piskun this raven frightened them away. Then Napi knew that the raven was the person who had ...
— Blackfeet Indian Stories • George Bird Grinnell
... Medusa slew, The horse that kil'd Beleuphon, then flew. My Crab, my Scorpion, fishes you may see The Maid with ballance, twain with horses three, The Ram, the Bull, the Lion, and the Beagle, The Bear, the Goat, the Raven, and the Eagle, The Crown, the Whale, the Archer, Bernice Hare The Hidra, Dolphin, Boys that water bear, Nay more, then these, Rivers 'mongst stars are found Eridanus, where Phaeton was drown'd. Their magnitude, and ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... language enter your heart? why should thy voice rend the air with such agitation? I bid thee live, once more remembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in this dark and gloomy vault, and should I perish under this load of trouble, join the song of thrilling accents with the raven above my grave, and lay this tattered frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream of Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My ghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high fame ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... mummified or petrified for a thousand years. Their mottled back and rusty feathers, their heads drawn down and eyes almost closed, make them look like uncanny visitants from beyond the Styx. Poe's raven was not so ominous and strangely silent; these will not say even the one word, "Nevermore." They look like relics of a Saturnian reign before beauty and music and joy were known upon the earth. If there were charred stumps of trees in the Bracken which was shown to Faust, ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... than one best suit of clothing. In winter he always wore a long woolen frock made by his wife, and a cap of woodchuck skin. Folks said it was like to be a hard winter when he put on his overcoat. His complexion was as dark as an Indian's; eyes as black as night, and he had straight raven hair. He used much tobacco, always a quid in his mouth except when it was a pipe. He mostly refrained on the Sabbath until the evening when a long quiet smoke compensated him for abstinence during two sermons. His voice was rich and seemed to come from deep down in his chest. When he was a bit puzzled, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... evidently full grown; raven-black hair, very dark eyes, absolutely regular features, with a colourless olive complexion, clear as to the face and sallow about the neck, formed in her that assemblage of points whose union many persons regard as the perfection of beauty. How, with the tintless ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... household desolate. These were serious calamities for a man fifty-seven years of age. He found himself forced under new and unfavorable conditions to build all over again, but he set about it in a vigorous and heroic way. His health was good. He was a splendid specimen of manhood. His once raven locks were gray, and his beard, which grew out from his throat, gave him a grizzly appearance. His dark eye was full of fire and his mind responded with vigor to its ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... the murder of Balder. The frightful foreboding which at once flies through all hearts finds voice in the dark "Raven Song" of Odin. Having chanted this obscure wail in heaven, he mounts his horse and rides down the bridge to Helheim. With resistless incantations he raises from the grave, where she has been interred for ages, wrapt in snows, wet with the rains ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... of the enemy were seen approaching, and the banners with the Black Raven on a blood-red field showed that it contained leaders of importance, and was, in fact, the main body of the Danes. It was an imposing sight as it marched towards the fort, with the fluttering banners, ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... toleration which spares the caterpillar shall be extended to him! Men shall look on him in wonder, and, shrugging their shoulders, admire the wise dispensation of Providence, which can feed its creatures with husks and scourings; which spreads the table for the raven on the gallows, and for the courtier in the slime of majesty. We wonder at the wisdom of Providence, which even in the world of spirits maintains its staff of venomous reptiles for the dissemination ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... fitting the thick muscular wrists. His collar was open, and he did not wear a scarf, as did the men Ellen knew. Then her intense curiosity at last brought her steady gaze to Jean Isbel's head and face. He wore a cap, evidently of some thin fur. His hair was straight and short, and in color a dead raven black. His complexion was dark, clear tan, with no trace of red. He did not have the prominent cheek bones nor the high-bridged nose usual with white men who were part Indian. Still he had the Indian look. Ellen caught that ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... or fat Mistress, "Cataract of fluid Tallow," Countess of Darlington, whom I take to have been a Half-Sister rather, sat sorrowful at Isleworth; and kept for many years a Black Raven, which had come flying in upon her; which she somehow understood to be the soul, or connected with the soul, of his Majesty of happy memory. [Horace Walpole, Reminiscences.] Good Heavens, what fat fluid-tallowy stupor, and entirely sordid darkness, dwells among mankind; and ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... was auburn; but her eyes Were black as Death, their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies, Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew; 'T is as the snake late coiled, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... and stood alone in front of Amyntas; her aspect was most queenly, her features beautiful and clear, her eyes proud and fiery; and masses of raven hair contrasted with the red flaming of her garments. With an imperious gesture she flung back her ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... there had been frost already, for the ground was fine with red and yellow leaves; and presently we saw himself coming; professionally questing among those leaves, and preceding his dear keeper with the businesslike self-containment of a sportsman; not too fat, glossy as a raven's wing, swinging his ears and sporran like a little Highlander. We approached him silently. Suddenly his nose went up from its imagined trail, and he came rushing at our legs. From him, as a garment drops from a man, dropped all his strange soberness; he became in a single ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... picture, and danced like an angel. Amongst the maidens was one, a charming and beautiful creature, who looked like wax, had hair like golden silk, and cherry-red lips, was a doll for size, and had coal-black, yes, raven-black eyes. Whoever saw her was ready to swoon, she was so lovely. Now Rosebud, for that was her name, was heartily fond of the handsome Hyacinth, for that was his name, and he loved her fit to die. The ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... window gazed at the red orb and dreamed beautiful dreams, such as a girl may dream but once, of the prince who had come to her so gloriously. While the prince strolled up the street with his coat over his arm, his hat in his hand, letting the night wind flutter the raven's wing of hair on his brow, and as he went he laughed to himself softly and laughed and laughed. For are we not told of old to put not ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... regular flight! However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs—an extraordinary collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals. As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking factory-chimneys, and puffing railway-engines; in short, the place is a real ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the mother, that he might be away when Hugh Price came. She had an intuition, as women sometimes do, that the supreme moment had arrived in which Hugh would "speak his mind." The widow looked very pretty in her lace and silk and frilled cap, from which the raven tresses peeped. She had also managed to dispose of little Rebecca, so the coast was clear when Mr. Price, on his gayly caparisoned steed, arrived. To one not acquainted with the state of Hugh Price's mind, his ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... was permitted to carry a flag and to wear a blue ribbon. The history of that exciting period of English semi-political, semi-religious excitement is graphically set down. Prominent figures in the book are Grip the raven, whose cry was "I'm a devil," "Never say die"; and Miss Dolly Varden, the blooming daughter of the Clerkenwell locksmith, who has given her name to the modern feminine ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... a propitious place and became Elijahs, while a waiter of dark plumage played the raven to perfection. Reminiscence needs must be had before I could steer Bill ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... it was. You know the waterfall at the head of Raven's Nook? Well, I have long wanted to take that, so I went up with father and Mr Mabberly. We found the captain and McGregor sitting there smoking their pipes, and when I was arranging the camera, ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... fowl—even every beak and wing Which cheer the winter, hail the spring, That live in peace, or prey; They that make music, or that mock, The quail, the brave domestic cock, The raven, swan, and jay. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... treatment of the animals, especially in the two birds of the lower compartment, while the peculiar curves of the cinque cento leafage are visible in the leaves above. The dove, alighted, with the olive-branch plucked off, is opposed to the raven with restless expanded wings. Beneath are evidently the two sacrifices "of every clean fowl and of every clean beast." The color is given with green and white marbles, the dove relieved on a ground of greyish green, and all ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... water, and a ragout of old bones full of hairs and slopperies [nothing else; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... but for his beloved mother. As he sat there he caught sight of an eagle flying in the air above, and Ahti asked him if he knew what had happened to his mother. But the eagle could only tell him that his people had all perished long go. Next he asked the raven, and the raven told him that his people had been killed ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... with the true Madonna cast of countenance, beautiful when in a state of repose, but still more lovely when lighted up by animation. Her cheek, though pale, indicated no symptom of ill health, and her complexion was remarkably clear, which was beautifully contrasted with her raven hair, dark eyes, and long silken eyelashes. Her sister, who was but a year younger, owed more of her beauty to a certain sweetness of expression it is impossible to describe, than to perfect regularity of feature. Her eyes ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... twenty-five inches it would have been inaudible, begged to know to which department he could have the pleasure of directing them. He was a very good-looking, or perhaps it would be more correct to say a very beautiful young man, with raven-black hair, glossy and curled, and parted down the middle of his shapely head, and a beautiful small moustache to match. His eyes were also dark and fine, and all his features regular. His figure was as perfect as his face; many ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... suppose that we had, between us, fifteen thousand a year in English money, though I never quite knew how much of hers went to Jimmy. At any rate, we could have shone in Fordingbridge. I never quite knew, either, how she and Edward got rid of Jimmy. I fancy that fat and disreputable raven must have had his six golden front teeth knocked down his throat by Edward one morning whilst I had gone out to buy some flowers in the Rue de la Paix, leaving Florence and the flat in charge of those two. ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... might, With which the giaunts did the gods assay: But all so soone as scortching sunne had brent* His wings which wont the earth to overspredd, The earth out of her massie wombe forth sent That antique horror which made heaven adredd. Then was the Germane raven in disguise That Romane eagle seene to cleave asunder, And towards heaven freshly to arise Out of these mountaines, now consum'd to pouder. In which the foule that serves to beare the lightning Is now no more seen flying nor alighting. [* ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... emigration to the interior of this enchanted land of pretty girls and plentiful food by the knowledge of the sure and merciless vengeance of their chief. Had the rumor of war still held it might have been otherwise, but that raven had flown off to the limbo of its kind, and the Commandante let it be known that deserters would be summarily captured and sent in irons to ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... hearing a rustling noise toward the door, he turned to look. He was, so to speak, petrified with astonishment. There stood on the threshold of the door a woman whose beauty was such as he had never seen surpassed. She held a boy by the hand. She was a mulatto woman, tall and graceful. Her hair was raven black and was combed away from as beautiful a forehead as nature could chisel. Her eyes were a brown hazel, large and intelligent, tinged with a slight look of melancholy. Her complexion was a rich olive, and seemed ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... surprise to find a woodman—for that was what the man was—living in such a big place. The woodman himself, his appearance and character, gave us a second and greater surprise. He was a well-shaped man of medium height; although past middle life he looked young, and had no white thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His teeth were white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather strangely with his pale olive skin and intense black hair. Only a woodman, but he might have come of one of the oldest and best ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... And the other raven said, "Poor Claus, did you say, brother? Do you not see the witch-hazel lying on the ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... raven rejoices at the sight of the boy baby in his cradle. "My food, my food!" he croaks. A hunter has come to the camp. He will shoot the rabbit and the squirrel and the deer; and food for the hungry ravens will be left where his ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... field the snow is flying, There a wounded Cossack's lying; On a bush his head he's leaning, And his eyes with grass is screening, Meadow-grass so greenly shiny, And with cloth the make of China; Croaks the raven hoarsely o'er him, Neighs his courser sad before him: "Either, master, give me pay, Or dismiss me on my way." "Break thy bridle, O my courser, Down the path amain be speeding, Through the verdant forest leading; Drink of two lakes on thy way, Eat of mowings ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... back with him a splendid young woman, with big, lustrous eyes, and hair that shone with the gloss of a raven's wing in the sun. She laughed at him proudly as he danced and leaped beside her, replying softly in Cree, which is the most beautiful language in the world, to everything ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... assistants to help her, and I will tell you how she came by them. One day as she was going through the next village she met with some wicked boys who had got a young raven, which they were going to throw at; she wanted to get the poor creature out of their cruel hands, and therefore gave them a penny for him, and brought him home. She called his name Ralph, and ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... boding Raven Shrieks, Nor midnight Cries of murder'd Ghosts, are more Ungrateful, than thy faint and dull Excuses. —Be gone! and trouble not the silent Griefs, Which will insensibly decay my Life, Till like a Marble Statue I am fixt, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... ascended the crooked stair in darkness till Clym's sitting-room on the upper floor was reached, where he lit a candle, Charley entering gently behind. Yeobright searched his desk, and taking out a sheet of tissue-paper unfolded from it two or three undulating locks of raven hair, which fell over the paper like black streams. From these he selected one, wrapped it up, and gave it to the lad, whose eyes had filled with tears. He kissed the packet, put it in his pocket, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... religion's sake implies belief in a jealous, cruel, and unjust Deity. If we have done our best to arrive at the truth, to torment oneself about the result is to doubt the goodness of God, and, in the words of Bacon, "to bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the shape of a raven." "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life," and the first duty of religion is to form the highest possible conception ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... Norwich, in which antique city, ever since the 'Dane peopled it, some wizard or witch, star-reader, or crystal-seer' has enjoyed a mysterious renown, perpetuating thus through all change in our land's social progress the long line of Vala and Saga, who came with the Raven and Valkyr from Scandinavian pine shores. Merle's reserve vanished on the perusal of Sophy's letter to him. He informed George that Waife declared he had plenty of money, and had even forced a loan upon Merle; but that he liked an active, wandering ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from Thirty Languages and Dialects. By George Borrow. 'The Raven ascended to the Nest of the Nightingale.'—Persian Poem. St. Petersburgh. Printed by ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 73, March 22, 1851 • Various
... wonderful genius, but of reckless habits, and who came to an unhappy and untimely end; left behind him tales and poems, which, though they were not appreciated when he lived, have received the recognition they deserve since his death; his poetical masterpiece, "The Raven," is well known; died at Baltimore of inflammation of the brain, insensible from which he was picked up in a street ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... hand and foot, for it is safe to say that in the latter case they would never have had an opportunity of being surprised again. They would have dangled by their heels from the bough of some tree while a slow fire underneath saved them the necessity of ever after requiring to braid their raven locks. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... 'darkened with the mists of death,' and covered with a great lid, hotter than the fires themselves. On the lid sat a huge multitude of souls, burning, 'till they were melted, like garlic in a pan with the glow thereof.' Reaching the nethermost hell, he was shown the Prince of Darkness, black as a raven from head to foot, thousand-handed and with a long thick tail covered with fiery spikes, 'lying on an iron hurdle over fiery gledes, a bellows on each side of him, and a crowd of ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," mean that we are to do nothing to secure our bread, lest we show no faith in God, and simply wait in idleness for God to repeat the miracle of sending it by a raven? or, does it mean that with thankful hearts to God for the ability he has given us to work, that we go forth diligently fulfilling our task in the use of all appropriate means to secure that which his loving bounty has made possible for us in the fruitful ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... habits of the young Indian was brought about by the magical power of two side-combs ornamented with colored glass. At the first sight of them, A-lee-lah manifested admiration almost equal to that which the scarlet peas had excited in her childish mind. Aunt Mary, perceiving this, parted the curtain of raven hair, and fastened it on each side with the gaudy combs. Then she led her to the glass, put her finger on the uncovered brow, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... fall of the year. The leaves in the wood turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold. The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snow-flakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying "Croak! croak!" for mere cold; yes, one could freeze fast if one thought about it. The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time. One evening—the sun was just going down in fine style—there ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... obliterated, though, in many places, it is nearly levelled by modern cultivation, that dreadful enemy to the antiquary. Pieces of armour are frequently ploughed up, particularly parts of the sword and the battle-axe, instruments much used by those destructive sons of the raven. ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... with holy water dewed at rajasuya rite, And by mantra consecrated, fragrant, flowing, raven-bright, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... waters were still sinking under the clouds: accordingly, after many days from the time the high mountain-sides received the possessions 1440 and persons of the races of earth, the son of Lamech let a black raven fly out of the Ark over the high flood. Noe believed that if it found no land in its flight, it 1445 would zealously seek him again on the ship over the wide water. But this hope failed him; for the evil [bird] alighted upon a floating corpse: the dark-feathered ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... the beauty of a work. In every art the best work of each great man should be ranked with the best of all other great men. Some geniuses express themselves on a larger, but not necessarily on a greater scale, than others. In poetry, for example, Poe's "Raven" is not to be ranked below Milton's "Paradise Lost" because shorter; nor in music need a Chopin ballad be placed below a Beethoven symphony because not so extended as the latter. Every genius, however, must expect to be condemned ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... gold-buckled belt with hanging guns, his high-top boots with gold spurs. In that moment Venters had a strange, unintelligible curiosity to see Oldring alive. The rustler's broad brow, his large black eyes, his sweeping beard, as dark as the wing of a raven, his enormous width of shoulder and depth of chest, his whole splendid presence so wonderfully charged with vitality and force and strength, seemed to afford Venters an unutterable fiendish joy because for that magnificent manhood and life he meant ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... land from invasion. Both as a giant squatting on a rock and as a head, Bran is equated by Professor Rh[^y]s with Cernunnos, the squatting god, represented also as a head, and also with the Welsh Urien whose attribute was a raven, the supposed meaning of Bran's name.[350] He further equates him with Uthr Ben, "Wonderful Head," the superior bard, harper and piper of a Taliesin poem.[351] Urien, Bran, and Uthr are three forms of a god worshipped by bards, and a "dark" divinity, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... the Books of Kings, S. 24, remarks: "[Hebrew: gl] does not, in any of the dialects, denote the natural hill of rocks, but merely stones heaped up." Hence, the hill would be an artificial hill for the execution of criminals. (Compare the German word Rabenstein, lit. "raven-stone," for: ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... chill comes o'er him That bleaches his raven hair, And furrows with hoary wrinkles The form erst so young ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... to its hiding-place, swept the floor gracefully with his sombrero, then placing the spangled head- piece at an exact angle upon his raven locks, lounged out, his silver spurs tinkling in ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... the glacier several years hence and a few miles nearer peace. In that they resemble men. 'Pon my word, Miss Wynton, you have caused me to evolve a rather poetic explanation of certain gray hairs I have noticed of late among my own raven locks." ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the eldest son, the present supreme king, now in his twentieth year, looking when five years old the exact counterpart of this one—his graceful little figure, dimpled cheeks, eyes lustrous as diamonds, and the glossy, raven hair, close shaven at the back, while the foretop was coiled in a smooth knot, fastened with jeweled pins and twined with fragrant flowers. The dress was very simple—only two garments of silk or embroidered muslin—but the deficiency was more than made up by jewelry, of which, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... winter weather, None to guide them, Walk'd at night on the misty heather; Night, as black as a raven's feather; Both were lost and found ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... description of witches given by the fairy-tale tellers of his earliest youth. She had the traditional hook-nose and peaked chin, the glittering eyes, the thousand wrinkles and the toothless gums. He looked about for the raven and the cat, but if she had them, they were not in evidence. At a rough guess, he calculated her age at one hundred years. A youth of extreme laziness, who Baron Dangloss said was the old woman's grandson, appeared to ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... reared to Jove, Whose very rubbish (like the pitied fall Of virtue, most unfortunate) yet bears A deathless majesty, though now quite rased, Hurl'd down by wrath and lust of impious kings, So that where holy Flamens wont to sing Sweet hymns to Heaven, there the daw and crow, The ill-voiced raven, and still chattering pie Send out ungrateful ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... Ah, ma belle Mariane—ma cheri—the daughter of an Indian princess and the granddaughter of a chef de bataillon, M'seur! Could there be better than that? And she is be-e-e-utiful, M'seur, with hair like the top side of a raven's wing with the sun ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... drawn near to hearken and are resting directly overhead. O Black Raven, you never fail in anything. Ha! Now you are brought down. Ha! There shall be left no more than a trace upon the ground where you have been. It is an evolute ghost. You have now put it into a crevice in Sanigalagi, that it may never find the way back. You have ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... slumber, Let no weed nor worm molest me, Let not Kahgahgee, the raven, Come to haunt me and molest me, Only come yourself to watch me, Till I wake, and start, and quicken, Till I ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... Poe from Pike The Raven stole, As his accusers say, Then to embody Adam's soul, God plagiarised ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... father, King Ethelwulf, mounted upon a sturdy horse, but so changed that he hardly knew him, for he was wearing a Danish helmet ornamented with a pair of grey gull's wings, half-opened and pointed back, while in his left hand he carried a Danish shield painted with a black raven, and in his right was a shining ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... and Malachi explained their intentions to the Indian woman, who approved of them, but said, "The Old Raven" (referring to the old Indian) "is very ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... Idun. Day after day went past, and still the beautiful goddess did not come. Little by little the light of youth and beauty faded from the home of the gods, and they themselves became old and haggard. Their strong, young faces were lined with care and furrowed by age, their raven locks passed from gray to white, and their flashing eyes became dim and hollow. Brage, the god of poetry, could make no music while his beautiful wife was ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... was Mrs. Button herself. But Paul wandered a changeling about the Bludston streets. In the rows of urchins in the crowded Board School classroom he sat as conspicuous as any little Martian who might have been bundled down to earth. He had wavy black hair, of raven black, a dark olive complexion, flushed, in spite of haphazard nourishment and nights spent on the stone floor of the reeking scullery, with the warm blood of health, great liquid black eyes, and the exquisitely delicate features of a young Praxitelean god. It was this preposterous ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... abundant tresses of their hair being always decorated with them, either real or artificial. Their only other adornments are a tortoise-shell comb of delicate workmanship, and a long steel pin with a ball of red coral in the end, passing through their rich raven hair. They use powder about their necks and shoulders pretty freely, and sometimes colour the under lip a deep carmine, or even gold, a process which does not add to their personal attractions. They wear no linen; a ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... gleaming, gold-tinted creature, a miniature model of Aphrodite surely, arose from the blue sea and climbed nimbly into the main channels and thence to the deck, where little pools of water dripped from the radiant figure. She shook her small head saucily, and heavy masses of raven-wing hair tumbled about her, provokingly cloaking the charms so boldly outlined by her single saturated tunic ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... to doubt, and the lady's hair undyed, which is perhaps less certain. Shakespear rubbed in the lady's complexion in his sonnets mercilessly; for in his day black hair was as unpopular as red hair was in the early days of Queen Victoria. Any tinge lighter than raven black must be held fatal to the strongest claim to be the Dark Lady. And so, unless it can be shewn that Shakespear's sonnets exasperated Mary Fitton into dyeing her hair and getting painted in false colors, I must give up all pretence that my play is historical. ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... shut, and the only window was up in the roof. But he felt that the ark was no longer moving, and he knew that the water must have gone down. So, after waiting for a time, Noah opened a window, and let loose a bird called a raven. Now the raven has strong wings; and this raven flew round and round until the waters had gone down, and it could find a place to rest, and it did not come back ...
— The Wonder Book of Bible Stories • Compiled by Logan Marshall
... himself than any one else could be. The fine enamel of his genius is all corroded by the deadly acid of his passions. The imperfections of his temperament have pierced his poetry and prose, shattered their structure, and blurred their beauty. Only four or five of his poems—"The Raven," "Ligeia," the earlier of the two addressed "To Helen," and the sonnet to his wife—escape being flawed by some fit of haste, some ungovernable error of taste, some hopeless, unaccountable break in their beauty. In criticism, Poe ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... had learned to understand the speech of birds, and this was now of great use to her, for, seeing a raven pluming itself on a pine bough, she cried softly to it: "Dear bird, cleverest of all birds, as well as swiftest on wing, wilt thou help me?" "How can I help thee?" asked the raven. She answered: "Fly away, until ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... come for him to go away upon his travels also; so she requested him to take the can to the well for water, that she might make a cake for him. And he went, and as he was bringing home the water, a raven over his head cried to him to look, and he would see that the water was running out. And he was a young man of sense, and seeing the water running out, he took some clay and patched up the holes, so that he brought home enough ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... young man. Not more than thirty-five. He was fairly tall, well built, and had evidently enjoyed the education and advantages of a man of wealth. His hair was black as the raven's wings, and was brushed in a heavy mass horizontally across his forehead. His eyes were of a colour that did not accord with his black hair and swarthy complexion. They were of an extremely light grey, and were ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... surged forward with a yell. "Yet a little patience, my masters!" said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine amusement in his eyes. "It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby's marks. But we are fair and ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... clouds had lain for hours along the northern horizon like fixtures in the atmosphere, placed there purely to embellish the scene. A few aquatic fowls occasionally skimmed along the water, and a single raven was visible, sailing high above the trees, and keeping a watchful eye on the forest beneath him, in order to detect anything having life that the mysterious woods ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... had been called to Temple Camp from Bridgeboro to fill (if anyone could fill) the enormous space left vacant in the Raven Patrol by the withdrawal of ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... easily done,' said the eldest brother, jumping into the basket, which at once began to move—up, and up, and up—till he had gone about half-way, when a fat black raven flew at him and pecked him till he was nearly blind, so that he was forced to go back the ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... The sea came rushing in over the land, fell upon the rocks like a monster, and tore them to pieces. The next morning thousands of sea fowls' nests were wrecked, and where green fields had been there were black sands. Now there was sore need of wise counsel. A shrewd old raven said that the fire should be roused. All the birds agreed that the raven had spoken well, but none dared do the deed. The raven was made judge, and decided that the spider should undertake the ticklish task, and that the eagle should carry her ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted raven hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet bracelets shone with every movement of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold flounces, from ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... sweet love! that fiery furnace of which you speak is the Scriptural symbol for fearful trial and intense suffering! far be it from you! for I would rather my whole body were consumed to ashes than one shining tress of your raven hair should be singed!" ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... would receive the sympathy of love and the counsel of wisdom. Nevermore—no, nevermore! Such was the refrain that seemed constantly to ring in her ears, and she found herself murmuring those despairing lines of Poe, where the solitary word of the Raven seems ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... moment for the opening ceremony. Bells were hung on ropes from pole to pole, and at the signal of the sages their ringing was to announce the precise moment when the laborers were to turn the first sod. The calculations of the astrologers were, however, anticipated by a raven, who perched on one of the ropes and set the bells jingling, upon which every mattock was struck into the earth, and the trenches were opened. It was an unlucky hour; the planet Mars (El-Kahir) ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... surgeon, who died in his native town of Edinburgh in May 1807, aged eighty-two, is alluded to by Sir Walter Scott in a prophecy put into the mouth of Meg Merrilees in "Guy Mannering"—"They shall beset his goat; they shall profane his raven," &c. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... make such music as will bring Master Marcus out to ask me if I am killing a pig. There's no room about the place to please them, no miles of acorn and chestnut forest so that they can fill themselves as full as sacks, but they must come into my garden and raven there! Nothing will do for them but my melons and cucumbers! Well, we'll just ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... them there: The muttered curse, the threatening word, In such a rite must ne'er be heard. Thy grace the rite from check can free. And yield the fruit I long to see. Thy duty bids thee, King, defend The suffering guest, the suppliant friend. Give me thy son, thine eldest born, Whom locks like raven's wings adorn. That hero youth, the truly brave, Of thee, O glorious King, I crave. For he can lay those demons low Who mar my rites and work me woe: My power shall shield the youth from harm, And heavenly might shall nerve his arm. And on my champion will I shower Unnumbered gifts of varied power, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... specially attracted his attention, for she stood apart from every one, and seemed scarcely able to stand because of weakness. She was young and good-looking. Her face, which was deadly pale, contrasted strongly with her glossy raven-black hair, and the character of her ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... the clear ringing laughter of one at least of the fair maidens, who, since last we looked upon them, have grown up to womanhood. Wondrously beautiful is Maggie Miller now, with her bright sunny face, her soft dark eyes and raven hair, so glossy and smooth that her sister, the pale-faced, blue-eyed Theo, likens it to a piece of shining satin. Now, as ever, the pet and darling of the household, she moves among them like a ray of sunshine; and the servants, when they hear her bird-like voice waking the echoes of the weird ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... day she was to be married! She had some reference to this in making her toilet that morning. The garments which she put on were all of white. A white rose gleamed palely from amid the raven hair upon her brow. Beautiful was she, exceedingly. How beautiful! but alas! the garb she wore—the pale, sweet flower on her forehead—they were mockeries—the emblems of that purity of soul, that innocence of heart, which were gone—gone for ever! She ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... creation. Think of the impression likely to be made by a gallant neither ignoble in situation, nor unacceptable in presence, upon a lady who must fear the consequences of refusal! Come, Agelastes, let me have no more of thy croaking, auguring bad fortune like the raven from the blasted oak on the left hand; but declaim, as well thou canst, how faint heart never won fair lady, and how those best deserve empire who can wreathe the myrtles of Venus with the laurels of Mars. Come, man, undo me the secret entrance which combines these magical ruins with groves that ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... two other extraordinary caverns, known as "Dolor Hugo," and "Raven's Hugo," up one of which we pulled for a considerable distance. Grand and picturesque in the extreme were the cliffs above us, which in every variety of shape extend along the whole of ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... fed in the sea; no plant, no tree, no hearbe commeth out of the ground that is not moystened, and as it were noursed of the moysture and mylke of the earth; the lyonesse nurseth hir whelps, the raven cherisheth hir byrdes, the viper her broode, and shal a woman ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... hold it, being put to flight through Paul's Alley, and pursued by the General's grenadiers, while he marches up and attacks their main body, but are opposed again by a party of men as lay in Black Raven Court; but they are forced also to retire soon in the utmost confusion; and at the same time those brave divisions in Paul's Alley ply their rear with grenadiers, that with precipitation they take to the ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... without more delay; for the raven, foreknowing the deed, is already croaking, and, as it were, calling out for the revenge ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... nails, body and brains, for her inalienable rights over this man. All the while these emotions surged up in her, and ebbed and flowed in again, her intelligence told her the wild absurdity of such supposition. The raven woman was a stranger; and socially, to all appearance, she must always remain so. Yet Marie could not still the passionate unrest of her heart without taking her husband's eyes from the table where two obsequious ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... the year, in America, came a literary sensation of unwonted brilliancy. In the New York "Evening Mirror," January 29, Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem "The Raven" was reprinted from the advance sheets of "The American Whig Review," in which the name of the author was masked under the pseudonym of "Quarles." The poem was copied all over America and soon reached England. Baudelaire translated it into French. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... who become herbalists of anecdotes, and prick slippery dates into their memories with a pin, know that there was in Paris, during the last century, about 1770, two attorneys at the Chatelet named, one Corbeau (Raven), the other Renard (Fox). The two names had been forestalled by La Fontaine. The opportunity was too fine for the lawyers; they made the most of it. A parody was immediately put in circulation in the galleries of the court-house, in verses that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... steps to the forest depths, where the Tinker was to live henceforth. For many a day he sang ballads to the band, until the famous Allan a Dale joined them, before whose sweet voice all others seemed as harsh as a raven's; but of him we will ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... sent by David to his father brought the old vinegrower from Marsac into the Place du Murier with the swiftness of the raven that scents ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... Besides, a Raven from a wither'd oak, Left of their lodging, was observed to croak. That omen liked him not; so his advice Was present safety, bought at any price; A seeming pious care, that cover'd cowardice. To strengthen this, he told a boding dream 480 Of rising waters, and a troubled stream, Sure signs of anguish, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... did not know what to make of this adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow. The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed; it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... gain, it may be reasonably believed, if we speak according to human notions, that God thinks less upon those whom He perceives to distrust His promises, putting their hope in human providence, not considering the raven, nor the lilies, whom the Most High feeds and arrays. Ye do not think upon Daniel and the bearer of the mess of boiled pottage, nor recollect Elijah who was delivered from hunger once in the desert by angels, ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury
... burst upon him. The smaller birds ceased singing, and screened themselves under the thickest foliage; the pie chattered incessantly; the jay screamed; the bittern flew past, booming heavily in the air; the raven croaked; the heron arose from the river, and speeded off with his long neck stretched out; and the falcon, who had been hovering over him, sweeped sidelong down and sought shelter beneath an impending rock; ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... philologist, and we may be permitted in charity to suppose that he derived "raven" and ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... You can afford to have a rough luncheon by the way if it is soon to end amid the banqueters in white. Sailing toward such a blessed port, do not have your flag at half mast. Leave to those who take too much wine "the gloomy raven tapping at the chamber door, on the night's Plutonian shore," and give us the robin red-breast and the chaffinch. Let some one with a strong voice give out the long-metre doxology, and the whole world "Praise God, from ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... climb'd to grasp the crown, She knock'd him with the sceptre down! He tumbled in the gulf profound; There doom'd to whirl an endless round. Possession's load was grown so great, He sunk beneath the cumbrous weight; And, as he now expiring lay, Flocks every ominous bird of prey; The raven, vulture, owl, and kite, At once upon his carcass light, And strip his hide, and pick his bones, Regardless ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, 285 There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... loathed Melancholy Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy, Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There under Ebon shades and low-brow'd Rocks, As ragged as thy Locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 But com thou Goddes fair and free, In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... finding that no ship arrived from Virginia, despatched the long-boat under the command of Henry Raven, the master's mate, to that settlement, a distance, as he calculated of a hundred and forty leagues. He promised, should he arrive safely at his destination, to return immediately with a large vessel, capable of carrying all the party. Many prayers were uttered for ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... for a few days all was hurry and excitement. On the appointed morning we heard the songs of the warriors and the wailing of the women, by which they bade adieu to each other, and the eligible braves, headed by an experienced man—old Hotanka or Loud-Voiced Raven—set out for the ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... written or graven But grows, if you gaze on it, bright; A lark's note rings from the raven, And tragedy's robe turns white; And shipwrecks drift into haven; And darkness laughs, ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... held the spindle as she sat, Errina with the thick-coiled mat Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes, Gazing with a sad surprise At surging visions of her destiny— To spin the byssus drearily In insect-labor, while the throng Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made: and he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... to present circumstances. I'm going to hang out in the canon till the river goes down, or till I bag some of the goslings from the Blue Goose. Your part is to work whom it may concern into the belief that I've lit out for my health, and meantime to play raven to ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... in "long-clothes," at least in longish and flowing clothes, of the petticoat sort, which look as of dark-blue velvet, very simple, pretty and appropriate; in a cap of the same; has a short raven's feather in the cap; and looks up, with a face and eyes full of beautiful vivacity and child's enthusiasm, one of the beautifulest little figures, while the little drum responds to his bits of drumsticks. Sister Wilhelmina, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... leaving his cloak for two days under a bush and then finding it again. "This world," he exclaimed, "is too good: it will not last." Among his pets were a porcupine trained to prick the legs of his guests under the table "so that they drew them in quickly"; a raven that spoke like a human being; an eagle, and many snakes. He also studied necromancy, the better to frighten his apprentices. He left Florence in 1528, after the Medici expulsion, and, like ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... wept above them?—is The sleeper less at rest for this? Is not the young child's slumber sweet When no man watcheth over it? These had deep calm; but all around There was a deadly smothered sound, The choking cry of agony From wounded men who could not die; Who watched the black wing of the raven Rise like a cloud 'twixt them and heaven, And in the distance flying fast Beheld ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... other, and to spend many a pleasant hour during the long winter afternoons in each other's company. But Edith had a very keen sense of humor, and could hardly restrain her secret amusement when she heard him reading Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" and Poe's "Raven" (which had been familiar to her from her babyhood), often with false accent, but always with intense enthusiasm. The reflection that he had had no part of his life in common with her,—that he did not love the things which she loved,—could ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Moonman, and the baby's was wax, you see." "I see!" said I. "The brass pot and the earthen one!" "If you had ever seen Vashti Ann, Mr. Moonman," said Fluff through her tears, "you would not call her such names as a brass pot. Her hair was gossy as the raven's wing, like the lady in the ballad that Uncle Jack read to us last night; and I never wanted to call her Vashti Ann, but I wanted to call her Isidora Vienna, but Uncle Jack said her name was Vashti Ann when he buyed ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... every living creature. There was not a snake track in the dust or a raven in the sky, but as he topped the brow of the hill and looked down into the canyon, Hardy saw a great herd of cattle, and Creede in the midst of them still hacking away at the thorny palo verdes. At the clatter of hoofs, the big man looked up from his work, wiping the sweat and ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... the forger of the Ems despatch is about to commit another act of treachery. But our calmness and self-possession will prevent us from falling into the same trap as in 1870. The croakings of a sinister raven will not plunge us into folly this time. He has understood his mistake. He has been able to transform a divided and impotent Germany into a great, strong, disciplined Empire. For us and for himself ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... dressed in grey and white, like a flint; with small twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck sparks out of them. The three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a fanciful representative among this brotherhood of disputants; for Snitchey was like a magpie or raven (only not so sleek), and the Doctor had a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and there a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very little bit of pigtail behind ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... Literati of New York." Then there was the house in Waverly Place, the home of Anne Lynch, the poet of "The Battle of Life," which was a kind of literary salon of its day, where Poe once read aloud the newly published "Raven," and where Bayard Taylor visited, and Taylor's friend Caroline Kirkland, and Margaret Fuller, and Lydia Child, and Ann S. Stephens, who wrote "Fashion and Famine" and "Mary Derwent," and young Richard Henry Stoddard, and Elizabeth Barstow, who became his wife. Not far from the Lynch ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... thirty feet deep and at the bottom of it, glazed with the thick ice that covered it, lay a queerly formed ship with a high prow,—carved like a raven's head. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its 'dramatis personae', from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... of the House of Commons, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, appears the following entry:—"This day a black raven came into the House, which was considered as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... opinion that this famous king did not die, but that he was changed into a raven by enchantment and that the English are momentarily expecting his return. Be this as it may, it is certain that when he reigned here all was harmony and joy. The browsing herds passed from vale to vale, the swains sang from the bluebell-teeming groves, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... virgin, a nose among the larger, Feet not dainty, nor eyes to match a raven, Mouth scarce tenible, hands not wholly faultless, Tongue most surely not absolute refinement, Bankrupt Formian, your declar'd devotion. 5 Thou the beauty, the talk of all the province? Thou my Lesbia tamely think to rival? ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... thoughts and deeds of his past life swarmed in review before his eyes. Many a seeming trifling event now showed as the forewarning of harm to come. The day's journey once over, we see its issue prophesied in each trumpery raven and cloud that we have met since morning. However, the omens would have read as well another way; for nature, like man, is twofold, and can be as glibly quoted to Satan's advantage ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... orchard-trees. Passionate pilgrims, do ye keep so fast Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent And sore-bewildered shall ye couch at last In bitter beds of disillusionment. In the Black Orchard the foul raven grieves White Love, on ...
— The Hours of Fiammetta - A Sonnet Sequence • Rachel Annand Taylor
... love scenes; but she always destroyed these manuscripts before the curious sun could spy upon her labors. In such ecstatic flights of fancy the beautiful heroine was a languorous brunette with hair of raven hue and soulful eyes in which slumbered the mystery of a tropic night. She had a Grecian nose, moreover, and ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the rest of her complexion. She could not be more than twenty; and though want and other suffering had done the work of time, had wasted her frame, and robbed her cheek of its bloom and roundness, they had not extinguished the lustre of her eyes, nor thinned her raven hair. Checking an ominous cough, that, ever and anon, convulsed her lungs, the poor woman addressed a few parting words to her companion, who lingered at the doorway as if he had something on his mind, which he did not very well know how ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... everlasting kingdom that shall not be destroyed. In Rev. i. we see the Son of Man Himself clothed with a garment down to the foot, and His head and His hair were white as wool, white as snow; but the bride sees her Bridegroom in all the vigour of youth, with locks "bushy, and black as a raven." The eyes of the risen SAVIOUR are described as "a flame of fire," but His bride sees them "like doves beside the water brooks." In Revelation "His voice is as the voice of many waters . . . and out of His mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword." To the bride, ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, His thunder follows! Fool ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... a piece of advice, old man; fill your mouth full of tow, light it, and blow at everybody. Or, better still, take your hat and go home. This is a wedding, we all want to enjoy ourselves and you are croaking like a raven. ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... the woman whose shadow had fallen to-night across her life. She was a petite brunette of distant Spanish ancestry, a Spottswood from old Tidewater Virginia. To the tenderest motherhood she combined a passionate temper with intense jealousy. The anxious face was crowned with raven hair. Her eyes were dark and stormy, and so large that in their shining surface the shadows of the long ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... times, before Christianity had found its way so far North, the bird which influenced the people most was the raven. He was credited with much knowledge, as well as with the power to bring good or bad luck. One of the titles of Odin was "Raven-god," and he had as messengers two faithful ravens, "who could speak all manner of tongues, and flew on his behests to the uttermost parts of the earth." In those ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... a dream 'mong rushes Stygian, It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan, And tyrannizing was the lady's look, 510 As over them a gnarled staff she shook. Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh'd out, And from a basket emptied to the rout Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick And roar'd for more; with many a hungry lick About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow, Anon she took a branch of mistletoe, And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial: Groan'd one and all, as if some ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... Heaven his windows shut. The ark no more now floats, but seems on ground, Fast on the top of some high mountain fixed. And now the tops of hills, as rocks, appear; With clamour thence the rapid currents drive, Towards the retreating sea, their furious tide. Forthwith from out the ark a raven flies, And after him, the surer messenger, A dove sent forth once and again to spy Green tree or ground, whereon his foot may light: The second time returning, in his bill An olive-leaf he brings, pacifick ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... of my singing heart, My lover, my lord, all hail! Fear shall be underfoot, I feel that we shall not fail. In the shadowy land we leave The grim wolves raven and bark, But our hearts are steadfast at length And our faces turn from ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... ran off, intent on a fresh game. I scanned her face furtively, appreciative of the regular and potent modelling, the pure olive tints, the pose and poise of the head. Indubitably her face was dark; the raven hair that swept across her brow accentuated the gloom slumbering in her eyes. One unconsciously surmised that somewhere within her life lay a region of unrest, a period of passion not to be confused with the quiet ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... and who came to an unhappy and untimely end; left behind him tales and poems, which, though they were not appreciated when he lived, have received the recognition they deserve since his death; his poetical masterpiece, "The Raven," is well known; died at Baltimore of inflammation of the brain, insensible from which he was picked up in a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... viewpoint of his own. This was mid-winter, two years after the end of the War, where Dick and his uncle had worked in the Ambulance Corps to the limit of their capacities—Dick, no soldier, because of what seemed to him a diabolic eccentricity of imperfect sight, and Raven, blocked by what he felt to be the negligible disability of age. John Raven had, with the beginning of the War—which, as early as 1914 he had decided to be his war—made up his mind that although he was over forty and of a business training ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... words o' comfort, air they?" cried Wingrove, exasperated to a pitch of fury. "Durned if I'll bar sech talk! I won't stan' it any longer. Clar out now! We want no croakin' raven hyar. Clar ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... creature from the Highlands, who had never in her life seen any one more attractive than the red-headed heroes of her native hills, and who, having aurific tresses of her own, was particularly prejudiced against that splendid hue, and fatally ensnared by the raven ringlets and dark ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... of being auburn like her parent's, was as black as the raven's wing. It hung in luxuriant wavy masses below her waist, being gathered by a white clasp of burnished silver at the back of the neck, without which it would have enveloped all the upper part of her ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... I may talk of by the hour," he said, "but women's gear is beyond me. But once my daughter and I wrought together in a matter that was partly of both, and that was when I needed a war flag. And so I drew out the great raven I would have embroidered on it, and they worked it in wondrous colours, and gold and silver round the form of the great bird, so that it seems to shift and flap its wings as the light falls on it and the breeze stirs it, as if there were ...
— Wulfric the Weapon Thane • Charles W. Whistler
... had married a Spaniard of high rank. Don Luis showed but little trace of his southern parentage. If I may so express it, all the depth and warmth of coloring in that portion of his blood which he inherited from his Spanish ancestors came out in the raven-black hair and large lustrous dark eyes, which impressed you at once with their uncommon beauty. For the rest, he was a fine well-grown young man, no darker in complexion than an Englishman might well be, and with a careless, happy boyishness of manner, which ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... usurer being in bed, Robin in the shape of a night-raven[7] came to the window, and there did beat with his wings, and croaked in such manner that this old usurer thought he should have presently died for fear. This was but a preparation to what he did intend; for presently after he appeared before him at his bed's feet, in the ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... and coifed, was sitting less than a hundred yards away from him, fanning herself with three inches of hand woven fan and contemplating David. In the dressing-room above, just alighted from a limousine de luxe, was a raven-haired, crafty-eyed ingenue (whose presence David did not suspect or he would have recollected a sudden pressing engagement out of her vicinity), preening herself for conquest. David's mind, unlike the minds of the "other gifted members of the ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... market and those of Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and finding the carpet after the measure of the estrade, he plied [or turned] the box within its sheath [or cover] till he came to [the end of] it.[FN100] When it was morning, he exclaimed, 'Alas for delight that is not fulfilled! The raven[FN101] takes it and flies away!' 'What means this saying?' asked she, and he answered, 'O my lady, I have but this hour to abide with thee.' Quoth she, 'Who saith so?' and he, 'Thy father made me give him a bond to pay ten thousand dinars to thy dowry; and except I pay it this ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... parents pair their secret homage, And offer up to heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, For them and for their ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... childish way, with blue eyes and fair hair. She is not my ideal among women, but no man ever marries his ideal. The man who has sworn by eyes as black as a stormy midnight and raven hair generally unites himself to the most insipid thing in blondes, and the idolater of golden locks takes to wife some frizzy-haired West Indian with an unmistakable dip of the tar-brush. When will you go ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... mangroves, and here and there an isolated group of large and small, parents and children, breeding and spreading, as if in hideous haste to choke out air and sky. Wailing sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud into the dreary dark. The hoarse night-raven, hid among the roots, startled the voyagers with a sudden shout, and then all was again silent as a grave. The loathly alligators, lounging in the slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with stupid ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... said the eldest brother, jumping into the basket, which at once began to move—up, and up, and up—till he had gone about half-way, when a fat black raven flew at him and pecked him till he was nearly blind, so that he was forced to go back the way he ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... and nails, body and brains, for her inalienable rights over this man. All the while these emotions surged up in her, and ebbed and flowed in again, her intelligence told her the wild absurdity of such supposition. The raven woman was a stranger; and socially, to all appearance, she must always remain so. Yet Marie could not still the passionate unrest of her heart without taking her husband's eyes from the table where two obsequious men ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... remembered the legend which connects every misfortune of the House of Habsburg with the appearance of this bird of ill omen: the flight of ravens at Olmuetz, the raven of the ill-fated Maximilian at Miramar, the raven of the Archduchess Maria Christina on the eve of her departure for her future kingdom of Spain, the raven which came to the Empress Elizabeth on the afternoon before the day of her assassination,—all these incidents so closely connected with the ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... got from these Beausobre gentlemen, who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine presidency, were politeness itself, though they treated the Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, with beautiful art, in this Letter, smooths the raven plumage of Vota;—and, at the same time, throws into him, as with invisible needle-points, an excellent dose of acupuncturation, on the subject of the Primitive Fathers and the Ecumenic Councils, on her own score. Let us give ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... A raven brought the aged brothers bread to eat and the hours glided swiftly away. Anthony returned to get a cloak which Athanasius had given him in which to wrap the body of Paul. So eager was he to behold again his newly-found friend that he set out without ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... his hand. Barefooted servants passed to and fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below; two laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker with the tray of bread made for the day; Leonarda—her own camerista—bearing high up, swung from her hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of starched under-skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of sunshine. Then the old porter would hobble in, sweeping the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day. All the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... protected by chains of the finest steel interwoven with the folds, was of the most dazzling white—white, also, were his tunic and short mantle; on his left arm hung a short circular shield, in his right hand was poised a long and slender lance. As this Moor, mounted on a charger in whose raven hue not a white hair could be detected, dashed forward against Pacheco, both Christian and Moor breathed hard, and remained passive. Either nation felt it as a sacrilege to thwart the encounter of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The mountain Raven's youngling Brood Have left the Mother and the Nest, And they go rambling east and west In search of their own food, Or thro' the glittering Vapors dart ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... a whip of barley straw to drive the cattle with, and having one day gone into the fields, he slipped a foot and rolled into the furrow. A raven, which was flying over, picked him up and flew with him to the top of a giant's castle that was near the seaside, and ...
— The History of Tom Thumb, and Others • Anonymous
... did you grip hold of my arm again like that, and stare across yonder over my shoulder as if you could see a raven hiding ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... anxious to be Mrs. Shem, and make a long dress of yellow flannel, and appear with Agamemnon find the little boys. For the little boys were to represent two doves and a raven. There were feather-dusters enough in the family for their costumes, which would be then complete ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... hear to-morrow," said practical Bert Wilson, "will be a crow. Poe's raven won't have a thing on Hendricks ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Waldron's laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's croak. "Nothing to it, old man. ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... one loose white garment, walk with the air and grace of queens, or as though pure Inca blood ran in their veins. Their only adornment is a necklace of red corals and a few inches of red or blue ribbon entwined in their long raven-black hair, which hangs down to the waist in two plaits. Their houses are palm-walled, with a roof of palm-leaves, through which the rain pours and the sun shines. Their chairs are logs of wood, and their beds are string hammocks. ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... no philologist, and we may be permitted in charity to suppose that he derived "raven" and "ravenous" from the ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... opportunity to have his lawn treated with the Metamorphizer. He had left an incoherent suicidenote: "Pigeons in the grass alas. Too many pigeons, too much grass. Pigeons are doves, but Noah expressed a raven. Contradiction lies. Roses are red, violets are blue. The grass is green and I am thru. Too too too. Darling kiddies." He then, in full view of the helpless weedfighters, marched on into the grass and was ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... argued. The journals venturing such an opinion were childish drivelers, putting forth views long since exploded before the whole world. He was still loud in this opinion when his little book of epigrams, The Raven of Zurich and Other Rhymes, came out, and being bright and saucy was reprinted in America. The knowledge that he could not tax on a foreign soil his own ideas, the plastic pottery of his brain, was quite too much for his mental balance, and he took to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... out and commenced his twelve great pictures. 1. Ossian singing to Malvina. 2. The valour of Oscar. 3. The Death of Oscar, etc. etc. Who reads Ossian now? Who cares about Agandecca, 'with red eyes of tears'—'with loose and raven locks?' 'Starno pierced her side with steel. She fell like a wreath of snow which slides from the rocks of Ronan.' Who knows anything now about Catholda, and Corban Cargloss, and Golchossa and Cairbar of the gloomy brow? For some ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... the witchwife. "I will show you a strange thing. Do as I bid you; tarry here under the lindens, and when the moon rises, the Seven Crickets will chirp thrice; then the Raven will fly into the west, and you will see wonderful things, and beautiful ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... describes the event:—"Suspectful of a butcher who had been heard to threaten, I had the body opened. There were no traces of poison, and it appeared he died of influenza. He has left considerable property, chiefly in cheese and halfpence, buried in different parts of the garden. The new raven (I have a new one, but he is comparatively of weak intellect) administered to his effects, and turns up something every day. The last piece of bijouterie was a hammer of considerable size, supposed to have been stolen from a vindictive carpenter, who had been heard to speak ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... said, dread sat upon that rooftree like a croaking raven, nor could they escape from the shadow of its wing. Far away in the East a mighty monarch had turned his thoughts towards this English home and the maid of his royal blood who dwelt there, and who ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... recognize the bracelet?" cried the stranger, holding up, as he spoke, the ornament in question. "Or, if that convince you not, do you recognize this tress of raven hair—this bouquet that she wore upon ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... word, a parting trope: It is not alone the royal eagle who may despise the croaking of the raven; the swan, too, is proud and takes no note of it. Nothing concerns him except to keep clean the sheen of his white pinions. He thinks only of nestling against Leda's bosom without hurting her, and of breathing forth ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... gardens and many by handsome grounds. Equidistant from the end of Main street and from each other, stood, in these cradle days, the two hotels of which the Capital could boast. Montgomery Hall, of bitter memory—like the much-sung "Raven of Zurich," for uncleanliness of nest and length of bill—had been the resort of country merchants, horse and cattle-men; but now the Solon of the hour dwelt therein, with the possible hero of many a field. The ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... as the angel, the lovely weaver of peace, had bidden him. Above the roof of clouds he saw the Tree of Glory with its words of promise. The great battle came, when the Holy Sign was borne forth. Loud sang the trumpets. The raven was glad thereof, and the dewy-feathered eagle looked on at the march, and the wolf lifted up his howling. The terror of war was there, the clash of shields and the mingling of men, and the heavy sword-swing and the ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... byre and haven, Sheep in drifts are nipped and numb; Some belated rook or raven Rocks upon a sign-post dumb; Mere-waves, solid as a clod, Roar with ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... me with a club the next moment, "Git out of there." I went out. Pointing to the barber's chair, he said, "Squat yourself in that chair." I sat down. "Throw back your head." I laid it back. It was not long before my raven mustache was off, and my hair cut rather uncomfortably short for fly time. After this tonsorial artist had finished his work then came the command once more, "Git in." I got in. It now came Mr. Horserider's turn to bid a long farewell ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds
... of his miserable life by the vainglorious praises of the living? Or do you think that Poe is comforted by such avid attentions in his present abode? In truth, Melville's only rivalry is now within, and Poe's only raven that daunting memory of those truths which had escaped him in life, but which ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... glass, saying that she was a King's daughter. Now they placed the glass case upon the ledge on a rock, and one of them always remained by it watching. Even the birds bewailed the loss of Snow-White; first came an owl, then a raven, and last of ...
— Favorite Fairy Tales • Logan Marshall
... three books, which are entitled Lesbiacs, because the discourse was held at Mitylene, in which he seeks to prove that souls are mortal. The Stoics, on the other hand, allow us as long a time for enjoyment as the life of a raven; they allow the soul to exist a great while, but ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... you have drawn near to hearken and are resting directly overhead. O Black Raven, you never fail in anything. Ha! Now you are brought down. Ha! There shall be left no more than a trace upon the ground where you have been. It is an evolute ghost. You have now put it into a crevice in Sanigalagi, that it may never find the ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... Stella's sake as well as his own, took a warm interest in him, for she having keener eyes than the colonel, knew perfectly well that they were engaged—had letters of introduction ready to her daughter Mrs Raven, to the Bradshaws, Stella's relatives, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Corvus corax, Linnaeus. French, "Corbeau," "Corbeau noir."—The Raven can now only be looked upon as an occasional straggler. I do not think it breeds at present in any of the Islands, as I have not seen it anywhere about in the breeding-season since 1866, when I saw a pair near the cliffs on the south-end of the Island in June; but ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... Stygian cave forlorn ............'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell, ............Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; ............There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, ............In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come, thou Goddess fair and free, In heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men heart-easing Mirth; Whom ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... one day, and sat on the organ enjoying the music; for every one was singing, and I joined in, though I didn't know the air. Opposite me were two great tablets with golden letters on them. I can read a little, thanks to my friend, the learned raven; and so I spelt out some of the words. One was, 'Love thy neighbor;' and as I sat there, looking down on the people, I wondered how they could see those words week after week, and yet pay so little heed to them. Goodness knows, I don't ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... in the morning he arose, and when he went forth, behold a shower of snow had fallen the night before, and a hawk had killed a wild fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the horse scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted upon the bird. And Peredur stood, and compared the blackness of the raven, and whiteness of the snow, and the redness of the blood, to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... ho! Across the Sappers' Bridge we go; When first in youth I cross'd it o'er, The arch was wood, "and nothing more"— As Edgar A. Poe doth remark About that raven big and dark— The wooden span, I mean, stretched o'er The channel's width from shore to shore, On which skilled artificers laid The arch of stone, so truly made, And strong, that it to-day appears, After the crush of forty years And more, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes—the cloud— And mists that spread the flying shroud; And sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past; But that enormous barrier ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and distinctive personality—the sort of man who would inevitably attract attention wherever he was, and at whom people would turn to look in the most crowded street. His aquiline features, almost cadaverous complexion, and flashing, deep-set eyes, were framed in a mass of raven-black hair which fell in masses over a loosely fitting, unstarched collar, kept in its place by a voluminous black silk cravat; his thin figure, all the sparer in appearance because of his broad shoulders and big head, was wrapped from head to foot ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... your heart prompts you to say." And as life ebbed away he poured into her sympathizing ear the confidences which his mother, alas! could not receive. With tearful eyes and sorrowing heart this new-found friend watched by him to the last—then closed the heavy eyes, and smoothed the raven locks, and sent the quiet form, lovely even in death, to her who waited ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... to sleep! You might be a raven as far as croaking's concerned. One would think we were in a hole and couldn't get out. Trust to Sucre and Miller; they'll pull us ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... A raven cried croak! and they all tumbled down; Bumpety, bumpety, bump! The mare broke her knees, and the farmer his crown; ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various
... had been beautiful, with such beauty as a pure complexion, black eyes, raven hair and perfect features confer; but now she was a wreck. The pure, transparent complexion was pale as marble—the brilliant eyes sunken—the magnificent hair bleached ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... recognizable form, many of the myths and sagas of the nation's infancy, there are several that may with justice be taken as relics of the Siegfried myth, for instance, The Two Brothers, The Young Giant, The Earth-Manikin, The King of the Golden Mount, The Raven, The Skilled Huntsman, and perhaps also the Golden Bird and The Water of Life;[6] though it would seem from recent investigations that Thorn-Rose or the Sleeping Beauty, is no longer to be looked upon as the counterpart ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... the foot of the tall white scars that end the Vale of St. Thomas and are not much unlike Dover Cliffs, hanging over a sea of squares of the green cane, alternating with masses of pimento foliage. Macdonald's wife was an immensely stout, raven-haired, sloe-eyed, talkative body, the most motherly woman I have ever known—I suppose because ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... leave your logic-straws, Your former-friends with face averted, Your petty ways and narrow laws, Your Grundy and your God, deserted. From your frail ark of lies, I flee I know not where, like Noah's raven. Full to the broad, unsounded sea I ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... graceful figure. Complexion dark enough to make her pass for a brunette. Large black eyes and raven hair." ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... found his dead body lying in a ditch. She ruffled up her feathers and began to cry. "Who can have killed him?" she said; "my poor kind husband, who never did harm to any one." Then a Raven flew down from a tree, where he had been sitting, and told her how a cruel boy had thrown a stone at him and killed him for sport. He saw it, said the Raven, as he was sitting ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... Flag of Hope! Let the winds waft her On through the depths of space Faster and faster! Up, brave and sturdy men! Down with the craven! He who but falters now, Fling to the raven! ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... a lovely tress, Still curled in many a ring, As glossy as the plumes that dress The raven's jetty wing. And the broad and soul-illumined brow, Above whose arch it grew, Was like the stainless mountain snow, In its purity ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... the grass was touched with winter's frost, By fell disease attacked and overcome, O tender plant, didst die! The flower of thy days thou ne'er didst see; Nor did thy soft heart move Now of thy raven locks the tender praise, Now of thy eyes, so loving and so shy; Nor with thee, on the holidays, Did thy companions talk ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... dark lanthorn. His nostrils were elevated in scorn, as if his sense of smelling had been perpetually offended by some unsavoury odour; and he looked as if he wanted to shrink within himself from the impertinence of society. He wore a black periwig as straight as the pinions of a raven, and this was covered with a hat flapped, and fastened to his head by a speckled handkerchief tied under his chin. He was wrapped in a greatcoat of brown frieze, under which he seemed to conceal a small bundle. His name was Ferret, and his character distinguished by three ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... seems as thrifty on the wiry grama as among the most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high in air above their broods. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... stretching his heavy hand towards his kinsman, in a manner that instantly silenced the speaker. "Your voice is like a raven's in my ears. If you had never spoken, I should have been spared ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... quick glance had been taking the measure of the tall, handsome man before him, with his raven-black hair and grave features. "You must give us a chance to try your mettle," he said; and then, as others approached to meet him, and he was forced to pass on, he laid a caressing hand on Montague's arm, whispering, with a sly ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, 285 There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, 290 His thunder follows! ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... World in a scallop, without oars or compass. So at least I comment on it after the event. Coleridge in his person was rather above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like Lord Hamlet, 'somewhat fat and pursy.' His hair (now, alas! grey) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long pendulous hair is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heavenward; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a different colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... this Center received a TWX reporting an UFO near Lock Raven Dam. A request for a detailed investigation was sent to the nearest Air Force Base. The following is a summary of the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... did a raven croak, an' t' seame-like thrice cam t' hoot Frae t' ullets' tree; doon chimleys three there ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... Heaven had not feare of that presumptuous might, With which the giaunts did the gods assay: But all so soone as scortching sunne had brent* His wings which wont the earth to overspredd, The earth out of her massie wombe forth sent That antique horror which made heaven adredd. Then was the Germane raven in disguise That Romane eagle seene to cleave asunder, And towards heaven freshly to arise Out of these mountaines, now consum'd to pouder. In which the foule that serves to beare the lightning Is now no more seen flying nor ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... HADDA PADDA (She is heard laughing). Shall I stone the raven away from his nest? Beware, you blackbird! (A small stone flies through the air, and falls ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... has been introduced, I may say that many of the mysterious archaic markings on rocks, and decorations of implements, in other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design of the totem animal. Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a triple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design, to our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set of bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on. {64a} Equivalent marks, such as spirals, and tracks of emu's feet, occur on sacred stones ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... transforming chisel Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too well, In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, grizzle - Pits, where ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... had fallen aside a little, disclosing a shimmer of purple garment and flashing emeralds. She looked barbaric, her raven brows knit. It might have been Cleopatra commanding the instant death of an ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... turban of yellow silk, looped at the side by an aigrette of diamonds, and confining a beautiful ostrich plume, was folded over her polished brow, from which her long, raven tresses floated in beautiful curls around her superb neck and shoulders. A simarre of crimson silk, studded with jewels, and gathered to her slender waist by a magnificent girdle of fine gold, reached below the hips, where it was met by a flowing ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... with its handsome rooms, its extensive grounds, its winding walks, its bubbling fountains and its wealth of flowers, but there is a shadow over all—a plague-spot which has eaten into the heart of Graham Thornton, and woven many a thread of silver among his raven locks. It has bent the stately form of his lady mother, and his once gay-hearted wife wanders with a strange unrest from room to room, watching over the uncertain footsteps of their only child, whose large, dark eyes, so much like those which, four long years ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes
... and half extinguished the brilliant jets of gas. He threw himself into a chair, and a vision of the Past rose up before him—the terrible Past. The ghosts of dead years haunted his brain, and remorse sat on his heart, boding and mysterious, like the Raven of ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... brought all the way from Paris. Obligingly, charmingly, Mademoiselle Annette responded to our profuse, overwhelming invitations to play first. Sweet and innocent she looked sitting there; her cheeks fair as the roses in her garden, her eyes modestly aglow with star light, her raven hair in a single braid of ample length, neatly adorned with a red ribbon and bewitchingly tossed over her shoulder. Never was a young lady better guarded at a piano; five stalwart doughboys on either side, jealously turning the pages of a sheet ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... a homely bird; yet he is not without beauty. His coat of glossy black with violet reflections, his dark eyes and sagacious expression of countenance, his stately and graceful gait, and his steady and equable flight, combine to give him a proud and dignified appearance. The Crow and the Raven have always been celebrated for their gravity, a character that seems to be the result of their black sacerdotal vesture, and of certain manifestations of intelligence in their ways and general deportment. Indeed, any one who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the winged races, because they prefer to fly in search of fresh supplies when the old fail, and seldom provide cupboards or larders at home. Yet there are birds that make stores. After a full meal many of the crow tribe, including the raven, rook, and jackdaw, will put away and hoard what is left. A magpie once paid me a visit, perching on an ash-tree, the boughs of which almost brushed against my bedroom window. Very early one morning he awoke me by calling out his own name, together with a lot of chattering, the meaning of ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... I've to do, or yourself either. But all can see that the miser's cake'll be eaten, ay, even by crow and raven if need be. Keep your strength for your young wife—you might overstrain yourself on an old witch like me. And where'd she be ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... in horror, "where has the wolf gone? we were pursuing a wolf." Upon which the horrible and accursed night-raven recovered herself quickly, and pointing with her finger to the crucifix which lay upon the ground, said with a tone of mingled scorn and anger, "There, thou stupid fool! ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Raven, and the Mischief he caused. How the Wives and Daughters of Zurich saved the City. How the City of Lucerne was saved by a Boy. The Baker's Apprentice. How a Wooden Figure raised Troops in the Valois. Little Roza's Offering. A Little ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... hand hath put on Nature's power, Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face, Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower, But is profan'd, if not lives in disgrace. Therefore my mistress' eyes are raven black, Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack, Sland'ring creation with a false esteem: Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe, That every tongue says beauty ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... continued to stand, however, looking at the placid churchyard with the long shadows of the gravestones across the bright green hillocks, and at the glowing autumn colours of the Rectory trees beyond. Before such calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear is more distinctly felt—like a raven flapping its slow wing across the sunny air. Nancy wished more and more that Godfrey would ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... wilds at 50 deg. below zero there is the most complete silence. All animal life is hidden away. Not a rabbit flits across the trail; in the absolutely still air not a twig moves. A rare raven passes overhead, and his cry, changed from a hoarse croak to a sweet liquid note, reverberates like the musical glasses. There is no more delightful sound in the wilderness than this occasional lapse into music of the raven. We wound ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?" asked Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting his proficiency. "Does it help you plough, reap, or even climb the rocks to take a raven's nest? If I were a man, I'd be ashamed to give in to ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... litigiousness, wrangling and sycophancy of their countrymen, resolve upon quitting Attica. Having heard of the fame of Epops (the hoopoe), sometime called Tereus, and now King of the Birds, they determine, under the direction of a raven and a jackdaw, to seek from him and his subject birds a city free from all care and strife. Arrived at the Palace of Epops, they knock, and Trochilus (the wren), in a state of great flutter, as he mistakes them for fowlers, ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... a journey north, to the uttermost end of the world, where it touches the sky. He imagined that he could only reach this point by sea, and thought at first of travelling on the wings of an eagle. Meantime, a raven directed him, when he came to a broad expanse of blue water, to look for a place where rushes grew on the bank, and to stamp on the ground with his right foot, when the mouth of the earth and the strongly guarded doors would fly open, and he would reach ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... should rarely repeat what they have said, or speak of what they have done, to others, in their presence. This is injurious to the child, betrays vanity in the parents, and is not very edifying to others. The singing of a young raven may be music to its parents, but to us it is like the cawing of ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted raven hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet bracelets shone with every movement of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with manifold flounces, from beneath ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... centre of this room, by the side of a grand piano, from which she had just risen, stood the new mistress of the castle. She was simply dressed in pale gray silk, relieved only by a scarlet ribbon twisted in the masses of her raven hair. Her beauty had the same effect upon Reginald Eversleigh which it exercised on almost all who looked at her for the first time. He was dazzled, bewildered, ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... daughter. Then the coffin was placed upon the hill, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the birds of the air came, too, and bemoaned Snow-White. First of all came an owl, and then a raven, but ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... savages ignorant of its use. The silver they seemed to value; but there were three precious gold cups which the salt water had discoloured, so that they were taken for copper and sold for a very small price to a Jew, who somehow was attracted to the scene, 'like a raven to the ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as usual, very little attempt at classification. Disjointed statements and sudden digressions occur, the subjects being treated in the order in which they presented themselves to the author. Such curious statements as the following are met with: "The raven is an enemy to the bull and the ass, for it flies round them and strikes their eyes." "If a person takes a goat by the beard, all the rest of the herd stand by, as if infatuated, and look at it." "Female stags are captured by the sound ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... poorest nonsense in the world to turn to anything else, that is, seems to me being fresher in respect of Lady De Lancey than you—but my raven's dead. He had been ailing for a few days but not seriously, as we thought, and was apparently recovering, when symptoms of relapse occasioned me to send for an eminent medical gentleman one Herring (a bird fancier in the New Road), who promptly attended and administered ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... times to some great funeral! Noiseless as a central cell In the bosom of a mountain Where the fairy people dwell, By the cold and sunless fountain! Breathless as a holy shrine, When the voice of psalms is shed! And there upon her stately bed, While her raven locks recline O'er an arm more pure than snow, Motionless beneath her head,— And through her large fair eyelids shine Shadowy dreams that come and go, By too deep bliss disquieted,— There sleeps in love and beauty's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... thing happened. A big, black desert raven flew up with a scream, almost under their feet, and soared above their heads, screeching hoarsely. To such a tension were their nerves strung that both boy and girl ...
— The Girl Aviators on Golden Wings • Margaret Burnham
... ladies walk fast, that would have yielded, at the rate of three and a half miles per hour, thirteen plus one third miles. But only two and a half hours were given to walking; the other one and a half to riding. No day was a day of rest; absolutely none. Days so stormy that they "kept the raven to her nest," snow the heaviest, winds the most frantic, were never listened to as any ground of reprieve from the ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... single river to the sea. Sixty islands lie upon this water, the haunt and home of innumerable birds. Each island holds an eyrie, where none but eagles repair to build their nests, to cry and fight together, and take their solace from the world. When evil folk arrive to raven and devour the realm, then all these eagles gather themselves together, making great coil and clamour, and arraying themselves proudly one against another. One day, or two days, three or four, the mighty birds will strive together; ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... very easy to laugh at the optimist, and to accuse him of "poetizing the truth." No doubt, an optimist will see excellence, beauty, and truth where pessimists see only degradation, vice, and ugliness. The one hears the nightingale, the other the raven only. To one, the sunsetting forms a magic picture; to the other, it is but a presage of bad weather tomorrow. Some people seem to look at nature through a glass of red wine or in a Claude Lorraine ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... sacred shades! cool, leafy house! Chaste treasurer of all my vows And wealth! on whose soft bosom laid My love's fair steps I first betray'd: Henceforth no melancholy flight, No sad wing, or hoarse bird of night, Disturb this air, no fatal throat Of raven, or owl, awake the note Of our laid echo, no voice dwell Within these leaves, but Philomel. The poisonous ivy here no more His false twists on the oak shall score; Only the woodbine here may twine, As th' emblem of her love, and mine; The amorous sun shall here convey His best beams, in thy shades ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... tall, finely built woman of thirty or thereabouts who stood beside her—a woman with a dark, passionate face shaded by a mop of raven hair as coarse as a horse's mane. "Esmay!" she said again, with ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... a majestic glance, blue eyes, and cheeks purple as the fox-glove"; and he foretells the woes she will cause among men. This girl is Derdriu; she is brought up secretly and apart, in order to evade the prediction. One day, "she beheld a raven drink blood on the snow." She said ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... and watched her while she slept. Then he observed a knot in a golden clasp, and unfastening it, he found the three rings which he had given her. He laid them on the grass, and, as chance would have it, a black raven flew past, picked up the rings and flew with them on to a tree. Peter climbed up the tree to catch the bird; but, as he was just about to seize it, the raven flew into another tree, and so from one ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... but over. The moon shone clear, and the clouds that scudded across its face were few. Lauvellen, to the east, was visible to the summit; and Raven Craig, to the west, loomed black before the moon. A cutting wind still blew, and a frost had set in sharp and keen. Already the sleet that had fallen was frozen in sheets along the road, which was thereby made almost impassable even to the sure footsteps of the mountaineer. The ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... said. "No," replied Lloyd George. "The inquiry will be in public. Here are twenty people killed and the country has the right to know why they were killed." That was the way he used to break precedents. Next day we all went down to the Raven Hotel, the appointed place, and the inspector proceeded with his work of examining witnesses. Lloyd George sat by his side. I felt sorry for that inspector—who usually was monarch of all he surveyed. He was a man of dignified and leisurely manner. Lloyd George cut in and took the examination ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... as those features and that voice once were, now would I rather have encountered the eyes of a basilisk and the notes of the ill-boding raven. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... perhaps as well as you; But is there not since days of old a law And covenant with us that when a kinsman Falls slain before the enemy and his corpse Unburied lies a prey unto the raven, Blood vengeance must ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... of one who had told twice her years; and not a trace of the bloom or the softness of girlhood could be marked on her countenance. Her complexion was pale as the whitest marble, but clear, and lustrous; and her raven hair, parted over her brow in a fashion then uncommon, increased the statue-like and classic effect of her noble features. The expression of her countenance seemed cold, sedate, and somewhat stern; but it might, in some measure, have belied her heart; for, when turned to the moonlight, ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... name at Kentish cottage-hearths, though she 'was not black to see, nor old. No, she was very young. But she did all the things that soldiers do,—was a bit of a foreigner;—she brought a reputation up from the Welsh land, and it had a raven's croak and a glow-worm's drapery ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... To have been my gifts. Mananan son of the sea Gave me this heavy purple cloak. Nine Queens Of the Land-under-Wave had woven it Out of the fleeces of the sea. O! tell her I was afraid, or tell her what you will. No! tell her that I heard a raven croak On the north side of ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... day to her mother, "a raven must have flown over his head. He is like the proverb of the blind man on the blind horse coming at midnight to a deep ditch. Oh, how can ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... maiore momento with no greater difficulty (effort). 17. Iustiore altero proelio in a second and more regular engagement. —W. 23. incondtos rough, unpolished. 'The Gaul shall come against thee From the land of snow and night: Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies To the raven and the kite.' —Macaulay.] ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... after meals. In addition to its use as a dining-room, the Hall also served as a lecture-room, and for the production of stage plays. On these latter occasions it seems to have been specially decorated, for Roger Ascham, writing 1st October 1550, from Antwerp, to his brother Fellow, Edward Raven, tried to picture to him the magnificence of the city by saying that it surpassed all others which he had visited, as much as the Hall at St. John's, when decorated for a play at Christmas, surpassed its appearance ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... when the breeze has not caught them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcase of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs protruding through the skin, raven-torn; and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, surrounded on ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... moored in Dundalk bay. Joy instantly filled their hearts; for they recognized the fleet of Munster, with the admiral's vessel in the van, and the rest ranged in line of battle. The Danes were taken by surprise; they beheld an enemy approach from a side where they rather expected the raven flag of their country floating on the ships. The Munster admiral gave them no time to form. He steered straight to Sitric's vessel, and, with his hardy crew, sprang on board. Here a sight met his gaze which filled his ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... anything he could not do? He mimicked birds and animals; he imitated a wheezy phonograph playing "When We Were a Couple of Kids"; he recited "The Raven" and "Paul Revere's Ride"; he gave a cutting from Dickens and one from Sheridan Knowles; he showed how Joe Jefferson played Rip Van Winkle, how Sol Smith ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... weep and howl, ye evil priests and mighty men of wrong, The Lord shall smite the proud, and lay His hand upon the strong. Woe to the wicked rulers in His avenging hour! Woe to the wolves who seek the flocks to raven and devour! ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... upon his brow the flush of his twentieth summer. His figure seemed already to have gained its full proportions, and in his carriage and tone of voice there was all the pliant grace of youth, combined with manhood's strength and ease. His hair was of that purplish black so rarely seen save in the raven's wing, or the exquisite portraits of the old masters. The full broad forehead, shadowed by its dark locks, the clear black eye, the hue of health upon the check, and the smile upon the red lips as they parted over the snowy teeth, formed a picture of fresh and manly beauty over which ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... may assert that he developed himself from the protoplasm of ignorance, and in the gloomy fog of fear and superstition grew by degrees into a formidable monster, being changed by the overheated imaginations of dogmatists into a reptile, an owl, a raven, a dog, a wolf, a lion, a centaur, a being half monkey, half man, till, finally, he became a polite and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Killer still cursed the land. Sometimes there would be a cessation in the crimes; then a shepherd, going his rounds, would notice his sheep herding together, packing in unaccustomed squares; a raven, gorged to the crop, would rise before him and flap wearily away, and he would come upon the murderer's ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... Karl would come. Alas! it was a full day too soon; for I felt sure that these burghers would proclaim him at the gates, and that the house of Otho and Casimir, the brood of the Wolf, would, like the shadow of the raven as it flits by in the sunshine, pass away. For by that time there would be no Otho. They would find him low enough, with an axe cleft in ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... his mask, and bareheaded: but every eye glanced away from the helmets and barettes, waving with plumes, and sparkling with jewels, to gaze on Flodoardo's raven locks, as they floated on the air in wild luxuriance. A murmur of admiration rose from every corner of the saloon, but it rose unmarked by those who were the objects of it. Neither Rosabella nor Flodoardo at that moment formed ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... delight, Is both as fair And dusk as night. I know some lovelorn hearts that beat In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet, That dance and glance like jewels there, Emblazoning the raven hair! ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... thou viper, paracide! But for thy tongue thy mother had not dyde: That belching voice, that harsh night-raven sound, Untimely sent thy mother to the ground: Upbraid my fault, I did deceive my brother; Cut out thy tongue, that slue ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... the trail," said Yahn and laughed. "The priest of the men of iron say that Tahn-te is a sorcerer,—who knows that he did not bury owl-feathers or raven-feathers on the way to hide her trail? If the witch maid was a maid of beauty, is he not ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... boat between two rocks, at the end of which was a small sandy beach, where a capstan being placed he was enabled to haul her up out of the water. As he approached, a woman was seen descending from the hut. The same dark eyes and raven hair, though somewhat streaked with white in her case, which characterised the boy, was observable in the woman. Her figure was thin and wiry, giving indication of the severe toil to which she was exposed. She was dressed in a rough frieze petticoat, with ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... Cathedral clock struck two, Kalli entered the College-gates. With hair black as the raven's wing, and eyes sparkling with good-humour, he made his appearance; and soon showed a desire to do the honours of the College. His dress was neat, like that of a young English gentleman, and he had a gaiety ...
— Kalli, the Esquimaux Christian - A Memoir • Thomas Boyles Murray
... when the Master suddenly sat down beside him. To any one looking in at the window, the two seated side by side on the hard sofa would have seemed an oddly assorted pair. Stewart's length of frame, the raven black of his hair and beard, the marble pallor of his delicate features, made the little Master look smaller, pinker, plumper than usual; but his face, radiating wisdom and affection, was more than beautiful in the ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... peculiar charm? The soft black eyes, the raven hair, The curving neck, the rounded arm, All these are common everywhere. Her charm was this—upon her face Childlike and innocent and fair, No man with thought impure or base Could ever look;—the glory there, The sweet ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... but could not hold it, being put to flight through Paul's Alley, and pursued by the General's grenadiers, while he marches up and attacks their main body, but are opposed again by a party of men as lay in Black Raven Court; but they are forced also to retire soon in the utmost confusion; and at the same time those brave divisions in Paul's Alley ply their rear with grenadiers, that with precipitation they take to the rout along Bunhill Row: so the General marches into the Artillery Ground, and being drawn ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... the waters the second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought me to you I should have been changed into a hooting owl; if you had not done so the second night, I should have been changed into a croaking raven. But, thanks to you, Enda, I am now a snow-white swan, and for one hour on the first night of every full moon the power of speech is and will be given to me as long as I remain a swan. And a swan I must always remain, unless you are willing to break the spell of enchantment that is over me; ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted, with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life, she teaches him ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... warranted by the chilly wind, a tight-fitting tunic of dark green cloth, caught in by a broad buff leather belt with the clasp of a University, admirably defined the shapeliness of a slight but manly form. His hair, black as the raven's wing, was worn long and came curling down on his shoulders; his complexion was dark but clear. But the whole appearance was of a marvel in physical excellencies; a physiologist would have pointed to him as a model and ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, and other creatures of this kind, as many as he could lay his hands on. Over and above these beasts, he had a raven, which had learned so well from him to talk, that it could imitate its master's voice, especially in answering the door when some one knocked, and this it did so cleverly that people took it for Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk of Siena know quite well. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the name of Tom Rowley (after one of the officers of the regiment). He had accompanied Mr. Raven, in the Britannia, to Bengal, in ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... I shall be civil. When they came to the meeting (as their custom was) they sat for some time silent, some with their faces to the wall, and some covered; and, there being a void in the loft above, there came down the appearance of a raven, and sat on one man's head, who rose up and spoke with such vehemence, that the foam flew from his mouth. It went to a second, and he did so likewise. Mr. Peden, sitting next the landlord, said, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... a line-of-battle ship, as she launched herself in long floating rushes from gleaming pinnacle to seething valley with a heavy, melancholy sobbing of water all about her decks, and her narrow, distended band of maintopsail hovering overhead black as a raven's pinion in the flying hoariness. We were washing through it at twelve or thirteen knots an hour, though the ship was as stiff as a madman in a strait-jacket, with the compressed wool in her hold and loaded down to her main-chain bolts besides. ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... Her eye-lashes, of the deepest jet, and silken gloss, were of uncommon length. Her lips were apart, and disclosed small but exquisitely formed teeth. Their hue was not that of ivory, but the more delicate though more transient one of the pearl. One arm supported her head—its hand tangled in the raven tresses—of the other, the snowy ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... Diliana in horror, "where has the wolf gone? we were pursuing a wolf." Upon which the horrible and accursed night-raven recovered herself quickly, and pointing with her finger to the crucifix which lay upon the ground, said with a tone of mingled scorn and anger, "There, thou stupid fool! ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... intercalates a k.[260] The Arawaks have words which only men may speak, and others which only women may speak.[261] Dialectical variations are illustrated for us by facts which come under observation and report. Christian[262] mentions an American negro castaway, who settled on Raven's Island with a native wife and children and a few relatives and servants. In forty years they had produced "a new and peculiar dialect of their own, broadening the softer vowels and substituting th ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... oily peaked cap until the straight raven hair flowed out from under like a cataract, and gave his thin, waterfall moustache a twist, while his swarthy, parchment face cracked into a ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... will make a sailor yet, son Raven, for you watch things. Now I will tell you what I saw today. There was the one kite sailing over my head as I was at the ship garth, and presently it screamed so that I looked up. Then it left its wide circles over the town, and flew northward, ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... you a piece of advice, old man; fill your mouth full of tow, light it, and blow at everybody. Or, better still, take your hat and go home. This is a wedding, we all want to enjoy ourselves and you are croaking like a raven. Yes, really. ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... those raven tresses Adown her cheek, like willow leaves, As stooping still, with fond caresses, She plies her task of ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... mast, and, as we understood, no force except the command of the chief would have induced him to release his hold. Like the other men his body is blackened, but his distinguishing mark is a collection of two or three raven-skins fixed to the girdle behind the back in such a way that the tails stick out horizontally from the body. On his head, too, is a raven-skin split into two parts, and tied so as to let the beak ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... with a start, and then, raven-like, "nothing more." I played with the tassel of the window-curtain and wondered how I should ever get on without this aunt, the dearest, bravest and handsomest woman in all the world—to me. She was thirty-six years old, just ten ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... would certainly have put more breadth and solidity into the figure of Carker; but the woman he could scarcely have improved upon—I doubt if he could have matched her. As for Cruikshank, he would have given her an impossible waist, a puffy face surmounted with bandeaux of raven hair scrupulously plastered to each side of her lofty forehead; whilst Carker would have been presented to us in an uncomfortable coat, hair parted and dressed after the Cruikshankian fashion, and a pair of boots at least half a ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... with his heat the Bharata host; or like Soma swallowed up by Rahu; or like the ocean reft of water. The mighty car-warriors of thy army beholding Abhimanyu whose face had the splendour of the full moon, and whose eyes were rendered beautiful in consequence of lashes black as the feathers of the raven, lying prostrate on the bare earth, were filled with great joy. And they repeatedly uttered leonine shouts. Indeed, O monarch, thy troops were in transports of joy, while tears fell fast from the eyes of the Pandava heroes. Beholding the heroic Abhimanyu lying on the field ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... preparing to take possession of the world. It also might be a type of the opening the law and testimony, that light might by that come into the church; for we find not that this window had any other use, but to be a conveyance of light into the ark, and as a passage for the raven and the dove, as may be further showed after. Now much like this, is that of John: "The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament" (Rev 11:19). And again, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... then. One Sunday morning in 1808, his eldest daughter sitting alone in the minister's pew, a strange gentleman was shown into it, whose appearance and demeanor strongly arrested her attention. The slenderness of his frame, the pale yellow of his complexion, and the raven blackness of his hair, seemed only to bring out into grander relief his ample forehead, and to heighten the effect of his deep-set, brilliant eyes. At this period of his life there was an air of delicacy and refinement about his face, joined to a kind of strength that women can admire, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... dancing before the storm, on like a whirlwind over the shoulder of Suletind, over the knees of Torholmenbrae—the Giants that sit at the gateway. Faster than man or beast could follow, up—up—up—and on; and no one saw them go, but a Raven that swooped behind, and flew as Raven never flew, and the Troll, the same old Troll that sang by the Vand-dam, and now danced and sang between ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... figure, which was not quite devoid of martial dignity, however, soon began to be seen in the best drawing-rooms in Moscow. His bald head with its tufts of dyed hair, and the soiled ribbon of the Order of St. Anne which he wore over a cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, began to be familiar to all the pale and listless young men who hang morosely about the card-tables while dancing is going on. Pavel Petrovitch knew how to gain a footing in society; he spoke little, but from old habit, condescendingly—though, of course, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... array of witnesses was overwhelming, and then his temptations! and his past career! She had been told he was addicted to the vices of drink and cards in their worst form. Ah, no; it was futile to hope. She feared the worst. And Mrs. Stannard was wellnigh ready to bid her begone,—the old croaking raven! as down in her inmost heart she termed her. She was full of faith and loyalty, but she was fearfully worried, and Blake's coming was ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... Barbara seated herself, knitting in hand, by the little white bed, and Jinty listened to the stories she loved best of all, those of the days when her father was a little boy and played under the great elms of Old Studley with Mike, the ancient raven, that some people declared was a hundred years old at least. He was little more than a dream-father, for he had been for most of Jinty's little life away in far-off China in the diplomatic service. Her sweet, young, gentle mother Jinty did not remember at all, for she dwelt in a land that is ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... two chasms called respectively Almanna Gja, [Footnote: Almanna may be translated main; it means literally all men's; when applied to a road, it would mean the road along which all the world travel.] or Main Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In the act of disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, upon itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal back as it ascends; the other side is perfectly perpendicular, and at ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... habitually half closed, as if weighed down by the black length of their borders. The habit of arching up one or other of the eyebrows, in surprise or interrogation, gave a drollery to the otherwise nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which it had been thrust into a net, with a long thing that had once been a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled bodice worn over a gray skirt which looked as if it had done ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his return to Temple's house, Swift found his old playmate grown from a sickly child into a girl of fifteen, in perfect health. She came, he says, to be "looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... other raven said, "Poor Claus, did you say, brother? Do you not see the witch-hazel lying on ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... coextensive with three-fourths of the continent. No sterility discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry grama as among the most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low sand-hills, and sickle-bill ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... you. Then go at once to the swineherd who is in charge of your pigs; he has been always well affected towards you, and is devoted to Penelope and your son; you will find him feeding his pigs near the rock that is called Raven {124} by the fountain Arethusa, where they are fattening on beechmast and spring water after their manner. Stay with him and find out how things are going, while I proceed to Sparta and see your son, who is with Menelaus at Lacedaemon, where he has gone to ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... sat a Raven, Blind, and from the bitter Cistern Forc'd his only Drink to draw. Suddenly the Pelican Flying over Fortune's Shadow Cast upon his Head, and calling— "Come, poor Son of Salt, and taste of Sweet, sweet Water from my Maw." Said the Raven, "If I taste it Once, the Salt I have to ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Winchester station treated her with civility and good-nature. The pale beauty of her pensive face won her friends wherever she went. It is very hard upon pug-nosed merit and red-haired virtue, that a Grecian profile, or raven tresses, should be such an excellent letter of introduction; but, unhappily, human nature is weak; and while beauty appeals straight to the eye of the frivolous, merit requires to be appreciated by ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... little incidents that are always occurring, and which only observing minds would notice. For the time he sees nothing that would suggest even to the most sparkling intellect the shadow of a rhyme, and he begins to be in despair. He walks up and down his dingy room, thrusts his long fingers amid the raven locks that adorn his poetical cranium, and gently at first, then furiously, irritates the cuticle of his imaginative head-piece, hoping thereby to waken up his ideas and find a foundation upon which to erect another stone in the edifice ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... made a step, and threw the ring through the window into the room. The wizard roared with rage till the castle quaked, and then, bang! went the third iron hoop that was round his waist, and sprang off him; the wizard turned into a raven, and flew out and ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... all that pomp and parade of wealth and luxury in contrast with the misery, squalid, agonizing, ruffianly, which stares one in the face in every street of London, and hoots at the gates of her palaces more ominous a note than ever was that of owl or raven in the portentous times when empires and races have crumbled and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... cheerer of the harper and bard—"a giver of bounteous gifts." Besides, you should have heard a practical admonition to the fair-haired son of the stranger, who lives in the land where the grass is always green—the rider on the shining pampered steed, whose hue is like the raven, and whose neigh is like the scream of the eagle for battle. This valiant horseman is affectionately conjured to remember that his ancestors were distinguished by their loyalty as well as by their courage. All this you have lost; but, since ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the light, calmly and proudly, and with a gleam in her eyes, as if she enjoyed his astonishment. Her dress was of purple silk, wrought with clusters of gold-tinted flowers, that scintillated and gleamed as she moved out of the shadows; her raven hair, arranged in heavy bandeaux on each side her face, was surmounted by a cashmere scarf of pale green, which was carelessly knotted on one side of her head, and fell in a mass of fringe and embroidery on her left shoulder. The flowing waves of her robe swept the carpet as she moved, ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... nor did any one pass out. All were now well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching their home their mother opened the door, and at once told them that she was in terror about their father, for, as she sat looking out the window in the moonlight, a huge raven with fiery eyes lit on the sill, and tapped three times on the glass. They told her their story, which only added to their anxiety, and as they stood talking, taps came to the nearest window, and they saw the bird again. A few days later news reached them that Mr. Ross-Lewin had died suddenly in ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... I, as now, be there, The Christian's scorn, the Christian's jest; But let me see and hear, From some dim mansion in the sky, Thy bright ones and their melody." The sun goes down with sudden gleam, And—beautiful as a lovely dream And silently as air— The vision of a dark-eyed girl, With long and raven hair, Glides in—as guardian spirits glide— And lo! is kneeling by his side, As if her sudden presence there Were sent in answer to his prayer. (Oh say they not that angels tread Around the good man's dying bed?) His child—his sweet and sinless child— And as he gazed on her He ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... The center of the group was Count Storri—a giant Russ. This Storri did not belong to the Russian legation, did not indeed reside in town, and had been vouched into the club by one of his countrymen. He had onyx eyes, with blue-black beard and mustaches which half covered his face, and hair as raven as his beard. Also he valued himself for that a favorite dish with him was raw meat chopped fine with ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... supper, for her mother could not eat, though she drank a cup of tea. The morning sun would shine upon them again, bringing another day of want and wretchedness, but the poor girl banished her fears, trusting for the morrow to Him who feedeth the hungry raven, and tempereth the wind to ...
— Poor and Proud - or The Fortunes of Katy Redburn • Oliver Optic
... search of the dangerous walrus and white bear and the monstrous whale. Here they made strange fire to the spirits of the monsters they had slaughtered, and spoke in grave tones of the great spirit that had come down from the moon in the form of a raven with ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... woman, with hair as black as a raven's wing, walked through the depot, where a dozen or more bodies were awaiting burial. Passing from one to another, she finally lifted the paper covering from the face of a woman, young and with traces of beauty showing through the stains of muddy water. With a cry of anguish she reeled ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John's College; 'Tell Mr. Maden I will drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine.' ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... was dressed in the Phrygian cap, and simple garb of a Sicilian mariner. His appearance, as far as it could be judged of by the dim light of the lantern, was anything but prepossessing. A profusion of long, straggling, grizzly locks, once probably of raven hue, which evidently had not felt the barber's scissors for many a year, concealed the greater part of his face which was still further hidden by a patch over one eye, and a handkerchief bound round his head, while his mouth was surrounded by an enormous pair of moustachios, ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Piercing the mighty monarch on his throne; While from a towering cypress growing near Every disease to which frail flesh is heir Like ravening vultures watch each arrow's flight, And quick as thought glide off on raven's wings To bring the wounded, writhing victim in— As well-trained hunters mark their master's aim, Then fly to bring the wounded quarry home. Meanwhile a stifling stench rose from below— As from a battle-field where nations met And fiery ranks of living valor ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... Thalaba lying distracted upon her grave, in the neighbourhood of which he had wandered, till "the sun, and the wind, and the rain, had rusted his raven locks"; and there he is found by the father of his bride, and visited by her ghost, and soothed and encouraged to proceed upon his holy enterprise. He sets out on his lonely way, and is entertained the first night by a venerable dervise: ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... metropolis and, as we have seen, every village receives its own quota of birds each morning, and there they spend the daylight hours and subsist on the waste food and on what they can steal, just as the semi-domestic raven and the kite did in former ages, from Roman times down ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the Ylfing's offspring, and the woman who had the child brought forth. Sitting on a lofty tree, on prey intent, a raven to a ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... she was a royal Princess. Then they put the coffin on the top of the mountain, and one of the Dwarfs always remained beside it and kept watch over it. And the very birds of the air came and bewailed Snowdrop's death, first an owl, and then a raven, and last of all a ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... humour, and inimitably successful in parody, has, in some of his "Tales of Terror" undertaken to mock the doleful tones of Mr. Lewis's muse, or shall we rather say the hoarse caw of the German raven. The midnight hour has been beguiled, by transcribing the following sarcasm, founded on a well-known nursery story, and our readers will thank us for sitting up so late ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... dancers passed backwards and forwards across the open space. His slow eyes followed one figure without seeing the rest. In the set nearest to him a beautiful girl was dancing with one of Don John's officers. She was of the rarest type of Andalusian beauty, tall, pliant, and slenderly strong, with raven's-wing hair and splendidly languorous eyes, her creamy cheek as smooth as velvet, and a mouth like a small ripe fruit. As she moved she bent from the waist as easily and naturally as a child, and every movement followed ...
— In The Palace Of The King - A Love Story Of Old Madrid • F. Marion Crawford
... here to croak like an old raven," continued Lady Lufton, when she had brought this embrace to an end. "It is probable that we all may have our sorrows; but I am quite sure of this,—that if we endeavour to do our duties honestly, we shall all find our consolation and all ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... designs in white, blue, yellow and black are of totemic significance and relate to the ceremonial life of the Indian. In earliest times this blanket was undecorated, a plain field of white; then color was introduced on the white field in stripes of herring-bone pattern typifying raven's tail, because similar to the vanes of the tail feathers; and later the elaborate geometric designs of present day blankets developed. These designs are first painted upon a pattern board the size and shape of those ...
— Aboriginal American Weaving • Mary Lois Kissell
... medical orders. This, Dr. Baker explained to me, was a very necessary stipulation, for Sir Richard now looked upon the time spent over his meals as so many half-hours wasted. He never ate his food properly, but used to raven it up like an animal in order to get back quickly to his books. So a treaty was made, and Dr. Baker remained a member of the household ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... maintained a navy that would have caused both belligerents to respect her rights, and thereby saved the principal entirely, to say nothing of all the other immense losses dependent on an interrupted trade; but demagogues were at work with their raven throats, and it is not reasonable to expect that the masses can draw very just distinctions on the subject of remote interests, when present expenditure is the question immediately before them. It is true, I remember ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... from my dark abode, Where nests the raven, sits the toad, Hither I come, at thy command: Sister, sister, join thy hand! I will smooth the way for thee, Thou shalt furnish food for me. Come, let us speed our way Where the troops of spectres play. To charnel-houses, ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... the house of the Old Woman of the Mountain with the fish's scale, the fox's hair, and the raven's feather each safely tied in a corner ...
— The Laughing Prince - Jugoslav Folk and Fairy Tales • Parker Fillmore
... and the love I had for him prevailed, and I took on myself the charge. The eldest was a beautiful girl of seventeen, Miguel two years younger. They were wonderfully alike, only in the boy's case the raven black hair had a lock of white on one side, the "Sarreco streak," as it was proudly called, which appeared in the family generation after generation. I brought the children home with certain of their most cherished possessions, some fine riding-horses, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail, and was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all like little birds in the sight of Heaven, and therefore was not above speaking to the sparrows, and giving them information. "I know who the old man is. It is Winter, the old man ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... rocks, and decorations of implements, in other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design of the totem animal. Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a triple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design, to our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set of bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on. {64a} Equivalent marks, ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... left, Who, breathing Love's own air, Me of myself bereft, Who reigned in Cinara's stead, a fair, fair face, Queen of sweet arts? But Fate to Cinara gave A life of little space; And now she cheats the grave Of Lyce, spared to raven's length of days, That youth may see, with laughter and disgust, A firebrand, once ablaze, Now smouldering in ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... might be a raven as far as croaking's concerned. One would think we were in a hole and couldn't get out. Trust to Sucre and Miller; they'll pull ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... his steed's mouth and quiv'ring flanks doth come; Nor heeds the whitened flowing mane, but flies, While clouds of dust him follow, and arise Behind him o'er the road like black storm clouds, While Zu[5] the storm-bird onward fiercely goads The seven[6] raven spirits of the air, And Nus-ku[7] opens wide the fiery glare Of pent-up lightnings for fierce Gibil's[8] hand, Who hurls them forth at Nergal's[9] stern command, And Rimmon[10] rides triumphant on ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... laughed the giant, "that is a good joke! I'll pitch you into that raven's nest up there to teach you to make less ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... that, without having the soft and fluent graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. His dark-green shooting-dress, with the belt and pouch, the cap, with its gold tassel set upon his luxuriant curls, which had the purple gloss of the raven's plume, blended perhaps something prematurely manly in his own tastes, with the love of the fantastic and the picturesque which bespeaks the presiding genius of the proud mother. The younger son had scarcely told his ninth year; and the soft, auburn ringlets, descending ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those pensive eyes would close, And bid their lids each other seek, Veiling the azure orbs below, While their long lashes' darken'd gloss Seemed stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek, Like raven's ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... they be about but marking the spots where to bore the holes for the blasting powder that should scatter it to the winds, and let death and destruction, and the wild sea howling in upon Scaurnose, that the cormorant and the bittern might possess it, the owl and the raven dwell in it? But it would be seen what their husbands and fathers would say to it when they came home! In the meantime they must themselves do what they could. What were they men's wives for, if not to act for their husbands when they happened ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... his boat between two rocks, at the end of which was a small sandy beach, where a capstan being placed he was enabled to haul her up out of the water. As he approached, a woman was seen descending from the hut. The same dark eyes and raven hair, though somewhat streaked with white in her case, which characterised the boy, was observable in the woman. Her figure was thin and wiry, giving indication of the severe toil to which she was exposed. ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... to her wont, entered Bluebell's room, hair-brush in hand, as if disposed for a cozy confab. But that employment, so provocative of feminine disclosures, appeared futile this night, and the raven and chestnut coils were brushed to the sheen of a bird's wing ere Cecil had discovered what she had ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... English, who are accustomed to them from childhood, and often suffer from their petty depredations, consider them as mere nuisances; but I have been very much struck with their peculiarities. I like to behold their clear olive complexions, their romantic black eyes, their raven locks, their lithe, slender figures, and to hear them, in low, silver tones, dealing forth magnificent promises, of honours and estates, of world's worth, and ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... fastened in a club on the crown of his head with a large pin, I should rather say skewer, of silver; but the outlandishness of the fashion was not offensive, when I came to take into the account the beauty of the plaiting, and of the long raven lovelocks that hung down behind each of his small transparent ears, and the short Hyperion—like curls that clustered thick and richly on his high, pale, broad forehead. His eyes were large, black, and swimming, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... of noon-day is he; Yet seems [7] a form of flesh and blood; Nor piping shepherd shall he be, 25 Nor herd-boy of the wood. [8] A regal vest of fur he wears, In colour like a raven's wing; It fears not [9] rain, nor wind, nor dew; But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue 30 As budding pines in spring; His helmet has a vernal grace, Fresh as the bloom upon ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... you. Heaven knows, I haven't anything to write about. It isn't as if we were living at one of the beach houses; then I could do you some character studies, and fill your imagination with groups of sea-goddesses, with their (or somebody else's) raven and blonde manes hanging down their shoulders. You should have Aphrodite in morning wrapper, in evening costume, and in her prettiest bathing suit. But we are far from all that here. We have rooms in a farm-house, on a cross-road, two miles ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... placed him in West Point, from which he got himself dismissed. After that he supported himself in a hand-to-mouth fashion by writing for and editing newspapers and periodicals, living successively in Baltimore, Richmond, Philadelphia, and New York. The publication of his remarkable poem, "The Raven," in 1845, brought him fame, and for a short time he was a literary lion. But in 1847 his wife died, and his two remaining ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the ingrate! the viper! the raven with a nightingale's voice! You wish to see her? Why? This is singular. I thought she was a stranger to you. No! Then, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... singing heart, My lover, my lord, all hail! Fear shall be underfoot, I feel that we shall not fail. In the shadowy land we leave The grim wolves raven and bark, But our hearts are steadfast at length And our faces turn from ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... was now in the full bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very shallow crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the parted raven hair to show its glossy smoothness. A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown origin. Jet bracelets shone with every movement of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black gloves. Her sable ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... from the stone, and, striking her hand upon her brow, cried—'Jonathan Moor! ye cruel man! ye disregarder of the warnings of her whose life is as the shadow of your life! said I not that the hound was howling, and the raven was flapping its wings for a feast?—yet ye would not listen to my voice! And my brother!—where is my brother?—the son of my mother—more headstrong and foolish than yoursel'! Ye daurna answer, and ye needna answer. He is dead! The horse ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... savour of both. Oh, then, and I know, too, you'd weary of me. I know you, Monsieur Nicholas, better than you can ever know yourself, though you have risen from your grave. You follow a dream, no voice or face or flesh and blood; and not to do what the one old raven within you cries you must, would be in time to hate the very sound of my footsteps. You shall go back, poor turncoat, and face the clearness, the utterly more difficult, bald, and heartless clearness, as together we faced the dark. Life is a little while. And though I ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... I am on tiresome people, who think only of themselves, let me recall P. George Rawdon; the Raven, Bertha; I always believed his first name was Pluto, because of the shades around him. They say every one has a text book; his was neither the Bible, the Prayer Book, Thomas a Kempis, La Nouvelle Heloise, or 'Queechy,' but Mrs. Crowe's 'Night ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... characteristics than the Common Crow, being, in many of his actions, very like the Raven, especially in his love for carrion. Like the Raven, he has been known to attack game, although his inferior size forces him to call to his assistance the aid of his fellows to cope with larger creatures. Rabbits and hares are frequently ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... thee, O field, so fair and verdant! A clump of bushes stands—a clump of hazels, Upon their very top there sits an eagle, And upon the bushes' top—upon the hazels, Compress'd within his claw he holds a raven, And its hot blood he sprinkles on the dry ground; And beneath the bushes' clump—beneath the hazels, Lies void of life the good and gallant stripling; All wounded, pierc'd and mangled is his body. As the little tiny swallow or the chaffinch, Round their ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow
... tossed it away when she and Haamoura, the chief's wife, kissed each other on both cheeks in the French way. The Princesse de Joinville was tottering, but with something in her face, a disdain, a trace of power, that attracted me before I knew her rank or history. Her once raven hair was streaked with gray, she trembled, and her step was feeble; but all her weaknesses and blemishes impressed me as the disfigurement by age and abrasion of a beautiful and noble statue. She ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Marishka remembered the legend which connects every misfortune of the House of Habsburg with the appearance of this bird of ill omen: the flight of ravens at Olmuetz, the raven of the ill-fated Maximilian at Miramar, the raven of the Archduchess Maria Christina on the eve of her departure for her future kingdom of Spain, the raven which came to the Empress Elizabeth on the afternoon before the day of her assassination,—all ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... of any birds besides some of the gallinaceae which are polygamous? Do you know of any birds besides pigeons, and, as it is said, the raven, which pair ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... uffish spectral gleaming of that wild resounding clang Came hooting o'er the margin of the dusky moors that hang Like palls of inky darkness where the hoarse, weird raven calls, And the bhang-drunk Hindoo staggers on and on ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... As a raven, disturbed into night omen-croaking, he sent forth his news from utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of the thirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the were all eyes for each ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... were going to strike him. A regular flight! However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs—an extraordinary collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals. As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking factory-chimneys, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... tied the goat to the little trees, and set to work. I held Frank while he skinned; and then he held me while I skinned. It was very awkward. The tiny landscape almost directly beneath us was blue with the atmosphere of distance. A solitary raven discovered us, and began to circle ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... crows, and occasionally ducks, and one abominable croaking creature at night used to annoy me exceedingly, and though I often walked up the glen I could never discover what sort of bird it was. It might have been a raven; yes, a raven never flitting may be sitting, may be sitting, on those shattered rocks of wretchedness—on that Troglodytes' shore, where in spirit I may wander, o'er those arid regions yonder; but where I wish to squander, time and energies no more. Though a most romantic region, ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... her calm. The bright moon shone full on her face. Oh! how changed since the morning she stood in Madame ——'s schoolroom. The large dark eyes were sunken; the broad brow marked with lines of mental anguish; the cheeks colorless, and her long raven hair tossed back, and hanging like a veil below her slender waist. There was a hollow, wasted look in every feature; the expression was one of hopeless misery, and a something there was which made the ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... about the same period, that in a tender mood he promised the Duchess of Kendal, that if she survived him, and it were possible for the departed to return to this world, he would make her a visit. The Duchess, on his death, so much expected the accomplishment of that engagement, that a large raven, or some black fowl, flying into one of the windows of her villa at Isteworth, she was persuaded it was the soul of her departed monarch so accoutred, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... there an enormous difference between a well-bred and an ill-bred strain of animals? Take, for instance, a common barn-door hen. What sort of eating do you get from a shrivelled up old scrag of a fowl like that? Not much, do you! And what sort of eggs does it lay? A fairly good crow or a raven can lay pretty nearly as good an egg. But take a well-bred Spanish or Japanese hen, or a good pheasant or a turkey—then you will see the difference. Or take the case of dogs, with whom we humans are on such intimate terms. Think first of an ordinary common cur—I mean ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... him "Tink-a-tink," which we have previously heard, and to state how in former days she had been called the Ravenswing. And Lumley, on this hint, made a poem, in which he compared Morgiana's hair to the plumage of the Raven's wing, and Larkinissa's to that of the canary; by which two names the ladies began soon to ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... She was tall, with a bold sweep of fulness in figure, which was on a large scale of beauty. Her hair, which was abundant and worn full over the forehead, was raven black and glossy, and it threw off the sunshine that fell on her face. Her complexion had a golden tint, and her eyes, which were violet, had a slight recklessness of expression. Her carriage drew up at the ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... remained at anchor in the Tagus, his majesty's ships the Orion, Minerve, Romulus, Southampton, Andromache, Bonne Citoyenne, Leander, and Raven, received orders to put themselves under the command of Commodore Nelson; and, on the 6th of March, sailed from the Tagus, with sealed instructions to the squadron, which were only to be ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... and recitations. Every young man of any elocutionary ability felt himself empowered to recite "The Raven," that much admired and sharply discussed poem by the Poet Poe, whose melancholy end still created much interest. Critical spirit ran high. One party could see only a morbid faculty heightened by opium and intoxicants; others found the spirit of true and fine genius in many of ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... to suppose tender. She would have been meanwhile a wonderful lioness for a show, an extraordinary figure in a cage or anywhere; majestic, magnificent, high-coloured, all brilliant gloss, perpetual satin, twinkling bugles and flashing gems, with a lustre of agate eyes, a sheen of raven hair, a polish of complexion that was like that of well-kept china and that—as if the skin were too tight—told especially at curves and corners. Her niece had a quiet name for her—she kept it quiet; thinking of her, with a free ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... life is fled, My spirit's power, my bosom's glow; The raven locks that grac'd my head, Wave in a wreath of snow! And where the star of youth arose, I deem'd life's lingering ray should close, And those lov'd trees my tomb o'ershade, Beneath whose arching bowers my childhood play'd." ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... ourselves, made cache in it from a band o' pursuin' Kimanch. Thar's a way leads out at the back; an' just as soon as we kin throw dust in the eyes o' these yellin' varmints in front, we'll put straight for it. I don't know what sort o' a passage thar is—up the rocks by some kind o' raven, I b'lieve. We must do our ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... In the bosom of a mountain Where the fairy people dwell, By the cold and sunless fountain! Breathless as a holy shrine, When the voice of psalms is shed! And there upon her stately bed, While her raven locks recline O'er an arm more pure than snow, Motionless beneath her head,— And through her large fair eyelids shine Shadowy dreams that come and go, By too deep bliss disquieted,— There sleeps in love and beauty's glow, The high-born ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... the snow is flying, There a wounded Cossack's lying; On a bush his head he's leaning, And his eyes with grass is screening, Meadow-grass so greenly shiny, And with cloth the make of China; Croaks the raven hoarsely o'er him, Neighs his courser sad before him: "Either, master, give me pay, Or dismiss me on my way." "Break thy bridle, O my courser, Down the path amain be speeding, Through the verdant forest leading; Drink of two lakes on thy way, Eat of mowings two the hay; Rush the castle-portal ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... seemed generally to set greater store on the elaborate and artistic perfection of his works, than in the spontaneity of genius therein displayed. So it would seem, at least, in his voluntarily exposing the skeleton design of his greatest poem, 'The Raven,' and the various processes by which this grand shadow attained its final harmonious and terrible proportions. This may be a noble sacrifice to the principles of Art, intended as a warning to rash novices ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... since the incidents related in the preceding chapter. The scene changes to an island in the Mediterranean Sea. There, seated on the strand, with garments dripping wet, and with all the silken richness of her raven hair floating wildly and disheveled over her shoulders, the Lady Nisida gazed vacantly on the ocean, now tinged with living gold by the morning sun. At a short distance, a portion of a shipwrecked vessel lay upon the shore, and seemed to tell her tale. But where were the desperate, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... interesting place and so different from other parts of India and the rest of the world. It is a land of romance, poetry and strange pictures. Lalla Rookh and other fascinating houris, with large brown eyes, pearly teeth, raven tresses and ruby lips, have lived there; it is the home of the Cashmere bouquet, and the Vale of Cashmere is an enchanted land. Average Americans know mighty little about these strange countries, and it takes time to realize that they actually exist; but we find our fellow citizens everywhere we ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... Thy grace the rite from check can free. And yield the fruit I long to see. Thy duty bids thee, King, defend The suffering guest, the suppliant friend. Give me thy son, thine eldest born, Whom locks like raven's wings adorn. That hero youth, the truly brave, Of thee, O glorious King, I crave. For he can lay those demons low Who mar my rites and work me woe: My power shall shield the youth from harm, And heavenly might shall nerve his arm. And on my champion will I shower Unnumbered ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... West-Saxons and Mercians, slaughter the Scots and Northmen. Constantine and his Scots flee to their homes in the North. Anlaf and his Northmen flee across the sea to Dublin. Athelstan and Edmund return home in triumph, and leave the corpses to the raven, the ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... goes down with sudden gleam, And beautiful as a lovely dream, And silently as air, The vision of a dark-eyed girl With long and raven hair, Glides in as guardian spirits glide, And lo! is standing by his side, As if her sudden presence there Was sent in answer to his prayer. Oh! say they not that angels tread Around the good man's dying bed? His child—his sweet ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... eighteen species, among which is the Raven, which here takes the place of the Crow, the two species not being able to live together, as the stronger robber drives away the weaker. Of the insectivorous birds, some sixty or seventy species are found here, among which is the Mocking-Bird, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... was of that true, glossy black which suggests the blue sheen of raven's plumage, and her thickly fringed eyes were dark and southern as her hair. She had full, voluptuous lips, and a bold self-assurance. In the swift, calculating glance which she cast about the room there was something greedy and evil; and when it ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... will see, if you refer to the chart, near Twaddlecomb—having now sufficiently indicated the locality, I repeat, will you be kind enough to say whether, in your opinion, the necessity of building a bridge over the River Raven—(is prompted by Junior)—I should say, over the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 28, 1891 • Various
... he ceased, a curiously wild, mournful strain struck his ear, ascending from below him on the west, and forming a strange contrast to the merry notes he had been singing. It was like the noonday song of the joyous lark, as he soars into the blue sky, answered by the midnight croak of the raven as he sits on the old abbey's ivy-covered wall. He listened. It seemed rather like a continued shriek than a song, or the fearful cry of the fabled Banshee as she flits by the family mansion in Ireland, to warn the inmates, as is ignorantly ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... indefinitely, and like all Indian horses can "run like a deer." So, altogether, he will do very well for this place, where rides are necessarily curtailed. I call him Cheyenne, because we bought him of Little Raven, a Cheyenne chief. I shall be so glad when I can ride again, as I have missed so much the rides and grand ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... That dark delight, Is both as fair And dusk as night. I know some lovelorn hearts that beat In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet, That dance and glance like jewels there, Emblazoning the raven hair! ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... black shadows walking to and fro in the quadrangle, near the statues of the Patron Saint and his sister; and hopping on behind them, in and out of the old arches, is a raven, croaking in answer to the bell, and uttering, at intervals, the purest Tuscan. How like a Jesuit he looks! There never was a sly and stealthy fellow so at home as is this raven, standing now at the refectory door, with his head on one side, and pretending to glance ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... his neck. Torquatus in Latin means "provided with a chain," and this word was added to the name of Manlius ever after. It was at the same time that Marcus Valerius encountered another huge Gaul in single combat, and overcame him, though he was aided by a raven which settled on his helmet, and in the contest picked at the eyes of the barbarian. Corvus is the Latin word for raven, and it was added to the other names of Valerius. A golden crown and ten oxen were presented to him, and the people ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... very graceful figure. Complexion dark enough to make her pass for a brunette. Large black eyes and raven hair." ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... sapling, I was fostering the growth of those habits which, like rings in the grain, are the signature of unyielding years. Naturalists say that a bullfinch fed only on hempseed gradually loses his fair plumage and becomes black as a raven: so my soul, nourished on thoughts of rebellion, put off its bright and diverse enthusiasms and was clothed in the dark garment ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... poured into her sympathizing ear the confidences which his mother, alas! could not receive. With tearful eyes and sorrowing heart this new-found friend watched by him to the last—then closed the heavy eyes, and smoothed the raven locks, and sent the quiet form, lovely even in death, to her who waited its arrival ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... true, pure, abiding joy is to hold fellowship with God and to live in His love. The secret of all our unrest is the going out of our desires after earthly things. They fly forth from our hearts like Noah's raven, and nowhere amid all the weltering flood can find a resting-place. The secret of satisfied repose is to set our affections thoroughly on God. Then our wearied hearts, like Noah's dove returning to its rest, will fold their wings and nestle ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... you old croaking Scotch raven," he cried. "Your professional ways will be the death of some one yet. But the 'some one' won't be Peter Grimm. That sick bed manner is splendid for bullying old maids into taking their tonic. But it's wasted on a grown man. No, no, Andrew. You can't make me out an invalid. You ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... must be careful not to disturb the little tell-tale creatures of the woods or success that seems so near may vanish in a moment; for a raven may fly overhead, and spying you, circle about—just as the pigeons used to do—and then crying out may warn the moose of your presence. Or you may flush a partridge; or a squirrel, taking fright, may rush up a tree and begin chattering about you; or a rabbit may go drumming into a ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... ravenous bird, and asked his advice how to get rid of them; to which Turges answered, that he had better destroy the nests—eggs, nestlings, and all—counsel which the Irish hardly needed; and the massacre of the Danish raven's brood was frightful. ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Challenge" illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of "corbyn" (a raven) is cor, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is pennac. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and "betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... ponder, Bereaved of him, her child of wonder, No earthly power could break asunder His love for England's weal. And now those locks once dark as raven (For laurel leaves ne'er deck'd a craven) Wear a laurel crown ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... "Croak, you old raven—you'll be embarrassed when we fill your money-box," she replied, gayly. "You should have an ideal, ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... does a leaping Fish Send through the Tarn a lonely chear; The Crags repeat the Raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the Rainbow comes, the Cloud; And Mists that spread the flying shroud; 30 And Sun-beams; and the sounding blast, That, if it could, would hurry past, But that enormous Barrier binds ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... god there is all the difference that exists between the Demeter of Cnidos and an image from Easter Island. Again, the Scandinavian gods, when their tricks are laid aside, when Odin is neither assuming the shape of worm nor of raven, have a martial dignity, a noble enduring spirit of their own. Race comes out in that, as it does in the endless sacrifices, soma drinking, magical austerities, and puerile follies of Vedic and Brahmanic gods, the deities of a people fallen early into its sacerdotage ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... father's love, she permitted her daughter-in-law to decide as she pleased. A second time he presented himself, and Lady Mar, still indifferent, allowed Helen a second time to refuse him. Years flew over the heads of the ill-joined pair; but while they whitened the raven locks of the earl, and withered his manly brow, the beauty of his ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... Each one is intent on her volume, and an irritable answer, in a don't bother kind of manner, is all that I can obtain. The novel is Miss BRADDON's latest, One Life, One Love (but three volumes, for all that), in which they are absorbed. Later on, at intervals, I get the volumes, and, raven-like, secrete them. I can quite understand the absorption of my young friends. Marvellous, Miss BRADDON! Very few have approached you in sensation-writing, and none in keeping up sensationalism as fresh as ever it was when first I sat up ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... poplars, and their tears to amber. Transformation of Cycnus to a swan. Mourning of Phoebus. Jupiter's descent to earth; and amour with Calistho. Birth of Arcas, and transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... significant that amongst the stories of souls of men taking up their residence in and animating trees and plants, the human being is usually a woman, accompanied by "a fox, a dog, an old raven ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... author of "Poe's Raven in an Elevator" and "A Holiday Touch." With 24 illustrations. Tenth ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... do it!" and, standing on the post where he had perched, Joe waved his arms and shouted: "Smash-up! Smash-up! Run! Run!" like a raven croaking over a battlefield when the ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... Mme. R. was an Italian of commanding stature, impassioned and jealous. She sang badly, although possessed of a fine voice, which she was less skilful in showing to advantage than in displaying the luxuriant splendor of her raven hair. The public, initiated into the secret of the green-room, used to be intensely amused at the piteous attitudes of Nemorino Brignoli, contrasting, as they did, with the ardent pantomime of Adina R., who looked by his side like a wounded lioness. Poor woman! What has been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... his officers and prepared to fly. His conduct on this occasion is characteristic of the man. 'So he ordered the national flag to be brought, which was made of white silk, and bore a device consisting of a raven with a red cross in its beak upon a green field. This was torn from the staff, and Michael hid it in his bosom. The officers followed his example with the remaining ensigns. Then he gave spurs to his horse, and with loosened rein, accompanied by his officers and some Polish ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... the ark rested on the hills of Armenia. The tenth month, of the first day of the month, the tops of the hills appeared first. After these forty days after the lessing of the waters, Noah opened the window and desired sore to have tidings of ceasing of the flood. And sent out a raven for to have tidings, and when he was gone he returned no more again, for peradventure she found some dead carrion of a beast swimming on the water, and lighted thereon to feed her and was left there. After this he sent out a dove which flew out, and ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... remembering only that you had been his wife. In a little box where no eyes but mine ever look, there is a bunch of flowers plucked from Wilford's grave. They are faded now and withered, but something of their sweet perfume lingers still; and I prize them as my greatest treasure, for, except the lock of raven hair severed from his head, they are all that is remaining to me of the past, which now seems so far away. It is time to make my nightly round of visits, so I must bid you good-by. The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you, ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... all take off their sev'ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 155 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160 For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... go, he saw a small dark object scurry over the snow. At first he thought it a raven. But at last, with a little circle, it appeared to flop over and to lie still, a dark spot on ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell
... was protected by chains of the finest steel interwoven with the folds, was of the most dazzling white—white, also, were his tunic and short mantle; on his left arm hung a short circular shield, in his right hand was poised a long and slender lance. As this Moor, mounted on a charger in whose raven hue not a white hair could be detected, dashed forward against Pacheco, both Christian and Moor breathed hard, and remained passive. Either nation felt it as a sacrilege to thwart the encounter of ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... let you do that—bring me food, Phyllis," said Roxanne gently; and her little head with its raven black, heavy curls again rose to the stately ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... profuse than Blanche's, and clustering in closer and more mazy curls, were as black as the raven's wing, and, like the feathers of the wild bird, were lighted up when the sun played on them with a sort of purplish and metallic gloss, that defies alike the pen of the writer, and the painter's pencil ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... chain that he bore on his neck. Torquatus in Latin means "provided with a chain," and this word was added to the name of Manlius ever after. It was at the same time that Marcus Valerius encountered another huge Gaul in single combat, and overcame him, though he was aided by a raven which settled on his helmet, and in the contest picked at the eyes of the barbarian. Corvus is the Latin word for raven, and it was added to the other names of Valerius. A golden crown and ten oxen were presented to him, and the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... been in terms of the theatre, and he is willing to curtail any part of his theme for a "point." His explanation, therefore, of the growth of detail, while lacking in the high seriousness of Poe's explanation how he conceived "The Raven," has nevertheless the same mathematical precision about it. In other words, Thomas plays the theatre as Steinitz played chess, with certain recognized openings and certain stated values to the characters. We doubt whether, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, and other creatures of this kind, as many as he could lay his hands on. Over and above these beasts, he had a raven, which had learned so well from him to talk, that it could imitate its master's voice, especially in answering the door when some one knocked, and this it did so cleverly that people took it for Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... (which was wonderfully comforting, for the night had grown by this time raw and chilly), and looking with involuntary admiration at their dimpled, buxom, blooming hostess, as the firelight sparkled in her eyes and glimmered in her raven hair, they composed themselves ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... heart was opened and he looked up as the angel, the lovely weaver of peace, had bidden him. Above the roof of clouds he saw the Tree of Glory with its words of promise. The great battle came, when the Holy Sign was borne forth. Loud sang the trumpets. The raven was glad thereof, and the dewy-feathered eagle looked on at the march, and the wolf lifted up his howling. The terror of war was there, the clash of shields and the mingling of men, and the heavy sword-swing and the ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... Spirit of noon-day is he; Yet seems [7] a form of flesh and blood; Nor piping shepherd shall he be, 25 Nor herd-boy of the wood. [8] A regal vest of fur he wears, In colour like a raven's wing; It fears not [9] rain, nor wind, nor dew; But in the storm 'tis fresh and blue 30 As budding pines in spring; His helmet has a vernal grace, Fresh as the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... statue bearing the name of Aristeas of Proconnesos; for he told them that to their land alone of all the Italiotes 18 Apollo had come, and he, who now was Aristeas, was accompanying him, being then a raven when he accompanied the god. Having said this he disappeared; and the Metapontines say that they sent to Delphi and asked the god what the apparition of the man meant: and the Pythian prophetess bade them obey the command of the apparition, and told them that if they ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... shoulders and long neck supported a splendid head for Thornton Rush. This was indeed his crowning attraction. Short silken curls of raven black clustered around it, shading a wide white forehead and delicately fashioned ear. He had a beautifully arched brow, heavily pencilled, within which a glittering black eye, too deep set, gleamed forth with unaccountable attraction. His nose was straight, small, but full of nerve. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... was ushered into the front room of the first floor, and there came forward to meet him a man rather below the middle height, but of a symmetrical and imposing mien. His face was grave, not to say sad; thought, not time, had partially silvered the clustering of his raven hair; but intellectual power reigned in his wide brow, while determination was the character of the rest of his countenance, under great control, yet apparently, from the dark flashing of his ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... as if I were going to strike him. A regular flight! However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs—an extraordinary collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals. As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... on a sea-king's wrist alighting, As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled The raven-figured flag that led men fighting From field to green field of the water-world, Might find such brief high favour at his hand For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled, As these my songs require at yours on land, That durst not save for love's free sake ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... made to give way; but having a retreating place in Red Lion Court, but could not hold it, being put to flight through Paul's Alley, and pursued by the General's grenadiers, while he marches up and attacks their main body, but are opposed again by a party of men as lay in Black Raven Court; but they are forced also to retire soon in the utmost confusion; and at the same time those brave divisions in Paul's Alley ply their rear with grenadiers, that with precipitation they take to the rout along Bunhill Row: so ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... a great English poet had rushed down on Venice like a raven on a corpse, to croak out in lyric poetry—the first and last utterance of social man—the burden of a de profundis. English poetry! Flung in the face of the city that had given birth to Italian poetry! ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... table? Be off! Thy proper place is in the fields to scare away the crows!" So the poor brother went into the fields to scare away the crows. The crows all flew away when they saw him, but among them was a raven that flew back again and said to him, "O man! in this village thou wilt never be able to live, for here there is neither luck nor happiness for thee, but go into another village and thou shalt do well!" Then the man ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... King Ethelwulf, mounted upon a sturdy horse, but so changed that he hardly knew him, for he was wearing a Danish helmet ornamented with a pair of grey gull's wings, half-opened and pointed back, while in his left hand he carried a Danish shield painted with a black raven, and in his right was a shining ...
— The King's Sons • George Manville Fenn
... you'll hear to-morrow," said practical Bert Wilson, "will be a crow. Poe's raven won't have a thing on ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... gifts. Sculpture, painting, acting, writing! This is why I loved Lydia, who was an adept at numberless arts and accomplishments. She was a brunette with a clear, cream-tinged skin, red cheeks, rolling black eyes, ripe velvety lips, and hair of a beautiful hue and rich lustre—raven black, yet purple as the pigeon's wing in the sun. I believe it is true that dark people belong to the pre-historic races: centuries of sunlight are fused in their glowing complexion. Blondes are beautiful—both the rosy ones with pinkish eyelids and warm golden locks, and the pale ones with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... tears to amber. Transformation of Cycnus to a swan. Mourning of Phoebus. Jupiter's descent to earth; and amour with Calistho. Birth of Arcas, and transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to a statue. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... exactly like the ones he had left, except that they moved more slowly still, and each one held a raven upon his wrist, and their harsh croakings re-echoed through the dismal place. Holding the Prince by the arms, not so much to do him honour as to restrain his impatience, they proceeded by slow degrees up the steps of the Temple, and when they at last reached the top ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... she found his dead body lying in a ditch. She ruffled up her feathers and began to cry. "Who can have killed him?" she said; "my poor kind husband, who never did harm to any one." Then a Raven flew down from a tree, where he had been sitting, and told her how a cruel boy had thrown a stone at him and killed him for sport. He saw it, said the Raven, as he was sitting ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... the Princess, and not a bid do I hear. She's a beauty, gentlemen, sired by the famous Potiphar who won the Epsom Handicap and no end of minor stakes. Take a look at her, gentlemen! Did you ever see a horse before that was raven black from nose to tail? I reckon you never did. But such a horse is Lady Clare. The man who can find a single white hair on her can have her for a gift. Come forward, gentlemen, come forward. Who will start ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the valley, and gazed at the vast slope of Helvellyn, and at Thirlmere beneath it, and at Eagle's Crag and Raven's Crag, which beheld themselves in it, and we cast many a look behind at Blencathra, and that noble brotherhood of mountains out of the midst of which we came. But, to say the truth, I was weary ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... upturned toes, and a certain forlorn dignity and meek sadness, as of "one who once had wings." What is he? and whence? Is he a surface or a substance? is he smooth and warm? is he glossy, like a blackberry? or has he on him "the raven down of darkness," like an unfledged chick of night? and if we smoothed him, would he smile? Does that large eye wink? and is it a hole through to the other side? (whatever that may be;) and is that a small crescent moon of darkness swimming in its disc? or does the eye disclose a bright ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... various other animals, that, in their attempts to cross the river above the Falls, have been dragged into the current, and precipitated down that tremendous gulf, where, among the rocks that bound the Rapids below, they furnish a rich repast for the vulture, the raven, and the bald eagle, the subject of the present account. He has been long known to naturalists, being common to both continents, and occasionally met with from a very high northern latitude, to the borders of the torrid zone, but chiefly in the vicinity of the sea, and along ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 493, June 11, 1831 • Various
... handling the Primitive Fathers got from these Beausobre gentlemen, who indeed to me, Vota in person, under your Majesty's fine presidency, were politeness itself, though they treated the Fathers so ill. Her Majesty, with beautiful art, in this Letter, smooths the raven plumage of Vota;—and, at the same time, throws into him, as with invisible needle-points, an excellent dose of acupuncturation, on the subject of the Primitive Fathers and the Ecumenic Councils, on her own score. Let us give ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... which he gave the following signs: "When I am just dead," says he, "open my breast and extract my heart. Carry it to some place where the public may see the result. You will then transfix it upon a long pole, and if Satan will have my soul, he will come in the likeness of a black raven and carry it off; and if my soul will be saved it will be carried ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... went forth from the castle into the public road, feeling mournful and sad; he whom she had nursed day and night, and even now carried about in her dreams, had been cold and strange, and had not a word or thought respecting her. A great black raven darted down in front of her on the high ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the inn at Avallon were curious emblem pictures of different nationalities: one a belle of fair hair; another a belle of raven locks; a third a belle of brown ringlets;—all these for Europe; but for the United States was "a wench as black as coal!" So thought Switzerland of us in the days of 1828. One lovely day Cooper ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... from the mill and found the strange girl in the best bed he was inclined to criticize. He was a tall, dusty, old man, for whom it seemed a hard task ever to speak pleasantly. Aunt Alvirah, when she was much put out with him, said he "croaked like a raven!" ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... yellow plague {50} which destroyed Maelgwn of Gwynedd, put an end to you on the sea-shore, and that your body was divided amongst the crows and the fishes." "Peace, fool!" said he, "I was alluding to my two callings, of man of the law and poet. Please to tell me, has a lawyer more similitude to a raven, than a poet to a whale? How many a one doth a single lawyer divest of his flesh, to swell out his own craw; and with what indifference does he extract the blood, and leave a man half alive! And as for the poet, where is the fish which is able to ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... hair is as black as the raven's back, And her face—what a queenly one; And her voice ripples out like the trembling shout Of a Lark when he sings to the sun; But her form is filled with a soul self-willed That would lord o'er a luckless he; Pride reigns in her breast, like snow in a nest, And—her ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... his poor cage To gather song from radiance, in his chair Sits by the door; and sitteth there His soul within him, like a child that lies Half dreaming, with half-open eyes, At close of a long afternoon in summer— High ruins round him, ancient ruins, where The raven is almost the only comer— Half dreams, half broods, in wonderment At thy celestial ascent Through rifted loop to light upon the gold That waves its bloom in some high airy rent: So dreams the old man's soul, that is not old, But sleepy ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... alone they worship the sun and moon (but not the stars), the forest, and the sea. The wolf, the black snake, the owl, and several other beasts and birds have the word kamoi, god, attached to them, as the wolf is the "howling god," the owl "the bird of the gods," a black snake the "raven god;" but none of these things are now "worshipped," wolf-worship having quite lately died out. Thunder, "the voice of the gods," inspires some fear. The sun, they say, is their best god, and the fire their next ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... "Oh, cease such raven's croaking," says Molly, laying her hand upon his lips. "I will not listen to it. Whatever the Fates may be, Love, I ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... but my mess caught on, and then I had to steal by wholesale to satisfy them. Some days, when the guards were too watchful, I couldn't get very many, and then again when things were lax, 'Elijah's Raven' would get a kidney for each man in our mess. With the regular allowance of rations and what I could steal, when the Texas troops were exchanged, our mess was ragged enough, but pig-fat, and slick as weasels. Lord love you, but we were a great mess ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... is authentic, which I see no reason to doubt, and the lady's hair undyed, which is perhaps less certain. Shakespear rubbed in the lady's complexion in his sonnets mercilessly; for in his day black hair was as unpopular as red hair was in the early days of Queen Victoria. Any tinge lighter than raven black must be held fatal to the strongest claim to be the Dark Lady. And so, unless it can be shewn that Shakespear's sonnets exasperated Mary Fitton into dyeing her hair and getting painted in false colors, I must give up all pretence that my play is historical. The later suggestion ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to cook their food, they seemed quite the gentlemen of the party. Still the Lepcha was the ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... of the continent. No sterility discourages him. He seems as thrifty on the wiry grama as among the most succulent grasses of the Republican. The sneaking coyote and a number of larger wolves put in an occasional appearance. Birds of the hawk and raven families are common. The waters swarm with numerous varieties of duck. It surprises us at this utmost distance from the maritime border to see flocks of Arctic gulls circling around the low sand-hills, and sickle-bill curlews wheeling high ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the House of Commons, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, appears the following entry:—"This day a black raven came into the House, which was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... fortunately easy of identification. Among several ornithologists, whose opinions have been asked, not a dissenting voice has been heard. The bird is a common crow or a raven, and is one of the most happily executed of the avian sculptures, the nasal feathers, which are plainly shown, and the general contour of the bill being truly corvine. It would probably be practically impossible to distinguish a rude sculpture of a raven from that of a crow, ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... always felt that if she wanted to make a raven of herself for life, she no need to dye the feathers of the hull family in logwood, and tie 'em all up ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... the Messenger and went north, after which most of his work was done in New York and Philadelphia. "The Fall of the House of Usher" was written when he lived on Sixth Avenue, near Waverley Place, and "The Raven" perched above his chamber door in a house on the ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... wherein the embryo society belles are initiated into all the intricacies of high life. It has its own peculiarities, its flutters of excitement, its rounds of pleasures, and distractions of every kind, aye—it has even its gossip, although the whisperers are but budding misses with golden or raven ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... Nancy, who had chosen the good name of Lillian May, wanted to go with him. She, too, it appeared, was fresh from a Sunday-school book—one in which a girl of her own age was so proud of her long raven curls that she was brought to an illness and all her hair came out. There was a distressing picture of this little girl after a just Providence had done its work as a depilatory. And after she recovered from the fever, it seemed, she had cared to do nothing ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... the island had escaped from the grasp of their race. Whatever Christianity they may occasionally have assumed was all thrown to the winds upon this great occasion. The far-famed pagan battle flag, the Raven Standard, was unfurled, and floated freely over the host. The War-arrow had been industriously sent round to all the neighbouring shores, peopled largely at that time with men of Norse blood. As the fleet swept south it had gathered in contingents ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... youthful aspect—her surprising beauty, to which disease and suffering had given a character of purity and tenderness almost etherial—the natural symmetry and elegance of her very arms and hands—the wonderful whiteness of her skin, which contrasted so strikingly with the raven black of her glossy hair, and the soul of thought and feeling which lay obviously expressed by the long silken eye-lashes of her closed eyes—all, when taken in at a glance, were calculated to impress a beholder with love, and sympathy, ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... arms over the wall, from the garden of Paris' house. But Odysseus dissuaded him, and so did the King his brother; for they knew very well that Troy must be sacked, and the Achaeans satisfied with plunder, and death, and women. For after ten years of strife men raven for such things, and will not give over until they have them. Also it was written in the heart of Hera that the walls of Troy must be cast down, and the pride thereof made a byword. So it was that the counsel of King Menelaus was overpassed, and that of Odysseus prevailed. ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... of every living creature. There was not a snake track in the dust or a raven in the sky, but as he topped the brow of the hill and looked down into the canyon, Hardy saw a great herd of cattle, and Creede in the midst of them still hacking away at the thorny palo verdes. At the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them, and for their little ones provide; But chiefly, in their hearts with ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... playing the piano and Gertie's reciting, Merle croaks like a raven, you and Chris don't learn singing, Addie's no ear for tune, and the rest of us, as Leddie says, 'have no puff'. I'm glad Rona can do something well for the school. She's been here three terms, and she's as much a ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... fro, issuing from dark, low doorways below; two laundry girls with baskets of washed linen; the baker with the tray of bread made for the day; Leonarda—her own camerista—bearing high up, swung from her hand raised above her raven black head, a bunch of starched under-skirts dazzlingly white in the slant of sunshine. Then the old porter would hobble in, sweeping the flagstones, and the house was ready for the day. All the lofty rooms on three sides of the quadrangle opened into each other and into the corredor, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... ne'er be heard. Thy grace the rite from check can free. And yield the fruit I long to see. Thy duty bids thee, King, defend The suffering guest, the suppliant friend. Give me thy son, thine eldest born, Whom locks like raven's wings adorn. That hero youth, the truly brave, Of thee, O glorious King, I crave. For he can lay those demons low Who mar my rites and work me woe: My power shall shield the youth from harm, And heavenly might shall nerve his arm. And on my champion will ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... "Hark! the raven flaps his wing In the briared dell below; Hark! the death owl loud doth sing To the nightmares, as they go. My love is dead. Gone to his death-bed All ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... you. With you to share it my lot in life will be heaven itself. Without you a Saharan waste of Arctic frigidity. Wilt thou?' I think I'd wilt. I couldn't bring myself to say 'No, Ethelinda, I can not be yours because my heart is set on a strengthful damsel with raven locks and eyes of coal, with lips a shade less cherry than thine, and a cheek more like the apple than the peach, who can go out on the links and play golf with me. But if you ever need a brother in your business I am the floor-walker ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... you croaking raven," shouted the Broom-Squire. "If you think to mock me, you are wrong. I know well enough what I am about. As for that painting chap, he ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... sentiments, to swerve from his purpose, or hold his hand in obedience to the dictates of his heart. The pictures and effigies of them all show their adherence to the early Roman type. Their eyes were full; their hair, of raven blackness, grew thick and close and curly. Their figures were massive and typical ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... weeks later, they sat as usual in the midst of their circle of pets. The Hermit, with the raven on his shoulder and the cat on his knee, was reading from the book. John, on a bench by the window, was using the last light of an autumn day to make a basket for gathering herbs. The gaunt wolf lay at his feet. Beside him rested the bear, snuffling in his sleep; and stretched ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... i.e. the standards of the successive rulers of Britain, may be found in Sir Winston Churchill's curious work, Divi Britannici, which gives (as your correspondent supposes) the White Horse for Kent, the White Dragon for Wessex, and the Raven for ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 18. Saturday, March 2, 1850 • Various
... skirts with slime its deleterious brink. The fox himself has fled his gilded den, Nor holds the heritage he won from men; Lapwing and reptile shun the curst abode, And the foul dragon, now no more a god, Trails off his train; the sickly raven flies; A wide strong-stencht Avernus chokes the skies. So pride and ignorance fall a certain prey To the stanch bloodhound ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... birds of prey most often mentioned in the Bible are the Raven and the Eagle. You remember how, when the terrible flood, which God sent upon the earth because of the violence and wickedness of men, was over, and the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Noah opened the window of the ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... and recitations, she appeared on the platform, the smallest of them all, "in her little white frock, and shoes, and pink sash"; how she recited "Excelsior," "There was a sound of revelry by night," and "The Raven"; how during the delivery she would knit her little brows and glare round tragically, and say to the empty air, as if some ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... searching for the herb he saw the weasel carry to his comrade. And as he sought for it he saw a raven with a leaf in her beak. She dropped the leaf as he came to her, and behold! It was the same leaf as the weasel had brought to his comrade. Sigmund took it and laid it on the wound he had made in Sinfiotli's throat, and the wound healed, and Sinfiotli was sound once more. They went back ...
— The Children of Odin - The Book of Northern Myths • Padraic Colum
... the other, promptly; "I've never forgotten how Black Joe looked, blinking his eyes at us when we stood there talking to your aunt. But you're wrong in one thing, Bristles; it isn't just a plain, everyday crow at all. She said it was a raven, one of the wise old kind you read about; and that she brought it across the water. They're more cunning than our crows; and goodness knows I've always found them smart enough, when you ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... people, not content therewith, nor with the rest of the idols of the heathen, also introduced brute beasts as gods. Some of them worshipped the sheep, some the goat, and others the calf and the hog; while certain of them worshipped the raven, the kite, the vulture, and the eagle. Others again worshipped the crocodile, and some the cat and dog, the wolf and ape, the dragon and serpent, and others the onion, garlic and thorns, and every other creature. And the poor fools ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... published, i. 36; Dickens's descriptions of the illustrations of: the raven, i. 38; the locksmith's house, i. 39; rioters in The Maypole, i. 45; scene in the ruins of the Warren, i. 46; abduction of Dolly Varden, i. 48; Lord George Gordon in the Tower, the duel, frontispiece, i. 50; Hugh taken to ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... days, there were no animals from whose foreheads it could have been broken. No one knew, either, who had made it. Flammea, the steeple-owl, had found it in a niche, in Lund cathedral. She had shown it to Bataki, the raven; and they had both figured out that this was the kind of horn that was used in former times by those who wished to gain power over rats and mice. But the raven was Akka's friend; and it was from him she had learned that Flammea owned a ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... fair numbers almost up to the snow-line. The raven (Corpus corax) is fairly common in the alpine and sub-alpine regions. On the highest pastures we find, further, the alpine accentor (Accentor collaris) and the alpine pipit (Anthus spipoletta). The crag-martin (Cotyle rupestris) haunts lofty ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... fled when they saw them coming—not from the Donkey, but from the Tiger. Even the Raven dared not speak, and the Lion slunk back among the rocks; because a Tiger and a Donkey, together, might more than equal ...
— Little Sky-High - The Surprising Doings of Washee-Washee-Wang • Hezekiah Butterworth
... tall girl with the proudly angled chin, the crown of raven curls, and the pair of brave outlooking eyes that met all the world with something that was even ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... clarion's note is high! To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas, the big drum makes reply! Ere this hath Lucas marched, with his gallant cavaliers, And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter in our ears. To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas! White Guy is at the door, And the raven whets his beak o'er the field of ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... exclaimed with a start, and then, raven-like, "nothing more." I played with the tassel of the window-curtain and wondered how I should ever get on without this aunt, the dearest, bravest and handsomest woman in all the world—to me. She was thirty-six ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... of flowers, and he breathed an atmosphere pure as the world's first spring. He was young, though past the meridian of life. There was but one mark of age upon his interesting and noble person, and that was the snowy shade that softened his raven hair,—foam of the waves of time, showing they had been lashed by the storms, or driven against breakers ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... to me as I narrate to thee this story that is fraught with truths connected with Virtue, Profit, and Pleasure. A wicked and terrible fowler, resembling the Destroyer himself, used in days of old to wander through the great forest. He was black as a raven and his eyes were of a bloody hue. He looked like Yama himself. His legs were long, his feet short, his mouth large, and his cheeks protruding. He had no friend, no relative, no kinsman. He had been cast off by them all for the exceedingly cruel life he led. Indeed, a man of wicked ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... (Dykes Campbell's Edition of the "Poems", p. 27), was also prefaced by a short letter to the editor of the "Morning Chronicle". Among Coleridge's letters are several of this sort, and each affords a glimpse into his character. Those with the "Raven" and "Talleyrand to Lord Grenville" are characteristic specimens of ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... was seen advancing from the opposite side. She was tall, finely formed, with features of remarkable beauty, though of a masculine and somewhat savage character, and with magnificent but fierce black eyes. Her skin was dark, and her hair raven black, contrasting strongly with the red band wound around it. Her kirtle was of murrey-coloured serge; simply, but becomingly fashioned. A glance sufficed to show her how matters stood with poor Ashbead, and, uttering a sharp angry ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... little while at Abouthis, and, having been commanded to do so, let my hair, that had been shorn, grow again long and black as the raven's wing, instructing myself meanwhile in all manly exercises and feats of arms. Also, for a purpose which shall be seen, I perfected myself in the magic art of the Egyptians, and in the reading of the stars, in which things, indeed, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... hold on his course, Unto King Olaf's force, Lying within the hoarse Mouths of Stet-haven; Him to ensnare and bring, Unto the Danish king, Who his dead corse would fling Forth to the raven! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... said Miss Laura, "animals are often spoken of. The dove and the raven, the wolf and the lamb, and the leopard, and the cattle that God says are his, and the little sparrow that can't fall to the ground without ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of "corbyn" (a raven) is cor, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is pennac. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and "betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... capriciously defines the idea at the core of romanticism as that of the evil forces of nature assailing man through his sense of beauty. Analysis run mad! As to Poe, Rossetti certainly preferred him to Wordsworth. Hall Caine testifies that he used to repeat "Ulalume" and "The Raven" from memory; and that the latter suggested his "Blessed Damozel." "I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and so I determined to reverse the conditions, and give utterance to the yearning ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the Raven From the Barnyard Fence The First Hawk Origin of the Raven and the Macaw All About the Chicken-Hawk ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... now less rare, Let her have her youth again— Let her be as she was then! Let her have her proud dark eyes, And her petulant quick replies— 120 Let her sweep her dazzling hand With its gesture of command, And shake back her raven hair With the old imperious air! As of old, so let her be, 125 That first Iseult, princess bright, Chatting with her youthful knight As he steers her o'er the sea, Quitting at her father's will The green isle deg. where she was bred, deg.130 And ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... gravestones across the bright green hillocks, and at the glowing autumn colours of the Rectory trees beyond. Before such calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear is more distinctly felt—like a raven flapping its slow wing across the sunny air. Nancy wished more and more that Godfrey would ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... youthful, and should have been still pliant as a sapling, I was fostering the growth of those habits which, like rings in the grain, are the signature of unyielding years. Naturalists say that a bullfinch fed only on hempseed gradually loses his fair plumage and becomes black as a raven: so my soul, nourished on thoughts of rebellion, put off its bright and diverse enthusiasms and was clothed in ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... the Neviles so large a gratitude, that rather than fret the pile of their pride, I should throw down the scaffolding on which my fearless step hath clomb to as fair a height, and one perhaps that may overlook as long a posterity, as the best baron that ever quartered the Raven Eagle and the Dun Bull. But," resumed Hastings, with a withering sarcasm, "doubtless the Lady de Bonville more admires the happy lord who holds himself, by right of pedigree, superior to all things that make ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan, And tyrannizing was the lady's look, 510 As over them a gnarled staff she shook. Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh'd out, And from a basket emptied to the rout Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick And roar'd for more; with many a hungry lick About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow, Anon she took a branch of mistletoe, And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial: Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... The Raven Bearers held a dance; they all dressed carefully and wore their ornaments, and each one tried to dance the best. Afterwards some of them asked for this girl, but still she said no. Then the Bulls, the Kit-foxes, and others of the I-kun-uh'-kah-tsi held their dances, and all those who ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... the flesh of the wakeful nightingale would prevent a man from sleeping; that to smear the eyes of a blear-sighted person with the gall of an eagle would give him the eagle's vision; and that a raven's eggs would restore the blackness of the raven to silvery hair. Only the person who adopted this last mode of concealing the ravages of time had to be most careful to keep his mouth full of oil all the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... see me in thy pale career... Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings.' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... scale of its narrative and its drama can be pretty clearly understood from what remains. It is a poem with nothing superfluous in it. The death of Sigurd does not seem to have been given in any detail, except for the commentary spoken by the eagle and the raven, prophetic of the doom of the Niblungs. The mystery of Brynhild's character is curiously recognised by a sort of informal chorus. It is said that "they were stricken silent as she spoke, and none could understand ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... down? In a few minutes the little figure is surrounded by a crowd of boys and women, who begin to pluck him of his borrowed plumes, while he chatters to them like a magpie, whistles like a song-bird, croaks like a raven, or in his natural character showers a mass of funny nonsense on them, till their laughter makes their sides ache. The little wretch is literally covered with small feathers from head to foot, and even his face is not to be ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... short poem. It is often better to divide a long poem among the children, letting each child learn a part. The sustained interest of a long poem is worth while. "The Merman," "The Battle of Ivry," "Horatius at the Bridge," "Krinken," "The Skeleton in Armour," "The Raven" and "Herve Riel" may all profitably be learned that way. Nevertheless, the child enjoys most the poem that is just long enough, and there is much to be said in favour of the selection that is adapted, in length, to the average mind; for the child hesitates in the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... something holy lodges in that breast, And with these raptures moves the vocal air To testify his hidden residence. {118} How sweetly did they float upon the wings Of silence, through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... is no nosegay, certainly as a whole: but did you ever see sturdier, rosier, nobler-looking children,—rounder faces, raven hair, bright grey eyes, full of fun and tenderness? As for the dirt, that cannot harm them; poor people's children must be dirty—why not? Look on fifty yards to the left. Between two ridges of high pebble bank, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... tumult which shook the castle to its very basis; but Jenny, once engaged in the bustling tide, found so much to ask and to hear, that she forgot the state of anxious uncertainty in which she had left her young mistress. Having no pigeon to dismiss in pursuit of information when her raven messenger had failed to return with it, Edith was compelled to venture in quest of it out of the ark of her own chamber into the deluge of confusion which overflowed the rest of the Castle. Six voices speaking at once, informed her, in reply to her first enquiry, that Claver'se ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Christian, and we worked our way upwards to the mouth of the cave, penitently desisting from stoning a remaining raven. We observed at the very mouth, by watching the flame of the candles, a slight current outwards, extremely feeble, and on our first arrival I had fancied there was a current, equally slight, inwards, but neither was perceptible beyond the entrance of the cave. M. Soret was fortunate ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... my muse is black as a raven, her mouth is filled with abuse, from her tongue drops complaint. She groans like the Bat-Kol upon Mount Horeb's ruins. She cries out against the wicked shepherds, ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... have been known to do such things—attempted to poison him, but the cup burst asunder as soon as he took it into his hands. When the priest Florentius, being wickedly disposed, attempted to perpetrate a like crime by means of an adulterated loaf, a raven carried away the deadly bread from the hand of St. Benedict. Instructed by the devil, the same Florentius drove from his neighbourhood the holy man, by turning into the garden of his monastery seven naked girls; but scarcely had the saint taken to flight, when ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... at Mrs. Mason's. She prepared there for her wedding. On the 1st of November we went into that same church which was our first home in New York; and that dear old raven-man made us ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale
... room like a whirl of merry autumn leaves. Her hair, never very orderly at best, was towsled by the wind, and her cheeks glowed. She had deep blue eyes that flashed and sparkled behind long black lashes, her hair was black as a raven's wing, and she had a single bewitching dimple in her left cheek. When she spoke people generally thought of rippling ...
— Phyllis - A Twin • Dorothy Whitehill
... breeze has not caught them, rest quiet in the crannies of the purple rock. Beside the rock, in the hollow under the thicket, the carcase of a ewe, drowned in the last flood, lies nearly bare to the bone, its white ribs protruding through the skin, raven-torn; and the rags of its wool still flickering from the branches that first stayed it as the stream swept it down. A little lower, the current plunges, roaring, into a circular chasm like a well, ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... the south, they fell in with two islands so abounding in seals and penguins, that they might have laden all their five ships with them in a short time. The penguins are a black, heavy, unwieldy fowl, extremely fat, covered with a sort of down instead of feathers, and having a bill like that of a raven; drawing their entire subsistence from the sea, as fish is ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... not sat about here in the shade sketching, and watched the blue upon the mountains which Titian watched from under the chestnuts of Cadore. No sound except the distant water, or the croak of a raven, or the booming of the great guns in that battle which is being fought out between man and nature on the Biaschina and the Monte Piottino. It is always a pleasure to me to feel that I have known the Val Leventina intimately before the great change in it which the railway ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... village had told him a legend concerning a Mr. Raven, long time librarian to "that Sir Upward whose portrait hangs there among the books." Sir Upward was a great reader, she said—not of such books only as were wholesome for men to read, but of strange, forbidden, and evil books; and in so doing, Mr. Raven, who was probably the devil himself, ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... roads over mountains, nor boats, nor bridges over water. All things were produced, each for its own proper sphere. Birds and beasts multiplied, trees and shrubs grew up. The former might be led by the hand; you could climb up and peep into the raven's nest. For then man dwelt with birds and beasts, and all creation was one. There were no distinctions of good and bad men. Being all equally without knowledge, their virtue could not go astray. Being all equally without evil desires, they were ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... for a glimpse of glorious Poe! His raven grimly answers 'never!' Will Holmes's milder muse say 'no,' And keep our hands ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891 • Various
... repeated Dacres, who now seemed to have become like Poe's raven, and all his words ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... for long periods. One pet toad is mentioned by a Mr. Arscott as having attained, to his knowledge, the age of thirty-six years; and a greater age still might have been recorded of this specimen, but for the untoward treatment it sustained at the hands, or rather beak, of a tame raven. In all probability it may be safely assumed that, when the conditions of life are favorable, these creatures may attain a highly venerable age—regarding the lapse of time from a purely human and interested ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... sleep! You might be a raven as far as croaking's concerned. One would think we were in a hole and couldn't get out. Trust to Sucre and Miller; they'll pull ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... and leave your logic-straws, Your former-friends with face averted, Your petty ways and narrow laws, Your Grundy and your God, deserted. From your frail ark of lies, I flee I know not where, like Noah's raven. Full to the broad, unsounded sea I swim from your ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... beloved mother. As he sat there he caught sight of an eagle flying in the air above, and Ahti asked him if he knew what had happened to his mother. But the eagle could only tell him that his people had all perished long go. Next he asked the raven, and the raven told him that his people had been killed by his enemies ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... clock in oblivion's mouldering tower By the raven's nest struck the midnight hour, And the ghosts of the seasons wept over the bier Of Old Time's last ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... but sadly wants finishing. It is, as it is, one of the very best in the book. Next to "Lewti" I like the "Raven," which has a good deal of humour. I was pleased to see it again, for you once sent it me, and I have lost the letter which contained it. Now I am on the subject of Anthologies, I must say I am sorry ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... had laid his net across the river; having laid his net, he killed a quantity of fish. Meanwhile there came a raven, and perched beside him. It seemed to be greatly hungering after the fish. It was much to be pitied. So the fisherman washed one of the fish, and threw it to the raven. The raven ate the fish with great joy. Afterwards the raven ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... poems, "Odin's Raven Song" and the "Song of the Way-Tamer," are among the most deeply poetical hymns of the Edda. They relate to the same great event—the death of Balder—and are full of mystery and fear. A strange trouble has fallen upon the gods, the oracles are silent, and a ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... years when these butterflies were abundant, numbers of hives have been found absolutely empty.[15] Many other marauders and of larger size, such as the Bear, also spread terror among these laborious insects and empty their barns. No animal is more crafty than the Raven, and the fabulist who wished to make him a dupe was obliged to oppose to him the very cunning Fox in order to render the tale fairly life-like. A great number of stories are told concerning the Raven's cleverness, and many of them ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... voice trained to speak so low that at a distance of about twenty-five inches it would have been inaudible, begged to know to which department he could have the pleasure of directing them. He was a very good-looking, or perhaps it would be more correct to say a very beautiful young man, with raven-black hair, glossy and curled, and parted down the middle of his shapely head, and a beautiful small moustache to match. His eyes were also dark and fine, and all his features regular. His figure was as perfect as his face; many a wealthy man, made ugly ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... not take the seats which the padre requested them to occupy. Their eyes, I saw, were frequently turned towards the door. At length it opened, and Donna Paola entered the room with that grace which Spanish women so generally possess. She looked even more beautiful than at first; her raven hair, secured by a circlet of gold, contrasting with the delicate colour of her complexion, which was fairer than that of Spanish women generally. Her figure was slight, and she appeared scarcely so tall as I had supposed when I had first seen ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... was heard to ring, An aerial voice was heard to calle, And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing, Arounde the towers ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... Walpole again, "one day a large raven flew into one of the windows of her villa at Isleworth, she was persuaded that it was the soul of the departed monarch, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the Royal bird or she took their ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... dreadful is the tempest that the gods in affright ascend for protection to the heaven of Anu. Six days the storm lasts. On the seventh conies calm. Hasisadra opens a window and sees the mountain of Nizir, sends forth a dove, which returns; then a swallow, which returns; then a raven, which does not return; then, knowing that the flood has passed, sends out the animals, builds an altar, and offers sacrifice, over which the gods gather like flies. Ea remonstrates with Bel, and urges that hereafter, when he is angry with men, instead of sending ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of the Rhine; a raven on a tree called aloud: 'On you will Atli redden the sword; your broken oaths shall destroy you.' Gudrun Giuki's daughter stood without, and these were the first words she spoke: 'Where is now ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... by the chilly wind, a tight-fitting tunic of dark green cloth, caught in by a broad buff leather belt with the clasp of a University, admirably defined the shapeliness of a slight but manly form. His hair, black as the raven's wing, was worn long and came curling down on his shoulders; his complexion was dark but clear. But the whole appearance was of a marvel in physical excellencies; a physiologist would have pointed to him as a model and result of the combination of all desirable traits in both ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... representing the stable of Bethlehem; Christ in the crib, watched by the Virgin and Joseph; shepherds kneeling, angels attending; a man playing on the bagpipes; a woman with a basket of fruit on her head; a sheep bleating, and an ox lowing on the ground; a raven croaking, and a crow cawing, on the hay rack; a cock crowing above them; and angels singing in the sky. The animals have labels from their mouths bearing Latin inscriptions. Down the side of the wood-cut is the following account and explanation:—'A religious man inventing the concerts of both birds ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... cuckoo, nor The boding raven, nor chough hoar, Nor chattering pie, May on our bride-house perch or sing, Or with them any discord ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... cup of cold water to a disciple: but the fruit, to do this in the name of a prophet, in the name of a righteous man, in the name of a disciple. With fruit was Elijah fed by the widow that knew she fed a man of God, and therefore fed him: but by the raven was he fed with a gift. Nor was the inner man of Elijah so fed, but the outer only; which might also for want of ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... bracelet?" cried the stranger, holding up, as he spoke, the ornament in question. "Or, if that convince you not, do you recognize this tress of raven hair—this bouquet that she wore upon her ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... cashmere frock, which was made 'en demoiselle,' after the fashion adhered to in French convents, where girls are compelled to look as ugly as possible, in order that they may eschew the sin of personal vanity,—her hair, of a rich raven black, was plaited in a stiff thick braid resembling a Chinese pigtail, and was fastened at the end with a bow of ribbon,—and a pair of wonderfully brilliant dark eyes flashed under her arching brows, suggesting something ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... offers a vast field to the naturalist; the most common birds of prey are the bald, the white-headed eagle, the black and the grey, the falcon, the common hawk, the epervier, the black and red-headed vulture, the raven and the crow. Among the granivorous, the turkey, the wapo (a small kind of prairie ostrich), the golden and common pheasant, the wild peacock, of a dull whitish colour, and the guinea-fowl; these two last, which are very ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... George, my brothers-in-law, my cousins and aunts are trying to make a hero of me. Because I followed the inclinations of my heart and helped to save my children, there's no end of their praise and admiration. Did they take me for a raven? I am disgusted ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... this beautiful cottage, consecrated to their first loves. The same calm, clear moonlight looked in through the trellis. The vine then planted had now a luxuriant growth; and many a time had Horatio fondly twined its sacred blossoms with the glossy ringlets of her raven hair. The rush of memory almost overpowered poor Clotel; and Horatio felt too much oppressed and ashamed to break the long deep silence. At length, in words scarcely audible, Clotel said: "Tell me, dear Horatio, are ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... shalt become his neighbour. O dear my son, turn thou a deaf ear to whoso jeereth thee, and honour him and forego him with the salam-salutation. O dear my son, whenas the water shall stand still in stream and the bird shall fly sky-high and the black raven shall whiten and myrrh shall wax honey-sweet, then will the ignorant and the fool comprehend and converse. O dear my son, an thou would be wise restrain thy tongue from leasing and thy hand from thieving and thine eyes from ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... the fall of lashes that hid their soft fire; her hair raven-black, a bloom I never saw equalled in this country, and her lips a veritable scarlet ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... storm, or a ship-wreck, or by ten days in an open boat. I shall then secure your love, my peerless ARAMINTA, and you will marry me and turn out as soft and gentle as the moss-rose which now nestles in your raven tresses. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... already shown the intensity of the martial spirit in heathen times. These lines from the Fight at Finnsburg, dating from about the same time as Beowulf, have only the flash of the sword to lighten their gloom. They introduce the raven, for whom the Saxon felt it his duty to ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... light it would have been difficult to decide the woman's age, so worn and lined was the mask-like face outlined against the shabby cushion. She looked forty, yet there was something still girlish in the pose of her black-clad figure which seemed to suggest a shorter tale of years. Raven dark hair, lustreless and dull, framed a pale, emaciated face from which ill-health had stripped almost all that had once been beautiful. Only the immense dark eyes, feverishly bright beneath the sunken temples, and the still lovely line ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... watch the operations of "aristocratic sport," the intelligent bird, following the precedent of Edgar Poe's Raven, should alight, unseen and uninvited, on some object of art in a fashionable ballroom. Here he would find himself at once in the thick of the brilliant competition. He would see a row of lovely archers, backed by a second row of older and more experienced markswomen. And in the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... tall, lady-like figure, clad in black. Her face was towards me, and there was something in it which, once seen, invited me to look again. Her hair was raven black, and disposed in long glossy ringlets, a style of coiffure rather unusual in those days, but always graceful and becoming; her complexion was clear and pale; her eyes I could not see, for, being bent upon her prayer-book, they were concealed ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... "Miss Christian!" a raven-croak came through a slit of the pantry-door; "keep off the Carmodys' land! Mind now what I'm tellin' ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... an archer, dressed in green from head to foot. How it was is all told in the story; and he goes to shoot for a prize at the Castle of Adolf the Duke of Cleeves. On his way he shoots a raven marvellously,—almost as marvellously as did Robin Hood the twig in Ivanhoe. Then one of his companions is married, or nearly married, to the mysterious "Lady of Windeck,"—would have been married but ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... "Oh!" said the raven, "have you not heard how the king of the forest fairies laid a spell on two lords, who were travelling through his kingdom to see the old woman that weaves her own hair? They had thinned his oaks every year, cutting firewood for the poor. ...
— Granny's Wonderful Chair • Frances Browne
... Grief lest both be drown'd, Let Darkness keep her raven gloss; Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with Death to beat ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... threshold she stood, looking in upon him with dark, luminous eyes; round the small wet face tangles of raven hair fell limp and streaming; dark raiments clung to her form, diapered with sand and sea-foam, sodden with the moisture that dripped from them to the floor; under the hem of her skirt one foot peered forth, shoeless in its ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... Horunga haven We fed the crow and raven, I heard the tempest breaking Of demon Thorgerd's waking; Sent by the fiend in anger, With din and stunning clangor; To crush our might intended, ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... to be one of the easiest. It began with a gradual rise up a short broad Wady, separating the southernmost counterforts of the Shrr from the north end of the Jebel el-Ghurb. This "Raven Mountain" is a line of similar but lower formation, which virtually prolongs the great "Landmark," down coast. The bottom was dotted with lumps of pure "Mar," washed from the upper levels. We reached the summit ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... graceful delicacy of Fanny—half girl, half child. There was something foreign in his air— and the half military habit, relieved by the red riband of the Bourbon knighthood. His complexion was dark as that of a Moor, and his raven hair curled close to the stately head. The soldier-moustache—thick, but glossy as silk-shaded the firm lip; and the pointed beard, assumed by the exiled Carlists, heightened the effect of the strong and haughty features and the expression of the ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 4 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... I recalled the existence of one of Mrs Dinkman's neighbors who had rudely refused the opportunity to have his lawn treated with the Metamorphizer. He had left an incoherent suicidenote: "Pigeons in the grass alas. Too many pigeons, too much grass. Pigeons are doves, but Noah expressed a raven. Contradiction lies. Roses are red, violets are blue. The grass is green and I am thru. Too too too. Darling kiddies." He then, in full view of the helpless weedfighters, marched on into the grass and was ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... he cried. "Who sent thee here to me, with thy scarf of gold and pearl, thy raven locks and thy dewy lips, with bells upon thine ankles, and a tambour in thy hand? See, our lord cometh! Let us dance for him that perhaps we may find ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... giant, "that is a good joke! I'll pitch you into that raven's nest up there to teach you to make less noise in ...
— The Magic Soap Bubble • David Cory
... objectionable of the inland scavengers is the raven, frequenter of the desert ranges, the same called locally "carrion crow." He is handsomer and has such an air. He is nice in his habits and is said to have likable traits. A tame one in a Shoshone camp was the butt of much sport and ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... old woman; no prestige comes in to garnish the unvarnished fact—a plain old maid, my dear—with not even the remembrance of beauty as a consolation, nor its remnant as a sign of past triumphs, 'only this and nothing more,' as that wonderful man Poe makes his raven say. We never find our level until we go among people who know and care nothing about us, who have never 'heard of us'—that exordium of most greetings from folks of our own class. It is absolutely refreshing to be so unaffectedly despised and slighted—it ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... and of wondrous beauty. "Black Agnace," the common folk were wont to call her, because of her raven hair and jet black eyes. Verily at that moment these eyes of hers burned like ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... sickly child into a girl of fifteen, in perfect health. She came, he says, to be "looked upon as one of the most beautiful, graceful, and agreeable young women in London, only a little too fat. Her hair was blacker than a raven, and every feature of her face ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... between a party made up in handcuffed pairs, like this has been, and one equipped with an extra man or two is the exact difference between frugal necessity and luxury," protested Henrietta Raven, sententiously. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... had been in love with Lucy a half a dozen times in his life; it had begun when she was a babe in arms, and continued intermittently until her marriage. Lucy was a beauty of the creole type, with raven-black hair and gorgeous colouring; and Allan carried with him everywhere the face of joy, with the quick, mobile features across which tears and laughter chased like ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... morning he arose, and when he went forth, behold! a shower of snow had fallen in the night, and a hawk had killed a wild-fowl in front of the cell. And the noise of the horse had scared the hawk away, and a raven alighted on the bird. And Perceval stood and compared the blackness of the raven and the whiteness of the snow and the redness of the blood to the hair of the lady that best he loved, which was blacker than jet, and to her skin, which was whiter than the snow, and to the two red spots ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... little patience, my masters!" said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine amusement in his eyes. "It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby's marks. But we are fair and generous ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... great Gouverneur Faulkner, for the receiving of his guests. Her eyes of the blue flowers set in the snow of crystals were in a gleaming and the costume that she wore was but a few wisps of gossamer used for the revealing of her radiant body. In my black and stiff attire of the raven I stood near to the other hand of the Gouverneur Faulkner and there was such an anger for her in my heart that it was difficult that I made a return of the smile she cast upon me at every few minutes. ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the padre requested them to occupy. Their eyes, I saw, were frequently turned towards the door. At length it opened, and Donna Paola entered the room with that grace which Spanish women so generally possess. She looked even more beautiful than at first; her raven hair, secured by a circlet of gold, contrasting with the delicate colour of her complexion, which was fairer than that of Spanish women generally. Her figure was slight, and she appeared scarcely so tall as I had supposed when ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... Spaccio de la Bestia trionfante; which Book, tho' very scarce, yet a certain Gentleman, who has it in his Possession, has been so obliging as to let every Body know where to meet with it. After this, you find him carried off by a Raven, and swallow'd by a Giant; and 'tis almost the same Story as that of Ganimede, and the Eagle ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... the advance; no gaudy costumes clothed the attending Knights. The bugles were hushed, save where necessary to convey an order; the banners were bound in sable; upon every man was the badge of mourning; Richard himself was clad in black, and the trappings of his horse were raven-hued. Not since the great Henry died at Vincennes, sixty and more years before, had England mourned for a King; and as they passed along the highway and through the straggling villages, the people wondered at the soberly garbed and quiet column, forgetting, for the moment, ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... and desired to secure for himself the same beautiful plumage. Supposing that the Swan's splendid white color arose from his washing in the water in which he swam, the Raven left the altars in the neighborhood where he picked up his living, and took up residence in the lakes and pools. But cleansing his feathers as often as he would, he could not change their color, while through ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... equal in age that is more redoubtable than he?" "We have not found there [5]a man-at-arms that is harder,[5] [6]nor a point that is keener, more terrible nor quicker,[6] nor a more bloodthirsty wolf, [7]nor a raven more flesh-loving,[7] nor a wilder warrior, nor a match of his age that would reach to a third or a fourth [LL.fo.62a.] the likes of Cuchulain. Thou findest not there," Fergus went on, "a hero his peer, [8]nor a lion that is fiercer, ...
— The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Tain Bo Cualnge • Unknown
... e'er my mother brushed With raven's feather from unwholesome fen Drop on you both; a south-west blow on you ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... she had gone on in front, and he hurried up the boys in the hope of overtaking her. They pushed through the throng of dim people going homeward. Should he raise his hat to her again?... But it was Susie Hopbrow in a light-coloured dress—a raven in dove's plumage. He felt a curious mixture of relief and disappointment. He would see her no more ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... What dreadful man art thou, That like a raven, or the midnight owl, Com'st with this ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... fandangos, loved and pledged; and were only restrained from emigration to the interior of this enchanted land of pretty girls and plentiful food by the knowledge of the sure and merciless vengeance of their chief. Had the rumor of war still held it might have been otherwise, but that raven had flown off to the limbo of its kind, and the Commandante let it be known that deserters would be summarily captured and sent in irons to ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... streets blocked by the barrows of hucksters and farmers' carts, its converging roads thronged with cattle. At Shrewsbury Medenham was vouchsafed a gleam of frosty humor by Mrs. Devar's anxiety lest her son might have obeyed her earlier injunctions, and kept tryst at "The Raven" after all. That trivial diversion soon passed. He hoped that Cynthia would share the front seat with him in the final run to Chester; but she remained tucked up in the tonneau, and the dread that kept her there was ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... heart even then was burning to anticipate!—Co-Grecian with S. was Th——, who has since executed with ability various diplomatic functions at the Northern courts. Th—— was a tall, dark, saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks.—Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... an ass." "But, said I," continues Joseph, "how canst thou be the friend of such a one? Accursed is he, accursed his master." "Nay," answered Enan, "I love him not; I know his vile nature: 'tis his daughter that binds me to him, for she, with her raven locks and dove's eyes and lily cheeks, is fair beyond my power to praise." Yet I warned him against marrying the daughter of an uneducated man, an Am ha-Arez. Then follows a compilation of passages directed against ignorance. "Ah!" cries Enan, "your warning moves ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... placed on chairs of gold, and sat with their heads inclined downward, their hands placidly crossed over their bosoms, their countenances exhibiting their natural dusky hue,—less liable to change than the fresher coloring of a European complexion,—and their hair of raven black, or silvered over with age, according to the period at which they died! It seemed like a company of solemn worshippers fixed in devotion,—so true were the forms and lineaments to life. The Peruvians were as successful as the Egyptians in the miserable attempt ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... white foam From his steed's mouth and quiv'ring flanks doth come; Nor heeds the whitened flowing mane, but flies, While clouds of dust him follow, and arise Behind him o'er the road like black storm clouds, While Zu[5] the storm-bird onward fiercely goads The seven[6] raven spirits of the air, And Nus-ku[7] opens wide the fiery glare Of pent-up lightnings for fierce Gibil's[8] hand, Who hurls them forth at Nergal's[9] stern command, And Rimmon[10] rides triumphant on the air, And Ninazu[11] for victims doth prepare, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... all other human beings save the gentleman from Pulaski were as nothing, it seemed, to the chairman. The Tallest Delegate, around whose lean form a frock coat hung like a fold of night, and who flung back from a white brow an immense quantity of raven hair, sought to relieve the convention of the sight and sound of the person from Pulaski. The Tallest Delegate was called smartly to order; he rebelled, but when threatened with the sergeant-at-arms subsided amid jeers. The gentleman from Pulaski was indulged ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... over the flats by midday would have seen nothing but feeding ponies and occasional flashes of fire close to the grass, but a flying raven would have gloated over a scene of many future gorges. It would have seen many lying on their backs in the ditch—lying quite still and gazing up at his wheeling flight ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... while the Queen went on without regarding her—"Roland, you are welcome home to us—you have proved the true dove and not the raven—Yet I am sure I could have forgiven you, if, once dismissed, from this water-circled ark of ours, you had never again returned to us. I trust you have brought back an olive-branch, for our kind and worthy hostess has chafed herself much on account of your long absence, and we never ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... from the dew being such branches stuck in the ground, and slanting over their procumbent forms. The Bhotanese were rude and boisterous in their pursuits, constantly complaining to the Sirdars, and wrangling over their meals. The Ghorkas were sprightly, combing their raven hair, telling interminably long stories, of which money was the burthen, or singing Hindoo songs through their noses in chorus; and being neater and better dressed, and having a servant to cook their food, they ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... possession of the world. It also might be a type of the opening the law and testimony, that light might by that come into the church; for we find not that this window had any other use, but to be a conveyance of light into the ark, and as a passage for the raven and the dove, as may be further showed after. Now much like this, is that of John: "The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament" (Rev 11:19). And again, "I looked, and, behold, the temple ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... tell of affection withered, not by remorse, but by superstition? See her how she nervously grasps that dead man's hand, how she imprints kisses on his lips! Her hair, which yesterday was glossy as the raven's, is now as bleached as the driven snow; to-day she utters her plaintive cries, to-morrow she hastens to join her lover in the tomb. This is a sad history. It should be written with the juice of hemlock, as a warning to ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... horse and rider, bond and free.—All carrion-birds, human as well as brute—All greedy villains and adventurers, the scoundreldom of the whole world, flocking in to get their share of the carcass of the dying empire; as the vulture and the raven flock in to the carrion when the royal ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... from the telegraph office." Mrs. Triplett spoke with such a raven-like note of foreboding in her voice that Georgina, practising her daily scales, let her hands ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... body and brains, for her inalienable rights over this man. All the while these emotions surged up in her, and ebbed and flowed in again, her intelligence told her the wild absurdity of such supposition. The raven woman was a stranger; and socially, to all appearance, she must always remain so. Yet Marie could not still the passionate unrest of her heart without taking her husband's eyes from the table where two obsequious men adored ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... part, my heart leaps hie to sing ae bonnie sang, Aboot my ain sweet lady-love, my darling Aggie Lang; It is na that her cheeks are like the blooming damask rose, It is na that her brow is white as stainless Alpine snows, It is na that her locks are black as ony raven's wing, Nor is 't her e'e o' winning glee ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... black, but of that warm and lustrous blackness which is probably the hue expressed by the ancient Greeks by the term hyacinthine, and which in certain lights has a purplish metallic gloss playing over it, like the varying reflections on the back of the raven. Her strongly defined, and nearly straight eyebrows, were dark as night, as were the long, silky lashes which were displayed in clear relief against the fair, smooth cheek, as the lids lay closed languidly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... that met Teresa's glance was majestic, with a regal expression of countenance. A broad, but not too high brow, eyes dark as a raven's wing-no, they are only deep, golden brown, yet the long lashes and eyebrows of jet, together with the ever dilating pupil, give the impression that they are darker, a complexion of sunny olive, and locks which are certainly the hue of night; a form richly moulded and ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... her chin, She tied her raven ringlets in; But, not alone in the silken snare Did she catch her lovely floating hair, For, tying her bonnet under her chin, She tied ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hands so glad of giving, Little heart so glad of love, Little soul so glad of living, While the strong swift hours are weaving Light with darkness woven above, Time for mirth and time for grieving, Plume of raven and ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... first night of the feast the men and older boys meet in the kasgi, and two boys named the Raven (Tulukauguk) and the Hawk (Teiburiak) mix the paint and assist the men in ...
— The Dance Festivals of the Alaskan Eskimo • Ernest William Hawkes
... standing receptacle for all vagabonds and beggars: "but there is something in the true gipsey," said he, "which I cannot but consider as characteristic of a certain definite origin. They are all tall, raw-boned, and with raven locks; and though like the Jews of different countries they may have national traits, these traits are never sufficient to merge a certain essential character; they seem chiefly only minor differences added to others more ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... their vitality in passing through the digestive organs of birds, Kerner von Marilaun fed seeds of two hundred and fifty different species of plants to each of the following: blackbird, song thrush, robin, jackdaw, raven, nutcracker, goldfinch, titmouse, bullfinch, crossbill, pigeon, fowl, turkey, duck, and a few others; also to marmot, horse, ox, and pig, making five hundred and twenty separate experiments. As to the marmot, horse, ox, and ...
— Seed Dispersal • William J. Beal
... surround you, resolve to overcome them. Bunyan wrote the "Pilgrim's Progress" in Bedford jail on scraps of wrapping paper while he was half starved on a diet of bread and water. That unfortunate American genius, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote "The Raven," the most wonderful conception as well as the most highly artistic poem in all English literature, in a little cottage in the Fordham section of New York while he was in the direst straits of want. Throughout all his short and wonderfully brilliant career, poor Poe never had a dollar ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... in oblivion's mouldering tower By the raven's nest struck the midnight hour, And the ghosts of the seasons wept over the bier Of Old Time's last son—the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... You might be a raven as far as croaking's concerned. One would think we were in a hole and couldn't get out. Trust to Sucre and Miller; they'll ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... —"A stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or ...
— The Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... by his raven-like croaking and criticising; but the good fellow writes me this morning that he is written down an ass, and that the approbation is unanimous. It is but Edinburgh, to be sure; but Edinburgh has always been a harder critic than London. It is a great mercy, and gives encouragement for future ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... the clouds gliding in the depths of the lake, or the traveller passing along, an inverted image, whose motion seems governed by the quiet of a time to which its archetype, the living person, is perhaps insensible; or it may happen that the figure of one of the larger birds, a raven or a heron, is crossing silently among the reflected clouds, while the voice of the real bird, from the element aloft, gently awakens in the spectator the recollection of appetites and instincts, pursuits and occupations, ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... The red raven-wine now Hast thou drunk, stern and bow; Then wake and awake And the wonted way take! The way of the Wender forth over the flood, For the will of the Sender ...
— The Water of the Wondrous Isles • William Morris
... water, pass swiftly by a single river to the sea. Sixty islands lie upon this water, the haunt and home of innumerable birds. Each island holds an eyrie, where none but eagles repair to build their nests, to cry and fight together, and take their solace from the world. When evil folk arrive to raven and devour the realm, then all these eagles gather themselves together, making great coil and clamour, and arraying themselves proudly one against another. One day, or two days, three or four, the mighty birds will strive together; and the interpretation thereof ...
— Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut • Wace
... of tallow, with eyebrows like a cart-wheel, and dim coaly disks for eyes, who was George I.'s half-sister, probably not his mistress at all; and who now, as Countess of Darlington so called, sits at Isleworth with good fat pensions, and a tame raven come-of-will,—probably the SOUL of George I. in some form. [See Walpole, Reminiscences. ] Not this one, we say:—but the thread-paper Duchess of Kendal, actual Ex-mistress; who tore her hair on the road when apoplexy overtook poor George, and who now attends ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... praise God without ceasing? It is as proper to us to praise God, as for a bird to chaunt. All beasts have their own sounds and voices peculiar to their own nature, this is the natural sound of a man. Now as you would think it monstrous to hear a melodious bird croaking as a raven, so it is no less monstrous and degenerate to hear the most part of the discourses of men savoring nothing of God. If we had known that innocent estate of man, O how would we think he had fallen from heaven! We would imagine that we were thrust ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... find what he adduces worthy of our attention, were it but for the inquiries which it suggests. "If the deluge were but local," we find him saying, "what was the need of taking birds into the ark; and among them birds so widely diffused as the raven and the dove? A deluge which could overspread the region which these birds inhabit could hardly have been less than universal. If the deluge were local, and all the birds of these kinds in that district perished,—though we should think they might have fled to the uninundated ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... eyes and you black!" retorted Jarvis. "She has golden locks, you raven. Don't let the outward ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... forecast in what manner a savage may be impressed by an event of which he can note only external conditions, or how his action may respond to the impression. One may guess what opinion an augur would form concerning the appearance of a single eagle or raven; but it would be labor lost to attempt to conjecture the manner in which the imagination of the observer would explain a flight of these birds, or what complicated rules augural art might evolve ...
— Current Superstitions - Collected from the Oral Tradition of English Speaking Folk • Various
... shoreward street, and as we neared the waterside we heard the shouts and laughter of the strangers plainly enough. And over the houses were the mastheads of their three ships. One of them had a forked red flag, whereon was a raven worked in black, so well that it was easy to see what bird it was meant for. It was the raven of the Danish sea kings, but that meant naught to us yet. The terror which went before and the weeping that bided after that ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... discovers that tears make her eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted, with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life, she teaches ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... not," said the young man modestly, "sing after thee. My poor notes would sound like those of the croaking raven, in comparison with the warblings of the ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... over the trail," said Yahn and laughed. "The priest of the men of iron say that Tahn-te is a sorcerer,—who knows that he did not bury owl-feathers or raven-feathers on the way to hide her trail? If the witch maid was a maid of beauty, is he ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... than that into which it eventually fell. Another artist was also on the wing early, and in pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her raven locks like the oil on Aaron's beard, and enveloped her in a veil of filmy whiteness. I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise and entered the butler's pantry just in time to see the heiress ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Ricks dreamily, and tore up the fifty-thousand-dollar check he had just written. "Joe, if your boy is such easy game for a pair of old duffers like us, just think what soft picking he must have been for that nimble-footed lady with the raven hair, the pearly teeth and ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... use of old) Were yoked to draw his car of burnished gold. Upright he stood, and bore aloft his shield, Conspicuous from afar, and overlooked the field. His surcoat was a bear-skin on his back; His hair hung long behind, and glossy raven-black. His ample forehead bore a coronet, With sparkling diamonds and with rubies set. Ten brace, and more, of greyhounds, snowy fair, And tall as stags, ran loose, and coursed around his chair, A match for pards in flight, in grappling for ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... at first see all that pomp and parade of wealth and luxury in contrast with the misery, squalid, agonizing, ruffianly, which stares one in the face in every street of London, and hoots at the gates of her palaces more ominous a note than ever was that of owl or raven in the portentous times when empires and races have crumbled and ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... with a hollow moan, and a raven which had been sitting in the snow flew up noiselessly and circled round their tops restlessly, like a poor soul ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... all Irishmen are so justly proud, is represented by a fine water-colour portrait of Mrs. George Smith; one would almost believe it to be in oils, so great is the lustre on this lady's raven-black hair, and so rich and broad and vigorous is the painting of a Japanese scarf she is wearing. Then as we turn to the east wall of the gallery we see the three great pictures of Burne-Jones, the Beguiling of Merlin, the Days of Creation, and the Mirror of Venus. The version of the legend ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... along to the end of the yard, and, steadying himself, fixed an arrow to the string. As the bird came within easy bow shot the lad took aim. But as he drew the string he saw the great dusky bird open its stout beak. He heard a hoarse croak, and knew it to be the croak of a raven. Now the croaking of a raven was held in those times to be a sound of very ill omen; it was also considered that the man who killed one of these birds was certainly doomed to meet with speedy misfortune. Einar slackened his bow, and the arrow slipped ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... heir of Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven's nest to the top of this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: and his mother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that had killed her boy. But the baron her husband refused, and spake in this wise: "ytte ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... and Lovisa came up with the smaller children the place had already an inhabited, homelike look. There was even a wise old raven, almost as large as a gander, whom Nils had christened Munin, after Odin's bird. The little ones had all the new milk they could drink from their wooden bowls, and were put to bed in the movable wooden bed-places, on beds of hay covered ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... love! that fiery furnace of which you speak is the Scriptural symbol for fearful trial and intense suffering! far be it from you! for I would rather my whole body were consumed to ashes than one shining tress of your raven hair ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... paling. The two little boys ran off, intent on a fresh game. I scanned her face furtively, appreciative of the regular and potent modelling, the pure olive tints, the pose and poise of the head. Indubitably her face was dark; the raven hair that swept across her brow accentuated the gloom slumbering in her eyes. One unconsciously surmised that somewhere within her life lay a region of unrest, a period of passion not to be confused with the quiet courtship ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... was deserted of every living creature. There was not a snake track in the dust or a raven in the sky, but as he topped the brow of the hill and looked down into the canyon, Hardy saw a great herd of cattle, and Creede in the midst of them still hacking away at the thorny palo verdes. At the clatter of hoofs, the big man looked up from his work, wiping the ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... complexion, and the fine poise of the man—the entire absence of "nerves," as often shown in the savage—seemed to carry out the idea that his was a peculiar pedigree. In his youth, when his hair was as black as the raven's wing and coarse as a horse-tail, and his complexion mahogany, the report that he was a Creole found ready credence. And so did this gossip of mixed parentage follow him that Mrs. Sutherland Orr, in her biography, takes an entire chapter to prove ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... both among the Constellations. Juno having complained of this to Oceanus, is borne back to the heavens by her peacocks, who have so lately changed their colour; a thing which has also happened to the raven, which has been lately changed from white to black, he having refused to listen to the warnings of the crow (who relates the story of its own transformation, and of that of Nyctimene into an owl), and having persisted in informing Phoebus of the intrigues of Coronis. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... time that morning a thrilling cry escaped his lips. On a projecting thorny twig, glistening full in the sun, there fluttered a long, silken strand of hair. He reached out for it, but Wabi caught his hand, and in another moment Mukoki had joined them. Gently he took the raven tress between his fingers, his deep-set eyes glaring like red coals of fire. It was a strand of Minnetaki's beautiful hair, not for a moment did one of them doubt that; but what held them most, what increased the horror in their eyes, was the quantity of it! Suddenly ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... thy feet. Cheer up!" said Balbus, mocking, "Thou wilt have a still better reception from Caiaphas," and the soldiers shouted as they marched, "There will be the raven's croak about thine ears!" ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... them, and Hagen. These knights, they say, wore clothes of raven-black, and their shields were mickle, broad and goodly. Stones from India shone on their apparel. They left the vessel unguarded on the beach, and rode up to the castle. There they saw eighty and six ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... girl came forward to meet Nan and her companions, courteously offering her services in showing any goods they might wish to look at Nan shrewdly suspected the man and woman to be Jews; but this girl, with her large, black eyes, raven hair, and flashing white teeth, was undoubtedly a Mexican. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... much pleasure-seeking, smiled and laughed,—sourly enough at first, it is true, but in time growing careless and merry by reason of his deep draughts. His hand trembled less weakly as the wine gave him back his lost strength, and more than once his fingers toyed playfully with the raven locks and the heavy earrings of the magnificent princess at his elbow. Some word of hers roused a ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... off her gloves, and sat down to the table; and at that moment a young and elegant man lounged into the room. He was deemed handsome, with his clearly-cut features, his dark eyes, his raven hair, and his white teeth; but to a keen observer those features had not an attractive expression, and the dark eyes had a great knack of looking away while he spoke to you. It was Francis, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... years of our absence, I sent home communication after communication to the 'Linnaean' Society, with the same result as that obtained by Noah when he sent the raven out of his ark. Tired at last of hearing nothing about them, I determined to do or die, and in 1849 I drew up a more elaborate paper and forwarded it to the Royal Society. This was my dove, if I had only known it; ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... persistence. The atmosphere was chilling to literature then, there was little applause for poetic or literary skill. There were no encouragements when Washington Irving wrote as "Knickerbocker," when Richard Henry Dana wrote "The Buccaneer," "The Idle Man," and "The Dying Raven." There was something cracking in his wit, exalted in his culture. He was so gentle in his conversation, so pure in his life, it was hard to spare him. He seemed like a man who had never been forced into the battle of the world, he was so unscarred ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... embonpoint in the figure, and to darkness—I had almost said swarthiness, in complexion. This last character, however, is not particularly obvious by candle-light; and it is always relieved by the most raven hair, and eyes such as one seldom sees elsewhere, so large and black; if their fire were softened by a longer lash, and their expression less fixed, there would be no resisting them. I fancy, too, that their effect would be rather greater in a tete-a-tete than in a circle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... almost forgotten, in her beauty of expression—tenderness, gentleness, urbanity, simplicity, and benignity in a state of fusion! Now, do not run away, reader, with the idea of an Eastern princess, with gorgeous black eyes, raven hair, tall and graceful form, etcetera! This apparition was fair, blue-eyed, golden-haired, girlish, sylph-like. She was graceful, indeed, as the gazelle, but not tall, and with an air of suavity that was irresistibly attractive. ...
— The Middy and the Moors - An Algerine Story • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the back of an invisible walker in front of her. Lucia, stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening and closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable cat. The sunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret's raven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features. There was little of feminine softness in those unguarded features, much of intense and apparently far from agreeable thought. It was one of her bad days, mentally as well as physically—probably ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... without his mask, and bareheaded: but every eye glanced away from the helmets and barettes, waving with plumes, and sparkling with jewels, to gaze on Flodoardo's raven locks, as they floated on the air in wild luxuriance. A murmur of admiration rose from every corner of the saloon, but it rose unmarked by those who were the objects of it. Neither Rosabella nor Flodoardo at that moment formed a wish to be applauded, ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... one ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... upon, and Malachi explained their intentions to the Indian woman, who approved of them, but said, "The Old Raven" (referring to the old Indian) "is very ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... eyes black and large; and her hair black as the raven's wing; her features were small and regular; her teeth white and good; but her complexion was very pallid, and not a vestige of colour on her cheeks. As I have since thought, it was more like a marble statue than anything I can compare her ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... the usurer being in bed, Robin in the shape of a night-raven[7] came to the window, and there did beat with his wings, and croaked in such manner that this old usurer thought he should have presently died for fear. This was but a preparation to what he did intend; for presently after he appeared before him at his bed's feet, ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... they hadn't had time to sit down when the thunder crashed, the ceiling split open, and in flew a raven. The Raven smote upon the floor and became a brave youth. The former youths had been handsome, but this one ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various
... with a sight of the British flag, and their late masters bound hand and foot, soon completely restored them. The old gentleman was a fine looking Don of the ancient regime; the daughter, a perfect Spanish beauty, with raven hair and flashing eyes, and dark clear complexion. The old Don was profuse in his expressions of gratitude towards those who had rescued him from the hands of the pirates. He and his daughter, with his father confessor, the priest now present, had been travelling in France, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... have arisen out of that organization, and you will understand why there is a little flush in his cheek and why his sentences are a trifle disconnected and tentative and why his eye wanders now to the soft raven tresses about Lady Harman's ear, now to the sweet movement of her speaking lips and now to the gracious droop of her pose as she sits forward, elbow upon crossed knee and chin on glove, and jabs her parasol at the ground in her unaccustomed efforts to explain ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... England. I hesitated, but his entreaties and the love I had for him prevailed, and I took on myself the charge. The eldest was a beautiful girl of seventeen, Miguel two years younger. They were wonderfully alike, only in the boy's case the raven black hair had a lock of white on one side, the "Sarreco streak," as it was proudly called, which appeared in the family generation after generation. I brought the children home with certain of their most cherished possessions, some fine riding-horses, and ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... fragments, Half the head, a hand, a fore-arm, Many other smaller portions, Life, above all else, was missing. Then the mother, well reflecting, Spake these words in bitter weeping: "From these fragments, with my magic, I will bring to life my hero." Hearing this, the raven answered, Spake these measures to the mother: "There is not in these a hero, Thou canst not revive these fragments; Eels have fed upon his body, On his eyes have fed the whiting; Cast the dead upon the waters, On the streams of Tuonela, Let him there become a walrus, Or a seal, or whale, or porpoise." ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... of similia similibus curantur seems to have entered into mediaeval medicine, and especially into the manufacture of charms. The following prescriptions are examples: "The skin of a Raven's heel is good against gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... him before this. The Old Dessauer made use of Walrave's Plate; usually had Walrave, Nussler, and other principal figures to dinner. Walrave's Plate, every piece of it, was carefully marked with a RAVEN on the rim,—that being his crest ["Wall-raven" his name]: Old Dessauer, at sight of so many images of that bird, threw out the observation, loud enough, from the top of the table, 'Hah, Walrave, I see you are making yourself acquainted with the RAVENS in time, that they may ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... fitted well his powerful frame. Beaded moccasins, leggings bound high above the knees, hunting coat laced and fringed, all had the neat, tidy appearance due to good care. He wore no weapons. His hair fell in a raven mass over his shoulders. His profile was regular, with a long, straight nose, strong chin, and eyes black as night. They were now fixed intently on the valley. The whole face gave an impression of ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... in a lighter tone, "I am not afraid of Durnovo. I have met Durnovos before. You may have observed that my locks no longer resemble the raven's wing. There is a little grey—just here—above the temple. I am getting on in life, and I know how to deal ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... Lowell. There is a phrase in one of his own rather vague and "valueless" essays (for Poe was a poor critic) which, as it were accidentally, describes his ideal in poetry, although it is not his own verse of which he is speaking. He described—in 1845, when his ripe genius had just brought forth "The Raven"—the poetic faculty as producing "a sense of dreamy, wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, indefinable delight." This shadowy but absorbing and mastering pleasure impregnated his own best writings to such a degree that it gives us the measure of his unlikeness to his contemporaries, and states ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... inches below the knee, and is made either of swan-down, silk, or woollen stuff; they wear leggings of the same material as the shirt, and cover their pretty little feet with beautifully-worked mocassins; they have also a scarf, of a fine rich texture, and allow their soft and long raven hair to fall luxuriantly over their shoulder, usually ornamented with flowers, but sometimes with jewels of great value; their andes and wrists are also encircled by bracelets; and indeed to see one ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... produced by domestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon. Dupont de Nemours asserted that he understood eleven words of the Pigeon language, the same number of that of Fowls, fourteen of the Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of Cattle, thirty of that of Dogs, and the Raven language he understood completely. But the ordinary observer seldom attains farther than to comprehend some of the cries of anxiety and fear around him, often so unlike the accustomed carol of the bird,—as the mew of the Cat-Bird, the lamb-like bleating of the Veery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... soup of salt and water, and a ragout of old bones full of hairs and slopperies [nothing else; that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... more imposing appearance. Tall, commanding, radiant, she recalled the historic beauties of antiquity. So one would imagine Ariadne, Dido, Cleopatra; a perfect bust, shoulders, and arms; white as an animated statue, regular features, flashing eyes, pearly teeth, hair of raven blackness, hers was a mien, speech, and movement, which ravished every beholder." Had we space we might give some longer translations from this interesting volume, for which our readers would thank ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... azure seas; Upon the lofty deck, Dame Sigrid lay, And watch'd the setting of the orb of day: Then, all at once, the smiling sky grew dark, The breakers rav'd, and sinking seem'd the bark; The wild Death-raven, perch'd upon the mast, Scream'd 'mid the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... excessive zeal to deal a blow for his country, with an extremity of valour which he would hardly have displayed had Jules and Henri been free to defend themselves, one youth, possessed of coal-black, flashing eyes, of raven locks, and of pallid and bloated features, darted in between the two constables and struck a blow at Jules which, if it had taken effect, would most decidedly have damaged ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... that dazzled the sight, so studded was its whitest surface with gold and gems, blazed upon his majestic form; white roses, alternated with the emerald and the ruby, and shaped tiara-like, crowned his raven locks. He appeared, like Ulysses, to have gained the glory of a second youth—his features seemed to have exchanged thought for beauty, and he towered amidst the loveliness that surrounded him, in all the beaming and relaxing benignity of ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... For the time he sees nothing that would suggest even to the most sparkling intellect the shadow of a rhyme, and he begins to be in despair. He walks up and down his dingy room, thrusts his long fingers amid the raven locks that adorn his poetical cranium, and gently at first, then furiously, irritates the cuticle of his imaginative head-piece, hoping thereby to waken up his ideas and find a foundation upon which to erect another stone in the edifice ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... a raven; but the white foam lay in thick flakes on his neck and breast, for his rider at every few paces stuck the sharp rowels of his Spanish spurs into his sides. He had a long flowing mane and tail, and his full and fiery eyes seemed ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... I done to you, Brothers,—War-Lord and Land-Lord and Priest,— That my son should rot on the blood-smeared earth where the raven and buzzard feast? He was my baby, my man-child, that soldier with shell-torn breast, Who was slain for your power and profit—aye, murdered at your behest. I bore him, my boy and my manling, while the long months ebbed away; He was part of me, part of my body, which ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... martial dignity, however, soon began to be seen in the best drawing-rooms in Moscow. His bald head with its tufts of dyed hair, and the soiled ribbon of the Order of St. Anne which he wore over a cravat of the colour of a raven's wing, began to be familiar to all the pale and listless young men who hang morosely about the card-tables while dancing is going on. Pavel Petrovitch knew how to gain a footing in society; he spoke little, but from old habit, condescendingly—though, of course, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... with me his present extraordinary Tour. I could not resist the impulse of writing to you from this place. The situation of the old castle corresponds exactly to Shakspeare's description. While we were there to-day[933], it happened oddly, that a raven perched upon one of the chimney-tops, and croaked. Then I in my ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... to strike him. A regular flight! However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs—an extraordinary collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals. As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking factory-chimneys, and puffing railway-engines; in short, ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Vassali, the son of Dmitri, escaped from the horde after a three years' captivity, and, traversing Poland and Lithuania, arrived safely at Moscow. Dmitri was now forty years of age. He was a man of colossal stature, and of vigorous health. His hair and beard were black as the raven's wing, and his ruddy cheek and piercing eye seemed to give promise of a long life. But suddenly he was seized with a fatal disease, and it was soon evident that death was near. The intellect of the dying prince was unclouded, and, with much fortitude, in a long interview, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... I said. "No," replied Lloyd George. "The inquiry will be in public. Here are twenty people killed and the country has the right to know why they were killed." That was the way he used to break precedents. Next day we all went down to the Raven Hotel, the appointed place, and the inspector proceeded with his work of examining witnesses. Lloyd George sat by his side. I felt sorry for that inspector—who usually was monarch of all he surveyed. He was a man of dignified and leisurely manner. ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... additions; that it was a standing receptacle for all vagabonds and beggars: "but there is something in the true gipsey," said he, "which I cannot but consider as characteristic of a certain definite origin. They are all tall, raw-boned, and with raven locks; and though like the Jews of different countries they may have national traits, these traits are never sufficient to merge a certain essential character; they seem chiefly only minor differences added to others more strong ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... breeding hugely must prove its energy likewise in the departments of the mind, or it will ultimately be unable to feed its young—nay, to feast its aldermen! Let us be up and alive.—Such was the exhortation of a profound depression. Outside these dismal assemblies, in the streets, an ancient song of raven recurrence croaked of 'Old England a-going down the hill'; for there is a link of electricity between the street-boy and the leading article in days ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... announcement that everything was ready, the things were packed, and Signor Muzzio was preparing to start. Without a word in answer to his servant, Fabio went out on to the terrace, whence the pavilion could be seen. A few pack-horses were grouped before it; a powerful raven horse, saddled for two riders, was led up to the steps, where servants were standing bare-headed, together with armed attendants. The door of the pavilion opened, and supported by the Malay, who wore once more his ordinary attire, appeared ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... perhaps, and a crumb for me!" she said. "There is more than that in your mind, and I can read your heart as if you were a ripped up raven. You are one of those who can never keep their fingers at rest, and must knead everybody's dough; must push, and drive and stir something. Every jacket is too tight for you. If you were three feet taller, and the son of a priest, you might have gone far. High you will go, and high ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in roadmaking had been bestowed there, and that the ascent in that direction would be comparatively easy. Cuckoos and partridges were heard plentifully; and, on looking back, I saw a very large raven hovering over ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... tribes the creators are very often familiar animals, such as the coyote, the raven, the hare (North America), the wagtail (among the Ainu), the grasshopper (among the Bushmen)—in general, whatever animals appear to the men of a particular tribe to show skill and power. Reference is made above to the reasons which led early men to pay such high regard to the lower animals.[1419] ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... had lain for hours along the northern horizon like fixtures in the atmosphere, placed there purely to embellish the scene. A few aquatic fowls occasionally skimmed along the water, and a single raven was visible, sailing high above the trees, and keeping a watchful eye on the forest beneath him, in order to detect anything having life that the mysterious ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... But the raven rejoices at the sight of the boy baby in his cradle. "My food, my food!" he croaks. A hunter has come to the camp. He will shoot the rabbit and the squirrel and the deer; and food for the hungry ravens will be left where his ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... Norton, ironically, "is it thus you speak of a beloved parent, and that parent a respectable old peer? In other words, you wish him in kingdom come. Repent, my lord—retract those words, or dread 'the raven of the valley'." ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Frontenacs, the supporters in whose family coat-of-arms were two Griffins. Where all is so uncertain in an important matter, a third suggestion may be as near the mark as the first two. As the Norse or Norman sea-kings bore the raven for a standard, perhaps La Salle adopted the raven's master-symbol, in right of a hoped-for sovereignty ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... cast by the candle which always burned beneath it seemed to her eager sight to crown that fair head with a bishop's mitre—a cardinal's hat—aye, at times she even saw the triple crown of the Vicar of Christ resting upon those raven locks. Jose knew this. If her own pen did not always correctly delineate her towering hopes, his astute uncle did not fail to fill in whatever hiatus remained. And the pressure of filial devotion and ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... to be Mrs. Shem, and make a long dress of yellow flannel, and appear with Agamemnon and the little boys. For the little boys were to represent two doves and a raven. There were feather-dusters enough in the family for their costumes, which would be then ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... wordless; mute as a fish, mute as a stockfish[obs3], mute as a mackerel; silent &c. (taciturn) 585; muzzled; inarticulate, inaudible. croaking, raucous, hoarse, husky, dry, hollow, sepulchral, hoarse as a raven; rough. Adv. with bated breath, with the finger on the lips; sotto voce[Lat]; in a low tone, in a cracked voice, in a broken voice. Phr. vox faucibus ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... his acquaintance," said Marks, thrusting out a long, thin hand, like a raven's claw. "Mr. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear their ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... and even light, a forehead broad and high, as if built of ivory, with large projecting eyebrows, and his eyes rolling beneath them like a sea with darkened lustre. His mouth was rather open, his chin good-humored and round, and his nose small. His hair, black and glossy as the raven's wing, fell in smooth masses over his forehead,—long, liberal hair, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... white face made a striking contrast with his raven hair. His heavy head was thrust forward, his big hands clenched. He spoke in an oddly, curt, dry voice, which, however did not hide the feeling that made his ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... Stores and whether it was possible for her to "do anything" to repair any wrongs that might have arisen out of that organization, and you will understand why there is a little flush in his cheek and why his sentences are a trifle disconnected and tentative and why his eye wanders now to the soft raven tresses about Lady Harman's ear, now to the sweet movement of her speaking lips and now to the gracious droop of her pose as she sits forward, elbow upon crossed knee and chin on glove, and jabs her parasol at the ground in her unaccustomed ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... now decided on a journey north, to the uttermost end of the world, where it touches the sky. He imagined that he could only reach this point by sea, and thought at first of travelling on the wings of an eagle. Meantime, a raven directed him, when he came to a broad expanse of blue water, to look for a place where rushes grew on the bank, and to stamp on the ground with his right foot, when the mouth of the earth and the strongly guarded doors would fly open, ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... tears make her eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted, with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life, she teaches him to ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... brethren—for monks have been known to do such things—attempted to poison him, but the cup burst asunder as soon as he took it into his hands. When the priest Florentius, being wickedly disposed, attempted to perpetrate a like crime by means of an adulterated loaf, a raven carried away the deadly bread from the hand of St. Benedict. Instructed by the devil, the same Florentius drove from his neighbourhood the holy man, by turning into the garden of his monastery seven naked girls; but scarcely had the saint ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Those raven spires of hair, that fair, That turret-bosom's shine! False friends! from me that banish'd thee, Who fain ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... homeward all take off their sev'ral way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest: 155 The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to Heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best, 160 For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with Grace ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... civilian's white linen, his ferocious little mustachios carefully pointed, his cheeks freshly shaven and talcumed, his slender feet encased in white canvas shoes. A wonderful Guayaquil hat, the creamy straws of which were no thicker than silk threads, crowned his sleek, raven locks. It must have cost a small fortune. He carried a dapper little cane, with which he tapped his former prisoner to ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... halloo at the tavern-door long since has driven the reckless and the poor From misery's only haven Forth on the chilling night. 'All out! All out!' Less sad would fall on bibulous souls, no doubt, The refrain of the Raven. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... easy of identification. Among several ornithologists, whose opinions have been asked, not a dissenting voice has been heard. The bird is a common crow or a raven, and is one of the most happily executed of the avian sculptures, the nasal feathers, which are plainly shown, and the general contour of the bill being truly corvine. It would probably be practically impossible to distinguish a rude sculpture of a raven from that ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... taken up with the scene, the verses, and the strange being who was repeating them with so much feeling, to notice the approach of one who now formed the fourth person of our party. This was a slight female figure, beautiful in the extreme, but whom tattered garments, raven hair (which fell in matted elf-locks over her naked shoulders), swarthy complexion, and flashing eyes, proclaimed to be of the wandering tribe of 'gitanos.' From an intuitive sense of natural politeness she stood with crossed arms, ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... shows no mercy, shall not obtain mercy." The kata: "Whosoever can keep silence goes through life most securely." The nightingale: "Contentment is the greatest happiness." The peacock: "As thou judgest, so shalt thou be judged." The pelican: "Blessed be Allah in Heaven and Earth." The raven: "The farther from mankind, the pleasanter." The swallow: "Do good, for you shall be rewarded hereafter." The syrdak: "Turn to Allah, O ye sinners." The turtle-dove: "It were better for many a creature had ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... if I were going to strike him. A regular flight! However, I followed him, and gradually he recovered his composure, and showed me his hens, his ducks, his rabbits and dogs—an extraordinary collection of birds and beasts; there was even a raven among them. He lives in the midst of them all; he speaks to no one but his animals. As for the view, it's simply magnificent; you see the whole of the St. Denis plain for miles upon miles; rivers and towns, smoking factory-chimneys, and puffing railway-engines; in ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... Devonshire men made head against a new host of Danes who landed on their coast; killed their chief, and captured their flag, on which was represented the likeness of a Raven—a very fit bird for a thievish army like that, I think. The loss of their standard troubled the Danes greatly, for they believed it to be enchanted—woven by the three daughters of one father in a single afternoon—and they had a story among themselves ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... another distinguished Roman family earned its surname from a single combat with a Gaul. Here again a Gallic warrior of gigantic size challenged any one of the Romans to single combat. His challenge was accepted by M. Valerius, upon whose helmet a raven perched; and as they fought, the bird flew into the face of the Gaul, striking at him with its beak and flapping his wings. Thus Valerius slew the Gaul, and was called in consequence "Corvus," or ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Eagle, possessed the minds of all European warriors; until, as they themselves grew selfish and cruel, the symbols which at first meant heaven-sent victory, or the strength and presence of some Divine spirit, became to them only the signs of their own pride or rage: the victor raven of Corvus sinks into the shamed falcon of Marmion, and the lion-heartedness which gave the glory and the peace of the gods to Leonidas, casts the glory and the might of kinghood to the dust ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... the fifty-thousand-dollar check he had just written. "Joe, if your boy is such easy game for a pair of old duffers like us, just think what soft picking he must have been for that nimble-footed lady with the raven hair, the pearly teeth and the ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... that all kinds of animals had their type in the world of souls, a manitu, which kept guard over them. Ralston, in his "Songs of the Russian People," tells us that Buyan, the island paradise of Russian mythology, contains a serpent older than all others, a larger raven, a finer queen bee, and so of all other animals. Morgan, in his work upon the Iroquois, observes that they believe in a spirit or god of every species of trees ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... conception I fully subscribe to. It never rains here, and the dew never falls. No flowers grow here, and no green thing gladdens the eye. The birds that fly over the land carry their provisions with them. Only the crow and the raven tarry with us. Our city lies in the midst of a desert of the purest —most unadulterated, and compromising sand—in which infernal soil nothing but that fag-end of vegetable creation, "sage-brush," ventures ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... often kept by kings and earls about their court as useful in feud and fray. Harald Fairhair's champions are admirably described in the contemporary Raven Song by Hornclofe— ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... real discovery and revelation, a new and necessary name for something that walked nameless but enormous in the modern world, a shaft of light and a stroke of lightning. That comes from America and belongs to the world, as much as 'The Raven' or The Scarlet Letter or the novels of Henry James belong to the world. In fact, I can imagine Henry James originating it in the throes of self-expression, and bringing out a word like 'high-browed,' with a sort of gentle ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... the last of my stay at Lowell (I never changed my work-room again), this same friendly fellow-toiler handed me a poem to read, which some one had sent in to us from the counting-room, with the penciled comment, "Singularly beautiful." It was Poe's "Raven," which had just made its first appearance in some magazine. It seemed like an apparition in literature, indeed; the sensation it created among the staid, measured lyrics of that day, with its flit of spectral wings, and its ghostly refrain of "Nevermore!" ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... called respectively Almanna Gja, [Footnote: Almanna may be translated main; it means literally all men's; when applied to a road, it would mean the road along which all the world travel.] or Main Gja, and Hrafna Gja, or Raven's Gja. In the act of disruption the sinking mass fell in, as it were, upon itself, so that one side of the Gja slopes a good deal back as it ascends; the other side is perfectly perpendicular, and at the spot I saw it upwards of one hundred feet ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... least. His beard had not grown an inch. Aha! The rascal, never to give warning, to drop down, as it were, from out the sky. Such a hermit! To live in the desert! A veritable Saint Jerome. Did a lion feed him down there in Arizona, or was it a raven, like Elijah? The good God had not fattened him, at any rate, and, apropos, he was just about to dine himself. He had made a salad from his own lettuce. The two would dine with him, eh? For this, my son, that was lost is ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... faith: at sight of swans, the raven Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast In fear of poison when a bird flies past. Thersites brands Achilles as a craven; The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast: And Bacon ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the Solitary; "as well divide a wolf from his appetite for carnage, or a raven from her scent of slaughter, as thee from thy ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... flapped in the wind like raven's wings. A sudden jealousy gripped him; Mr. Tiralla had spoken of a nice young fellow. And Mikolai was also a young fellow. Two young fellows, and with her day and night under the same roof. Stepmother? Pooh! She was still young ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... with the raven ringlets carried on an intrigue with a handsome page. That one with the lustrous braids is reading a letter from her gallant; she smiles, as well she may, for night ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in a small vestibule. In front of us was a large door, on the right a small one, both closed. At a table by the large door sat a dirty, out-of-elbows raven of a man reading a newspaper. The latter looked ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... with the beauty of a work. In every art the best work of each great man should be ranked with the best of all other great men. Some geniuses express themselves on a larger, but not necessarily on a greater scale, than others. In poetry, for example, Poe's "Raven" is not to be ranked below Milton's "Paradise Lost" because shorter; nor in music need a Chopin ballad be placed below a Beethoven symphony because not so extended as the latter. Every genius, however, must expect ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... The Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou wert catechizing, Tuning their voices, and their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... foster-sister named Ada, who was also very beautiful. She was unusually dark for a Norse maiden. Her akin indeed was fair, but her hair and eyes were black like the raven's wing. Her father was King Hakon ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Yet a little patience, my masters!" said Paradise in a raised voice and with genuine amusement in his eyes. "It is true that that Kirby with whom I and our friend there on the ground sailed was somewhat short and as swart as a raven, besides having a cut across his face that had taken away part of his lip and the top of his ear, and that this gentleman who announces himself as Kirby hath none of Kirby's marks. But we are fair and generous ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... came by, and her face was fair, The light gleamed soft on her raven hair; And her lips were blooming a rosy red. Then my heart spoke out with a right bold air: "Thou art worse than a fool, ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... reader, westward ho! Across the Sappers' Bridge we go; When first in youth I cross'd it o'er, The arch was wood, "and nothing more"— As Edgar A. Poe doth remark About that raven big and dark— The wooden span, I mean, stretched o'er The channel's width from shore to shore, On which skilled artificers laid The arch of stone, so truly made, And strong, that it to-day appears, After the crush of forty years And more, impervious ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... certain Lady Mildred, one of Ernest Clay's numerous loves, who glides into the room at a London tea-party, 'with a step as elastic as the nod of a water-lily. A snowy turban, from which hung on either temple a cluster of crimson camellias still wet with the night-dew; long raven curls of undisturbed grace falling on shoulders of that indescribable and dewy coolness which follows a morning bath.' How naively, comments the critic, does this nobleman of nature recommend the use ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... reverence), seemed generally to set greater store on the elaborate and artistic perfection of his works, than in the spontaneity of genius therein displayed. So it would seem, at least, in his voluntarily exposing the skeleton design of his greatest poem, 'The Raven,' and the various processes by which this grand shadow attained its final harmonious and terrible proportions. This may be a noble sacrifice to the principles of Art, intended as a warning to rash novices against the sin of slovenliness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... thoroughly vindicated the life-long reliance he had put in the description of witches given by the fairy-tale tellers of his earliest youth. She had the traditional hook-nose and peaked chin, the glittering eyes, the thousand wrinkles and the toothless gums. He looked about for the raven and the cat, but if she had them, they were not in evidence. At a rough guess, he calculated her age at one hundred years. A youth of extreme laziness, who Baron Dangloss said was the old woman's grandson, appeared to be her man-of-all-work. ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sad wasting flown, Of those beings pure and gentle, like the passing glow of even, Sent to teach us of a better, higher heritage in Heaven! Sweet they were as first wild flowers that herald coming spring, Or a mellow gleam of sunset through the storm-cloud's raven wing. Fragile as that opening flower, fleeting as that golden ray, Like the snow-wreath of the morning, full soon they fled away! And fit it is it should be so; their mission here was brief 'Mid the blighting and the bitterness of Earth's unquiet grief; So their hands were meekly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... be, singing was certainly not one of them. He could hail the fore-royal-yard from the taffrail in a gale of wind, and make himself pretty plainly heard too; but when it came to trolling forth a ditty, he had no more voice than a raven; and my sister had often thrown him into a state of the most comical distress by proffering a similar request to that now made by his ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... that was its real quality, whatever fine name they might give it, says the vehement Princess], we heard a sharp tapping at the window; and started up in surprise, to see what it could be. It was a raven, carrying in its beak a bit of bread, which it left on the window-sill, and flew away." ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... world. It also might be a type of the opening the law and testimony, that light might by that come into the church; for we find not that this window had any other use, but to be a conveyance of light into the ark, and as a passage for the raven and the dove, as may be further showed after. Now much like this, is that of John: "The temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament" (Rev 11:19). And again, "I looked, and, behold, the temple ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... then those pensive eyes would close, And bid their lids each other seek, Veiling the azure orbs below, While their long lashes' darken'd gloss Seemed stealing o'er thy brilliant cheek, Like raven's plumage ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... I said, "you have a great deal to learn yet—with wrinkles and gray hairs. But if you want to keep these raven locks, now wet and dripping, intact, remember, quieta non movere! And if you want to keep your face, now smooth and ruddy, but, I regret to say, glistening with rain, free from wrinkles, remember, quieta non movere. Take now your frequent altar denunciations of local superstitions,—the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... hoarse as a raven's; and although it startled them rudely, it was a welcome sound. Elsie went into the hut to rouse Jamie as gently as she could, and Arnold listened to ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... bear, not far from camp. The bear was grubbing about on the hillside, and we took our position so that he crossed us under a hundred yards. Unbeknown to me, and just as I was about to fire, my native gave the caw of a raven to hold the bear up. He whipped around and faced us, my bullet entering the brush on one side of him. Off he rushed into the woods with the dog after him. I followed, and on coming out into a clearing saw the dog being left far behind on the mountain side. Old Tchort ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... much attention and a large share of the gifts to himself; yet even in receiving the presents he seemed different from the other savages. His was the only face in the swarthy group that betrayed "the workings of the soul;" and although he fastened the trinkets in his raven locks, drops of sweat stood on his brow, and it seemed as if it cost him a struggle to be treated ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... From the Barnyard Fence The First Hawk Origin of the Raven and the Macaw All About the Chicken-Hawk ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... forth from the castle into the public road, feeling mournful and sad; he whom she had nursed day and night, and even now carried about in her dreams, had been cold and strange, and had not a word or thought respecting her. A great black raven darted down in front of her on the high road, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... innocent of the art of attitudinizing, she had made herself thoroughly comfortable; and as the light streamed full upon her, all the marvellous beauty of the delicate face and the perfect modelling of the small hands and feet were clearly revealed. The glossy raven hair clung in waving masses around her white full forehead, and the long silky lashes lay like jet fringe on her exquisitely moulded cheeks; while the remarkably fine pencilling of her arched brows, which had attracted her guardian's notice when he first saw her at ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the story of the fight of King Athelstan with Anlaf the Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven earls of Anlaf's host fell on the field of battle, and lay there "quieted by swords," while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their friends and comrades to "the screamers of war— the black raven, the eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood." The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes at Maldon, in ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... from this vantage-ground—the desert in the foreground, and far away against the sky the curiously carved pink and purple and lilac mountains, while immediately below us lay the dry river-bed over which a gaunt raven flew and croaked ominously, and a little beyond rose the various buttes, mauve and terra-cotta colored, from whose sides and at whose bases projected the petrified trees. There lay the giant trees, straight and tapering—no branching as in our trees of to-day. The trunks are often ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... rough luncheon by the way if it is soon to end amid the banqueters in white. Sailing toward such a blessed port, do not have your flag at half mast. Leave to those who take too much wine "the gloomy raven tapping at the chamber door, on the night's Plutonian shore," and give us the robin red-breast and the chaffinch. Let some one with a strong voice give out the long-metre doxology, and the whole world "Praise God, from whom ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... us this day our daily bread," mean that we are to do nothing to secure our bread, lest we show no faith in God, and simply wait in idleness for God to repeat the miracle of sending it by a raven? or, does it mean that with thankful hearts to God for the ability he has given us to work, that we go forth diligently fulfilling our task in the use of all appropriate means to secure that which his loving bounty has made possible for us in the fruitful seasons of the earth, and ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... tarried a little while at Abouthis, and, having been commanded to do so, let my hair, that had been shorn, grow again long and black as the raven's wing, instructing myself meanwhile in all manly exercises and feats of arms. Also, for a purpose which shall be seen, I perfected myself in the magic art of the Egyptians, and in the reading of the stars, in which things, indeed, I already have ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... Mrs. Rayner's fascinating friend Mr. Steven Van Antwerp, a scion of an old and esteemed and wealthy family; and Mr. Van Antwerp, who had been educated abroad, and had a Heidelberg scar on his left cheek, and dark, lustrous eyes, and wavy hair,—almost raven,—was a devoted lover, though fully ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... the condition that Sir Richard would not dispute his medical orders. This, Dr. Baker explained to me, was a very necessary stipulation, for Sir Richard now looked upon the time spent over his meals as so many half-hours wasted. He never ate his food properly, but used to raven it up like an animal in order to get back quickly to his books. So a treaty was made, and Dr. Baker remained a member of the household ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... quickly prepared With weapons for war, though lesser army Had they for the battle than king of the Huns.[4] They rode 'round the valiant: then rattled the shield, 50 The war-wood clanged: the king with host marched, With army to battle. Aloft sang the raven, Dark and corpse-greedy. The band was in motion. The horn-bearers blew,[5] the heralds called, Steed stamped the earth. The host assembled 55 Quickly for contest. The king was affrighted, With terror disturbed, after the strangers, The Huns' and Hreths' host they[6] observed, That it[7] on the ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... shrieks of laughter from the twins, who, with the light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before they retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still, and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The owl beat against the window panes, the raven croaked from the old yew- tree, and the wind wandered moaning round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain and storm he could hear the steady snoring of the Minister for ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... had fallen; all was still. He could hear the rustle of the tide, and the chuckle of jackdaws. Overhead a raven flapped ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. But the pelican and the porcupine shall possess it; and the owl and the raven shall dwell therein: and he shall stretch over it the line of confusion, and the plummet of emptiness. They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there; and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... she took the little keys And cast them overboard; Away then flew the Raven, glad He ...
— Niels Ebbesen and Germand Gladenswayne - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... she had reason to suppose tender. She would have been meanwhile a wonderful lioness for a show, an extraordinary figure in a cage or anywhere; majestic, magnificent, high-coloured, all brilliant gloss, perpetual satin, twinkling bugles and flashing gems, with a lustre of agate eyes, a sheen of raven hair, a polish of complexion that was like that of well-kept china and that—as if the skin were too tight—told especially at curves and corners. Her niece had a quiet name for her—she kept it quiet; thinking of her, with a free fancy, as somehow typically insular, she talked to herself of Britannia ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... romanticism as that of the evil forces of nature assailing man through his sense of beauty. Analysis run mad! As to Poe, Rossetti certainly preferred him to Wordsworth. Hall Caine testifies that he used to repeat "Ulalume" and "The Raven" from memory; and that the latter suggested his "Blessed Damozel." "I saw that Poe had done the utmost it was possible to do with the grief of the lover on earth, and so I determined to reverse the conditions, and give utterance ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... after waiting for a minute it was opened by a short, middle-aged woman, with black eyes and a flattened nose, who stared at me, and then said, "A Quaker, by the looks o' ye." She had the strident voice of a raven, and she smelt, I ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... calling. No place on earth can be so deathly still as a deer-forest early in the season before the stags have begun roaring, for there are no sheep with their homely noises, and only the rare croak of a raven breaks the silence. The hillside was far from sheer-one could have walked down with a little care-but something in the shape of the hollow and the remote gleam of white water gave it an extraordinary depth and space. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... with Glastonbury in showing, to the envious and credulous world, a thorn-tree planted by Joseph of Arimathaea, and blossoming always at Christmas, it can fly a bird of greater antiquity, which never flapped its wings elsewhere, so far as I can learn. It may be the lineal descendant of Noah's raven that has come down to this particular community without a cross with any other branch of the family. It is called "The Royston Crow," and is a variety of the genus which you will find in no other country. It is a great, heavy bird, larger than his colored ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... the passengers dined at Raven's Nest, where one Michael Mahoney, Sr., kept a small store and the post-office, running also—with the aid of a young son and a son-in-law—a farm. The store was managed by Michael Mahoney, Jr., a married ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... complication. Nancy, who had chosen the good name of Lillian May, wanted to go with him. She, too, it appeared, was fresh from a Sunday-school book—one in which a girl of her own age was so proud of her long raven curls that she was brought to an illness and all her hair came out. There was a distressing picture of this little girl after a just Providence had done its work as a depilatory. And after she recovered from the fever, it seemed, she had cared to do nothing but ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Presently he let it fall, and from that satchel which he wears about his neck drew out another tress of hair—oh! Simbri, my uncle, the loveliest hair that ever eyes beheld, for it was soft as silk, and reached from my coronet to the ground. Moreover, no raven's wing in the sunshine ever shone as did ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... fraudulent in their dealings. The vulture, which follows an army, expecting to feed on the carcases of the slain, signifies those who like others to die or to fight among themselves that they may gain thereby. Birds of the raven kind signify those who are blackened by their lusts; or those who lack kindly feelings, for the raven did not return when once it had been let loose from the ark. The ostrich which, though a bird, cannot fly, and is always on the ground, signifies ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... before Christianity had found its way so far North, the bird which influenced the people most was the raven. He was credited with much knowledge, as well as with the power to bring good or bad luck. One of the titles of Odin was "Raven-god," and he had as messengers two faithful ravens, "who could speak all manner of tongues, and flew on his behests to the uttermost ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... step was crossing to the door. But though her glance took sharp cognizance of the sleeper, it was sharp too for the waking man; and when he touched her hand with his, and in spite of all his caution, made a chinking, golden sound, it was as bright and greedy as a raven's. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... venomous snake, gave them entrance to a gloomy hall, draped in black, which the "hundred lights" failed to brighten. In the hall a hundred knights of "marble white" lay sleeping by their steeds of "marble black as the raven's back." At the end of the hall, guarded by two huge skeleton forms, the imprisoned lady was seen in tears within a crystal tomb. One skeleton held in his bony fingers a horn, the other a "falchion bright," and the knight was told to choose ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... and Gertie's reciting, Merle croaks like a raven, you and Chris don't learn singing, Addie's no ear for tune, and the rest of us, as Leddie says, 'have no puff'. I'm glad Rona can do something well for the school. She's been here three terms, and she's as much a Woodlander ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... strange couple—a dove and a raven. Well, I am glad that you did not catch his temper, or you would be more dangerous even than you are. Now, what do you want me ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... hair. That's the wife of Senator Colman—his child wife, so they call her. She came to Washington six years ago as the wife of a member of the House from one of the wild and woolly States, and was notorious then in the hotel corridors on account of her ringletty raven hair and the profusion of rings she wore. She used to make eyes at the hotel guests and romp with her husband's friends in the hotel parlors, which was the theatre of her social activities. Her husband died, and a year ago she married old Senator Colman, old enough ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... interesting characteristics than the Common Crow, being, in many of his actions, very like the Raven, especially in his love for carrion. Like the Raven, he has been known to attack game, although his inferior size forces him to call to his assistance the aid of his fellows to cope with larger creatures. Rabbits ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... diplomatic pedagogue that ever let his favorite pupils whisper all they pleased, and banged the floor with the other sinners; but, to the boy, he seemed a little, arrogant bit of bumptiousness, who strutted about the schoolroom and was especially fond of hearing himself read aloud. "The Raven" was his favorite selection, and he read it no less than thirteen times during ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... certainly did not approve, because she was a woman and in love. It was only a pictured head she saw, but the head was that of a very beautiful girl, whose face smiled from the canvas in a subtle, defiant way, as if aware of its wild loveliness. The raven hair streamed straightly down to the shoulders—for the bust of the model was slightly indicated—and there, bunched out into curls. A red and yellow handkerchief was knotted round the brows, and ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... descended to the palace court. On the stairs they saw a magpie and a raven. The raven cried; "Fight it out, fight it out!" the magpie, "Do not fight!" This made the Prince laugh. The rivals scarcely noticed ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... evening was a fine one, and the setting sun displayed its melancholy splendors above the hills of Montmartre. Jacques remained pensively at his window listening to the winged chorus of spring harmony which added to his sadness. Seeing a raven fly by uttering a croak, he thought of the days when ravens brought food to Elijah, the pious recluse, and reflected that these birds were no longer so charitable. Then, not being able to stand it any longer, he closed his window, ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... need'st not dread the raven in the sky; Night and day thou art safe,—our cottage is hard by. Why bleat so after me? why pull so at thy chain? Sleep—and at break of day I will ...
— Phebe, the Blackberry Girl - Uncle Thomas's Stories for Good Children • Anonymous
... was leaving his spacious house and grounds at Hampstead, selling half his furniture and moving into a third storey flat at Battersea, I wrote at once. I received in reply one of his usual barely decipherable scrawls: "Yes, old dear, you might find a home for my raven; it's ancient and a bit rusty, but lots of life in it yet. I'm parting with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 3rd, 1920 • Various
... striking her hand upon her brow, cried—'Jonathan Moor! ye cruel man! ye disregarder of the warnings of her whose life is as the shadow of your life! said I not that the hound was howling, and the raven was flapping its wings for a feast?—yet ye would not listen to my voice! And my brother!—where is my brother?—the son of my mother—more headstrong and foolish than yoursel'! Ye daurna answer, and ye needna answer. He is dead! The horse of Cunningham have trampled on his body, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... again, "one day a large raven flew into one of the windows of her villa at Isleworth, she was persuaded that it was the soul of the departed monarch, and received and treated it with all the respect and tenderness of duty, till the Royal bird or she took their ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... beacon's flame; The streams ran crimson, the tall mountain pines Rose a new forest o'er embattled lines; The bloodless sickle lent the warrior's steel, The harvest bowed beneath his chariot wheel; Where late the wood-dove sheltered her repose The raven waited for the conflict's close; The cuirassed sentry walked his sleepless round Where Daphne smiled or Amaryllis frowned; Where timid minstrels sung their blushing charms, Some wild Tyrtaeus called ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... dwellings. Two turnpikes, leading from Washington and Alexandria to Winchester, intersect at this point. Bluemont is a popular summer resort, and lies within a very short distance of both the "Bears' Den" and "Raven Rocks," jutting points on the western slope of the Blue Ridge, from which magnificent views may be had of the Shenandoah valley and river and the Alleghany and North mountains. The town has a population of 200, 14 of which number ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... Christmas time," said Farquharson, "that the King sent a message over the sea, granting him a pardon for the part he had taken in '45, for you know he was out then. The Sea Raven was about to clear in a week for Glasgow, and a sudden longing seemed to seize him to see once more the dash of the waters through the Braes of Mar and the heather-crowned hills of old Aberdeen; and so, within ...
— The Tory Maid • Herbert Baird Stimpson
... if not unwilling to be beaten. At length, after a ride of twenty miles over the plain, in which the husbandman, with plough as old in its form as the Georgics, was turning up a soil rich, black, and glossy as the raven's wing, we arrived at Pignerolo, a town on the borders of the ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... his penny pelf, And take a dream 'mong rushes Stygian, It could not be so phantasied. Fierce, wan, And tyrannizing was the lady's look, 510 As over them a gnarled staff she shook. Oft-times upon the sudden she laugh'd out, And from a basket emptied to the rout Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick And roar'd for more; with many a hungry lick About their shaggy jaws. Avenging, slow, Anon she took a branch of mistletoe, And emptied on't a black dull-gurgling phial: Groan'd one and all, as if some piercing trial ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... see all that pomp and parade of wealth and luxury in contrast with the misery, squalid, agonizing, ruffianly, which stares one in the face in every street of London, and hoots at the gates of her palaces more ominous a note than ever was that of owl or raven in the portentous times when empires and races have crumbled and fallen ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... herself, knitting in hand, by the little white bed, and Jinty listened to the stories she loved best of all, those of the days when her father was a little boy and played under the great elms of Old Studley with Mike, the ancient raven, that some people declared was a hundred years old at least. He was little more than a dream-father, for he had been for most of Jinty's little life away in far-off China in the diplomatic service. Her sweet, young, gentle mother Jinty did not remember at all, for she ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... name of Tom Rowley (after one of the officers of the regiment). He had accompanied Mr. Raven, in the Britannia, to Bengal, in the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... before their eyes, and dashed in pieces upon the floor of the senate-house passing at the same time a decree to obliterate his titles every where, and abolish all memory of him. A few months before he was slain, a raven on the Capitol uttered these words: "All will be well." Some person gave the following interpretation of ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
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