"Darkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... caught old Lanciotto's reins, Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, Making a clattering halt in all that speed:— 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. 'Come!'—and he dug ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad, curiosity dominated his complex hesitations, and he stole back into his darkling sitting-room. He paused in the doorway. The stranger was still in the same attitude, dark against the window. Save for the singing of some sailors aboard one of the little slate-carrying ships in the harbour the evening was very still. Outside, the spikes of ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... raised his eyes to those of Megabyzus, he saw them filled with a strange fire—eyes like those of an evil spirit, gleaming behind the living windows of darkling hue. It was but for a moment, and the priest ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... that dirty Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again; and the choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Marveling at all things—windmills gaily turning, Apples for the cider-press, ruby-hued and gold; Tails of rabbits twinkling, scarlet berries burning, Wedge of geese high-flying in the sky's clear cold, Light in little windows, field and furrow darkling; Home again returning, hungry as a hawk; Whistling up the garden, ruddy-cheeked and sparkling, Oh, but I am happy as I ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... caves and moaning dales To piercing screes of purple gloom, Where gurgling sighs and rasping moans,— Each bloody vampyre's home of loam As life-tides drip to scarlet vales,— Unshadowed haunts of darkling Doom! Add terror to the rasping groans That roaring surfs of rubic blood Fling to each afrite's acrid crypt. And mildewed skulls and ashen bones That lie before each pillared mount, Speak tidings of a leprous flood. And where giants' carcants flare and sit, ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... Smile! As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam: What time, in sickly mood, at parting day 5 I lay me down and think of happier years; Of joys, that glimmer'd in Hope's twilight ray, Then left me darkling in a vale of tears. O pleasant days of Hope—for ever gone! Could I recall you!—But that thought is vain. 10 Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone To lure the fleet-wing'd Travellers back again: Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam Like the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Is sought and understood After the narrow mode the mighty Heavens prefer? She, as a little breeze Following still Night, Ripples the spirit's cold, deep seas Into delight; But, in a while, The immeasurable smile Is broke by fresher airs to flashes blent With darkling discontent; And all the subtle zephyr hurries gay, And all the heaving ocean heaves one way, 'Tward the void sky-line and an unguess'd weal; Until the vanward billows feel The agitating shallows, and divine the goal, And to foam ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... it goes, stands the bridge all sparkling; And his mind bewilder'd grows, and his eye swims darkling. Wakening, giddying, then comes in, with a deadly fright, Memory of all his sin, rushing on his sight. But when forward steps the just, he is safe e'en here: Round him gathers holy trust, and drives back his fear. Each good deed's a mist, that wide, golden borders gets; And for him the bridge, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... to the husbanding rams how they bleat to the shade! Or behear ye the birds, at the Goddess' command how they sing unafraid!— Be it harsh as the swannery's clamour that shatters the hush of the lake; Be it dulcet as where Philomela holds darkling the poplar awake, So melting her soul into music, you'd vow 'twas her passion, her own, She chanteth—her sister forgot, with the Daulian crime long-agone. Hush! Hark! Draw around to the circle . . . Ah, loitering Summer, say when For me shall be broken the charm, that I chirp with the swallow ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... lukewarm and conforming souls Mrs. Nitschkan cast a darkling eye. It was the recalcitrant, the defiant, the professing sinner upon whom she ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... her appreciation of his identity. The more picturesque and decorative phases of his character had been presented to her, doubtless, by the docile and transparent Bertie—by letter, possibly. The less approved side (concerning which Bertie's own conception was in all likelihood darkling enough still) had probably come to her—also by letter—from Bertie's ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... to the social circle. But what profession affords such scope for varied incident as that of the soldier? Change of clime, danger, vicissitude, love, war, privation one day, profusion the next, darkling dangers, and sparkling joys! Zounds! there's nothing like the life of a soldier! and, by the powers! I'll give you a song ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... country to where the ship rocked at the pier of Leith. They must have got down to some dark spot on the northern slopes, where there would be no city watchman or late passer-by to give the alarm, and all would be clear and still before them to the water's edge—though a long, weary, and darkling way. ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... recompense Heaven hath in store for those who pursue the paths of real virtue; those paths from which I myself have been fatally misled by a faithless vapour, which hath seduced my steps, and left me darkling in the abyss of wretchedness. Such as you describe this happy fair, was once my Serafina, rich in every grace of mind and body which nature could bestow. Had it pleased Heaven to bless her with a lover like Renaldo! but no more, the irrevocable ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... a fire upon my grave When I am dead. 'Twill softly shed its beaming rays, To guide the soul its darkling ways; And ever, as the day's full light Goes down and leaves the world in night, These kindly gleams, with warmth possest, Shall show my spirit where to rest When I ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... his figure loom; And naught aroused me save his weeping voice of tender tone * And whispered I, 'Fair fall thy foot and welcome and well come!' His cheek I kissed a thousand times, and yet a thousand more; * Then clipt and clung about his breast enveiled in darkling room. And cried, 'Now verily I've won the aim of every wish * So praise and prayers to Allah for this grace now best become.' Then slept we even as we would the goodliest of nights * Till morning came to end our night and light up earth ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... o'er the earth a darkling cloud appears, And grows in blackness till the scathing shaft Comes forth with swelling thunder, so the cloud, Black unto bursting with the wrath divine, Hung o'er the head of Israel's erring King. The light of heavenly faith from him was gone, And life was full of dreary, dark despair. Outstretched ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... rough mountain where I stood, Homesick for happiness, Only a narrow valley and a darkling wood To cross, and then the long distress Of solitude would be forever past,— I should be home at last. But not too soon! oh, let me linger here And feed my eyes, hungry with sorrow, On all this loveliness, so near, And ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... "Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... a sarcastic smile still on her lips. In the lower hall stood Mr. Edwards, the valet, disconsolately gazing at the threatening prospect. He turned around, and his dull eyes lighted up at sight of this darkling vision of beauty—for Mr. Parmalee was by no means the only gentleman with the good taste ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... will blame him if his thought recurred, At such a time, to England and the maid Beloved, to whom he gave his plighted word Ere parting? Who will wonder at the shade Of sorrow darkling on his troubled brow, As he reflects on ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one or two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would have observed with real interest.) And all this while of freezing suspense was but the criminal's detention ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... good-naturedly; and went into the gallery, giving an arm to his lady. They passed thence through the music-gallery, long since dismantled, and Queen Elizabeth's rooms, in the clock-tower, and out into the terrace, where was a fine prospect of sunset, and the great darkling woods with a cloud of rooks returning; and the plain and river with Castlewood village beyond, and purple hills beautiful to look at—and the little heir of Castlewood, a child of two years old, was already here on the terrace ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... These I reserved to take an early opportunity of reading, but replaced for the present, and, having come at last upon one hopeful-looking key, I made haste to return before my candle, which was already flickering in the socket, should go out altogether, and leave me darkling. When I reached the kitchen, however, I found the grey dawn already breaking. I retired once more to my chamber, and was ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... what is more, I do not want to,' Andrea retorted stubbornly, enveloping her in a darkling look in which burned the fever of his desire. 'All I know is that you were mine once—wholly and without reserve, and I know that body and soul I shall ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... heardest her, but nigh; Nigh, 'twixt the waste's edge and the darkling sky. Turn back again, too soon it ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... trees, lindens, acacias, chestnuts, a flat-topped Lombardy pine, a darkling ilex, besides the willow that overhung the river, and the poplars that stiffly stood along its border. Then there was the peacock-blue river itself, dancing and singing as it sped away, with a thousand diamonds flashing on its surface—floating, sinking, rising—where the sun caught ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... movement, gave his hand To each in turn, and said, "You must not stand Longer, young ladies, in this open door. The air is heavy with a cold damp chill. We shall have rain to-morrow, or before. Good night." He vanished in the darkling shade; And so the dreaded evening found an end, That saw me grasp the conscience-whetted blade, And strike a blow for ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... called upon his child: No voice replied. Trembling and anxiously He searched their couch of straw; with headlong haste Trod round his stinted limits, and, low bent, Groped darkling on the earth:—no child was there. Again he called: again, at farthest stretch Of his accursed fetters, till the blood Seemed bursting from his ears, and from his eyes Fire flashed, he strained with arm extended far, And fingers widely spread, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... 'neath each blossom a fay lies dreaming? Or is it on yonder silver lake Where the fish in green and gold are sparkling? Or is it among those ancient trees Where the tremulous shadows move soft and darkling? Oh, no! said the moon, with a playful smile, The best of my beams are for ever dwelling In the exquisite eyes, so deeply blue, And the eloquent ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... stand it no longer. The game was up, the cosmic game for which I had laboured so long and strenuously, and with one despairing yell of "Ulla! Ulla!" I unfastened the chain, and, leaping over the limp and prostrate form of the unhappy Tibbles, fled darkling ...
— The War of the Wenuses • C. L. Graves and E. V. Lucas
... should danger come? We are at peace with all. Our former foe Is now our dearest friend; the Prince Asander, Though of a hasty spirit and high temper, Dwells in such close, concordant harmony With his loved wife that he is wholly ours; And yet though thus at peace, rumours of war And darkling plots beset us. Is it not thus? Have ye ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... bird, who midst the leafy bower Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night, With her sweet brood, impatient to descry Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, In the fond quest unconscious of her toil: She, of the time prevenient, on the spray, That overhangs their couch, with wakeful gaze Expects the sun; nor ever, till ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... they made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed of most consequence was a strange, down- looking old man. He kept mumbling prayers with his lips; but as he looked upon me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore the burthen of the chaunt, were stout, brutal, military-looking men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes; they sang with some lustiness, and trolled forth 'Ave Mary' like a garrison catch. The little ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson
... snatched up by servers, who distributed them in smaller bundles to the hungry boys; who flung down metal discs in exchange and fled, fled madly as though fiends were after them, through a third door, out of the pandemonium into the darkling street. And unceasingly the green papers appeared at the hole in the wall and unceasingly they were plucked away and borne off by those maddened children, whose destination was apparently Aix or Ghent, and whose wings were ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... valleys the great road ran, straightaway for league upon league, turning aside for no obstacle, invincible as its builders, ancient and enduring. It crossed rivers, it clove through darkling woods, it traversed wide and lonely wastes, and led past walled towns, worn by the feet of marching legions, scored with the grooves of wheels. And even as across the world all roads led to Rome, so here did all roads lead to Londinium, and ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Around us far the Rushy Moors are spread: Soon will the Sun withdraw her chearful Ray: Darkling and tir'd we shall the Marshes tread, No Lay unsung to ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... ascended, to a daffodil tinge; this afterward heightened to orange, deepening at one extremity into red, and fading at the other into a pure, ethereal hue to which it would be difficult to assign a special name. Higher up the sky was violet, and this changed by insensible degrees into the darkling blue of the zenith, which had to thank the light of moon and stars alone for its existence. We wound steadily for a time through valleys of ice, climbed white and slippery slopes, crossed a number of crevasses, and after some time found ourselves beside a chasm of great depth and width, which ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume VI • Various
... to his lady. They passed thence through the music-gallery, long since dismantled, and Queen Elizabeth's rooms, in the clock-tower, and out into the terrace, where was a fine prospect of sunset and the great darkling woods with a cloud of rooks returning, and the plain and river with Castlewood village beyond, and purple hills beautiful to look at; and the little heir of Castlewood, a child of two years old, was already here on the ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the naked body of a man, flickered ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... re-enacted in his mind, and haunted his dreams. In the night, at early dawn, at odd moments of his eternal quest, the curtain of his mind would rise on that unforgettable scene—the cliffs, the rocks, the darkling outline of Flint House, with a feeble beam of light slanting down from the upstairs window at the back which looked out on the sea. Then the gush of light from the open door, and her shape stealing forth into the darkness, followed by another—Thalassa's. ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... blithe eagerness of the morning are over, the solid hours of sturdy progress are gone, the heat of the day is past, and only the gentle descent among the shadows remains, with cool airs blowing from darkling thickets, laden with woodland scents, and the rich fragrance of rushy dingles. Ere the night falls the wayfarer will push the familiar gate open, and see the lamplit windows of home, with the dark chimneys and gables outlined against the green sky. Those that love him are awaiting him, listening ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... bit does remorse seize on Tim Cannon, being a person of no moral convictions whatever; and as for dread and disappointment—one moment he steadies his darkling blue eyes on the aspect of them, and the next is racing after the car, swinging aboard, and setting the brakes, though the wheels lock and coast on down the rails, slippery with rain. For it is not the nature of him to falter or to parley with fortune—when ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams—so to me, in the strict embrace of the Shadow came that light which alone might have had power to startle—the light of enduring Love. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there descended the coffin ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... of things to which it is directed. The great planet that moves on the outmost circle of our system was discovered because that next it wavered in its course in a fashion which was inexplicable, unless some unknown mass was attracting it from across millions of miles of darkling space. And there are 'perturbations' in our spirits which cannot be understood, unless from them we may divine that far-off and unseen world, that has power from afar to sway in their orbits the little lives of mortal men. It draws us to itself—but, alas! the attraction may ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... I dare not tell him all The evil that my boding heart predicts! Who's there? The door ne'er opens, but I look For tidings of mishap. Suspicion lurks With darkling treachery in every nook. Even to our inmost rooms they force their way, These myrmidons of power; and soon we'll need To fasten bolts and bars upon ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ...
— A Wonderful Night; An Interpretation Of Christmas • James H. Snowden
... found somewhere and used for a counterpane was a magnificent combination of white and crimson between the gleaming surfaces of dark wood; and the whole room had an air of splendour with marble consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors and a sumptuous Venetian lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants catching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-branched candelabra standing on a little table near the head of a sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace. ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... and dark about the lighthouse rings and glares the night; Glares with foam-lit gloom and darkling fire of storm and spray, Rings with roar of winds in chase and rage of waves in flight, Howls and hisses as with mouths of snakes and wolves at bay. Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard, Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea: Storm is lord and master ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the night, up sprang the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas By each ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... above my lair, till I was feart that folk wid see them, and come peering down and get me. But a herrin' skiff took me away from that place in the dark of the night, and I drifted to the warm South Seas and the darkling women and the white glistening houses; but she came with me, she that had died. I would be seeing her rising before the bows o' the ship, rising from the sea, and waving on me to follow, and the weather was worse and worse at her every coming. An' there was a man o' the Western Isles in ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... not speak. A stone could have been no colder as she stood in the light of the fire, her face still and strong, the eyes darkling, luminous. There was on her the dignity of the fearless, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... us, Lord, as the daylight comes When the darkling night has gone, And the quickened East is tremulous With the thrill of ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... of the Sun (Bright cynosure of every darkling sign, Wherein all numbers consummate in One,) Poised on the bolt of an Un-finite line, As one whose spirit's state, Is unafraid but desperate, Through far unfathomed fears, Through Time to timeless years, I soar, ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... hillward the roads are sweet with fern. All day the windless heaven pavilions the sea-blue, Then twilight comes and drenches the sultry dells with dew. The lone white star of evening comes out among the hills, And in the darkling forest begin the whip-poor-wills. The fireflies that wander, the hawks that flit and scream, And all the wilding vagrants of summer dusk and dream, Have all their will, and reck not of any after thing, Inheriting no sorrow and ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... medicine more strong than his," they said, "Stole in last night and gave the fatal wound." The warriors scoured the country miles around, Seeking for sign or trail, but naught they found: The murderer left behind no clue or trace More than a vampire's flight through darkling space. ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... world. Looming giants by moonlight are reduced to very ordinary obstacles by daylight; and the set of desponding thoughts which had weighed upon the young man as he contemplated the inky river and darkling country, seemed now to belong to another phase of being. Despondent! with the wide free world to work in, and its best prizes lying beside the goal, ready for capture by the steady heart and active hand. Robert felt almost as if that shadowy home in the forest were already built, already peopled ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Darkling, he fixed Malua with his eyes, Noting each shadow of his changing thoughts, When the dear dreams centred on Taka, dreams Dimming his sight. Holding his lips apart, He slowly rose, Uhila following, For in the dark the music of her face Smote on the boy till he could bear no more The feasting ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... tea being over, she folds her arms, (an attitude which becomes her mightily,) and, still sitting on the door-step, gossips away the evening in comfortable idleness, while her father and I indulge in the fragrant pipe, and watch the lights shining out, one by one, in different quarters of the darkling bay: at these moments she is as pretty, as cheerful, as careless as it becomes a sensible woman to be. What a pride the Captain takes in his daughter! And she, in return, how perfect is her devotion to the old man! He is proud of her grace, of her tact, of her good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... more; methought I saw that flood, Which now so dull and darkling steals, Thick, here and there, with human blood, 35 To turn the ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... Though the fountain cease to play, Dew must glitter near the brink, Though the weary mind decay, As of old it thought so must it think. Leave alone the darkling eyes Fixed upon the moving skies, Cross the hands upon the bosom, there to rise To the throb of the faith ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... you had a burglar alarm, else I would have rung it. I beg you will not mention it where my parents may hear of it, for they are old and feeble, and such a seemingly wanton breach of the hallowed conventionalities of our Christian civilization might all too rudely sunder the frail bridge which hangs darkling between the pale and evanescent present and the solemn great deeps of the eternities. May I trouble you ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and wood —Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters Betraying the close kisses of the wind— And win him unto me: and few there be So gross of heart who have not felt and known A higher than they see: They with dim eyes Behold me darkling. Lo! I have given thee To understand my presence, and to feel My fullness; I have fill'd thy lips with power. I have rais'd thee higher to the Spheres of Heaven, Man's first, last home: and thou with ravish'd sense Listenest the lordly music flowing from ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... Toward sundown she wheeled her big bony roan into a cow path which twisted through alders for a mile or two, emerging at length on a vast stretch of rolling country, where rounded hills glimmered golden in the rays of the declining sun. Tall underbrush flanked the slopes; little streams ran darkling through the thickets; the ground was moist, even on the ridges; and she could not hope to cover the deep imprint of her ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... The darkling day that gave its bloodred birth To Milton's white republic undefiled That might endure so few fleet years on earth Bore in him likewise as divine a child; But born not less for crowns of love and mirth, Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild, The leaf that girds about ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... beautiful!—thou shalt feel Their eloquent music from thee steal Those darkling thoughts, that should mournfully twine With the light, the life, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! 30 He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... believe, he knows, sees all is well; How God had stayed his will and shaped his way, To bring the light to those that darkling dwell With gains that ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... kinds of poverty which may be nobly accepted and gaily borne; but Vinet, devoured by ambition, and feeling himself guilty towards his wife, was full of darkling rage; his conscience grew elastic; and he finally came to think any means of success permissible. His young face changed. Persons about the courts were sometimes frightened as they looked at his viperish, flat head, his slit mouth, his eyes gleaming through glasses, and heard ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... sun at last Went down to his lodge in the west, and fast The wings of the spirits of night were spread O'er the darkling woods and Wiwaste's head. Then, slyly she slipped from her snug retreat, And guiding her course by Waziya's star, [62] That shone through the shadowy forms afar, She northward hurried with silent feet; And long ere the ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... now he seeks a last retreat Deep in the darkling dell, Where stands, amidst embowering oaks, A hermit's ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... electric light whose intensity can be gradually lessened by means of a sliding resistance. Here, as much as in the natural phenomenon, our reason finds it difficult to acknowledge that the surface gleaming in a whitish sheen should be the one which ordinarily appears as darkling blue, and that the one disappearing into darkness should be the surface which normally presents itself as ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... they saw rocks. Darkling and indistinct they loomed up out of the white opaque light. As the children approached they almost bumped against them. They rose up like walls and were quite perpendicular so that scarcely a flake of snow could ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... darkling glimpse of a large room, apparently quite furnished; but how, except from the general feeling of antiquity and mustiness, I could not tell. Little did I think then what memories—old, now, like the ghosts that with them haunt the place—would ere ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... rounding seasons come and go, The tided oceans ebb and flow; The tokens of a central force, Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and move the universe; The workings of the law whence springs The rhythmic harmony of things, Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Of all I see, in earth and sky,— Star, flower, beast, bird,—what part have I? This conscious life,—is it the same Which thrills the universal frame, Whereby the caverned crystal shoots, And mounts ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... now; when the time comes when we get a glimmer that all life is emairgency and tremblin' peril, that every turn may be the wrong turn—when we can see that our petty system of suns and all is nobbut a wee darkling cockle-boat, driftin' and tossed abune the waves in the outmost seas of an onrushing universe—hap-chance we'll no loom so grandlike in our own een; and we'll tak' hands for comfort in the dark. 'Tis good theology, yon wise saying of the silly street: 'We are all in the same boat. Don't ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... flashes gathered darkling, thick and high, Lines of cranes like gleams of laughter ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... gaunt pines imprison her sad gaze, All still the sky and darkling drearily; She feels the chilly breath of dear, dead days Come sifting through the ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... dull ages boast Aught to compare? tho' now no more beguile— Chain'd in their darkling depths th' infernal host— Who would not brave a fiend to ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks
... cloud reclined, Wake, O soft and sacred Wind! Soft and sacred will we name thee, Whosoe'er the sire that claim thee— Whether old Auster's dusky child, Or the loud son of Eurus wild; Or his who o'er the darkling deeps, From the bleak North, in tempest sweeps; Still shalt thou seem as dear to us As flowery-crowned Zephyrus, When, through twilight's starry dew, Trembling, he hastes ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Like darkling birds her eyelashes Upon her cheek lay fluttering light. Her kirtle's swinging cadences Displayed her limbs of ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... conscious of having passed a swift current, indeed, but quite unthinking of the price paid for their safety. Looking back on the darkling river, they saw nothing of the ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... far away is gliding The pleasant Oxus's stream, I see the green glades darkling, I see the clear pools gleam. I hear the bulbuls calling From blooming tree to tree. Wave, bird, and tree are singing, 'Away! ah, come ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... her window. The market-place of Paimpol, hedged in on all sides by the old-fashioned houses, became sadder and sadder with the darkling; everywhere reigned silence. Above the housetops the still brilliant space of the heavens seemed to grow more hollow, to raise itself up and finally separate itself from all terrestrial things: these, in the last hour of day, were entirely ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... does the water come down at Lodore? Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Here smoking and frothing, Its tumult and wrath in, 5 It hastens along, conflicting and strong; Now striking and raging, As if a war waging, Its caverns and rocks among. Rising and leaping, 10 Sinking and creeping, Swelling and flinging, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... thought toward passion moved with dread, Like one who, hurrying to be wed, Steps, darkling, on ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... thought itself feed not thy thought; nor turn From Sun and Light to gaze At darkling cloisters paved with tombs where rot The ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... page with difficulty in an hour, and usually forced to thrust the stuff away in despair, and go unhappily to bed, conscious that after all his labor he had done nothing. And these were moments when the accustomed vision of the land alarmed him, and the wild domed hills and darkling woods seemed symbols of some terrible secret in the inner life of that stranger—himself. Sometimes when he was deep in his books and papers, sometimes on a lonely walk, sometimes amidst the tiresome chatter of Caermaen "society," he would thrill with a sudden sense of awful hidden things, ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... was not so darkling but Westover could understand that Whitwell attributed Jeff's scholarship to the help of Cynthia, but he would not press him to an open assertion of the fact. There was something painful in it to him; it had the pathos which perhaps most of the success in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... found a shaky voice, after an interval of gulping, though she was unable to lift her eyes, and the darkling lids continued to veil them. She spoke hurriedly, like an ungifted child reciting something committed to memory, but her sincerity was none the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Flaccilla, to you, my father and mother, Here I commend this child, once my delight and my pet, So may the darkling shades and deep-mouthed baying of hellhound Touch not with horror of dread little Erotion dear. Now was her sixth year ending, and melting the snows of the winter, Only a brief six days lacked to the tale of the years. Young, amid dull old age, let her wanton ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... living on together through countless Existences, Periods, and Spheres, we shall progress from majesty to ever-growing majesty! Oh, for the day when you and I, messengers from the Seat of Power, shall sail high above these darkling worlds, and, seeing into each other's souls, shall ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... a shadow, cast a gloom, throw a shadow, spread a shadow, cast gloom, throw gloom, spread gloom. extinguish; put out, blow out, snuff out; doubt. turn out the lights, douse the lights, dim the lights, turn off the lights, switch off the lights. Adj. dark, darksome^, darkling; obscure, tenebrious^, sombrous^, pitch dark, pitchy, pitch black; caliginous^; black &c (in color) 431. sunless, lightless &c (sun) (light), &c 423; somber, dusky; unilluminated &c (illuminate) &c 420 [Obs.]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... amphitheatre. Accordingly, two by two, the bishop leading the way with the sainted woman Anna, they walked to the gates. Here a guard of soldiers was waiting to receive them, and under their escort they threaded the narrow, darkling streets till they came to that door of the amphitheatre which was used by those who were to take part in the games. Now, at a word from the bishop, they began to chant a solemn hymn, and singing thus, were ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... she sees, on the horizon, Something darkle in the sunlight, Something blue upon the billows, Speaks these words in wonder guessing: What is this upon the surges, What this blue upon the waters, What this darkling in the sunlight? 'Tis perhaps a flock of wild-geese, Or perchance the blue-duck flying; Then upon thy wings arising, Fly away to highest heaven. "Art thou then a shoal of sea-trout, Or perchance a school of salmon? Dive then to the deep sea-bottom, In the waters swim and frolic. "Art ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... shone brightly at intervals. A fresh breeze swept the wide expanse streaked with purple and green and turned an occasional broken wave-crest toward the western light. Some large cumuli were abroad—white, or less white, or even darkling,—the first ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... lingering blue and scarlet berries stirring, though leaflessly, for the kiss of spring. And we ought to retain the invincible green of cedars, junipers and box, cypress, laurel, hemlock spruce and cloaking ivy, darkling amid and above these, receiving from and giving to them a cheer which neither could have in their frostbound Eden without ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... more! His bones now whiten an accursed shore!— Retire,—for hark! the seagull shrieking soars, The lurid atmosphere portentous lours; Night's sullen spirit groans in every gale, And o'er the waters draws the darkling veil, Sighs in thy hair, and chills thy throbbing breast— Go wretched mourner!—weep thy griefs to rest! "Yet, though through life is lost each fond delight, Though set thy earthly sun in dreary night, Oh! raise thy thoughts to yonder starry plain, And own thy sorrow selfish, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... alarming and painful to me; a fair—strae death out of the maintop, or off the weather—yard arm, would to my imagination have been an easy exit comparatively; but to be choked in this abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind puppy—the very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about, until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder, from the bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee—side of the cabin, quiet, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... would read Michelet's Louis Quatorze et la Revocation de l'Edit de Nantes. I read it out in the garden, and the autumnal trees and weather, and my own autumnal humour, and the pitiable prolonged tragedies of Madame and of Moliere, as they look, darkling and sombre, out of their niches in the great gingerbread facade of the Grand Age, go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... green peaks across which hung a bluish haze showed themselves between the hills. The latter were more precipitous; and the brush had now given way to pines of better size and quality than those seen lower down. The river foamed over rapids or ran darkling in pools and stretches. Along the roadside, rarely, we came upon rough-looking log cabins, or shacks of canvas, or tents. The owners were not at home. We thought them miners; but in the light of subsequent knowledge I believe that unlikely—the ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... sudden he checked. It was exactly as though he had run his head into a noose on the end of a snare line made fast to one of the darkling trees which skirted his path on the right-hand side. Here the scent which he followed left the trail almost at right angles, ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... embers of the day are red Beyond the murky hill. The kitchen smokes: the bed In the darkling house is spread: The great sky darkens overhead, And the great woods are shrill. So far have I been led, Lord, by Thy will: So far I have followed, Lord, ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... judge. The great barn-like doors were flung wide open, and there was a group of men half within the shelter and half without; the shoeing-stool, a broken plough, an empty keg, a log, and a rickety chair sufficed to seat the company. The moonlight falling into the door showed the great slouching, darkling figures, the anvil, the fire of the forge (a dim ashy coal), and the shadowy hood merging indistinguishably into the deep duskiness of the interior. In contrast, the scene glimpsed through the low window at the back of the shop had a certain vivid illuminated ...
— The Riddle Of The Rocks - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... love when the shy dawn unfoldeth The enchanted radiance of the morning sun— Recall our love when darkling night beholdeth Veiled trains of silvery stars pass one by one, When wild thy bosom palpitates with pleasure, Or when the shades of night lull thee in dreamy measure; Then lend a willing ear To murmurings far and ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... some pest of water, Hither drifted by the sea-waves, 370 Let the pest return to water, Journey back amid the sea-waves, To the walls of muddy castles, To the crests of waves like mountains, There amid the waves to welter, Rocking on the darkling billows. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... crests, the undulating, barren plains no longer spoke of a boundless freedom and the elemental battle. These things had become something to forget in the absorbing claim of a life to come, wherein the harshness of battle had no place. The darkling woods, scarce trodden by the foot of man, no longer possessed the mystic charm of childhood's fancy. The trackless wastes held only threat, upon which watchful eyes would now gladly close. The stirring glacial fields of summer, monsters of the ages, boomed out ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Sparkling and darkling, dust of the milky way, Shifting and drifting, firefly legions at play; Fading and glowing, lights of a starry maze, Coming and going, drift ...
— The Last West and Paolo's Virginia • G. B. Warren
... world I should foreknow Up into which I was about to rise— Its rains, its radiance, airs, and warmth, and skies, How it would greet me, how its wind would blow— As little, it may be, I do know the good Which I for years half darkling have pursued— The second birth for which my ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... Darkling I sing. Ere Tuesday's hour for tea Shall set this doggerel in the glare of day, He who adjured us still to "wait and see," He will have tweaked the mystic veil away, And you will know—whatever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... where Phrygian Ilus lies. Now, in their sunset home on Libya's heel, Phoenicia's sons unwonted chillness feel: Now, with his targe of willow at his breast, The Syracusan bears his spear in rest, Amongst these Hiero arms him for the war, Eager to fight as warriors fought of yore; The plumes float darkling o'er his helmed brow. O Zeus, the sire most glorious; and O thou, Empress Athene; and thou, damsel fair, Who with thy mother wast decreed to bear Rule o'er rich Corinth, o'er that city of pride Beside whose walls Anapus' waters glide:— May ill winds waft across ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... they reached the little town, but the west was blood-red above the ridge, with the moor all darkling purple. ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... had the beams of the sun vanished from the broad horizon, than a small, gentle rain began to fall, and the light as well as brightness of the day became obscured by darkling clouds. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... mouldering towers, and mediaeval palazzi with carved doorways or rich loggias. But whichever way they turned dusty roads too confronted them, illimitable stretches of gloomy suburb, unwholesome airs, sickening sights and sounds and perfumes. Narrow streets swept, darkling, under pointed archways, that framed distant vistas of spire or campanile, silhouetted against the solid blue sky of Italy. The crystal hardness of that sapphire firmament repelled Herminia. They passed beneath the ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... equall'd with them in renown, Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace; Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides, And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... saw her sitting there, the breeze blowing tendrils of bright hair about her face, her strong, lithe hands clasped youthfully about her knees, her beautiful eyes darkling or brightening with the thoughts that passed, could not have connected her with the mere ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... To Molus as a hospitable pledge; He gave it to Meriones his son, And now it guarded shrewd Ulysses' brows. 320 Both clad in arms terrific, forth they sped, Leaving their fellow Chiefs, and as they went A heron, by command of Pallas, flew Close on the right beside them; darkling they Discern'd him not, but heard his clanging plumes.[11] 325 Ulysses in the favorable sign Exulted, and Minerva thus invoked.[12] Oh hear me, daughter of Jove AEgis-arm'd! My present helper in all straits, whose eye Marks all my ways, oh with peculiar care 330 Now guard me, Pallas! grant ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... said he, "my heart was in my mouth. As I comed along to you, I saw Mun, coachey, pop along from the back-door to the stables. He was within a hop, step, and jump of me. But he had a lanthorn in his hand, and he did not see me, being as I was darkling." Saying this, he assisted Miss Melville to mount. He troubled her little during the route; on the contrary, he was remarkably silent and contemplative, a circumstance by no means disagreeable to Emily, to whom his conversation ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... of men broke into the courtyard, Brian fired the remaining three cannon as fast as he could touch linstock to powder. The bullet-hail tore the front ranks to shreds, but through the darkling smoke-cloud he saw other men come leaping, and knew that the game ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones
... that heartless, cold expression All my being terrifies— Though my darkling fear is lessened By thy frank ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... been precipitated into the Seine so unexpectedly and with such violence he kept control of his wits: he did not utter a cry as he fell head foremost into the darkling river. He was an excellent swimmer: all aching as he was, he let himself go with the current and presently reached the sheltering arch of the Pont Neuf. There he took ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... represent the story of Adonis and Erys but do not take the duty of historian very seriously. Both are lovely, with a mellow sunset lighting the scene. Here and there in the glorious landscape occurs a nymph, the naked flesh of whom burns with the reflected fire; here and there are lovers, and among the darkling trees beholders of the old romance. The picture remains in the vision much ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... Suppose a necessary errand to occur, suppose it imperative to send abroad, the messenger must then go openly, advertising himself to the police with a huge brand of cocoa-nut, which flares from house to house like a moving bonfire. Only the police themselves go darkling, and grope in the night for misdemeanants. I used to hate their treacherous presence; their captain in particular, a crafty old man in white, lurked nightly about my premises till I could have found it in my heart to beat him. But the rogue ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse That veils the noonday,—you whose finger-tips A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. This wreath of verse how dare I offer you To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the life wore upon him; and his journal apparently ceased during the whole bucolic experience. How joyously his mind begins to disport itself again with fancies, the moment he leaves the association, even temporarily! And in 1842, as soon as he is fairly quit of it, the old darkling or waywardly gleaming stream of thought and imagination flows freshly, untamably forward. Hawthorne remained with the Brook Farm community nearly a twelvemonth, a small part of which time was spent in Boston. Some of the letters which his sisters ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... The silver of the eastern sky changed to gold, deeper and deeper, till the yellow merged into a roseate sheen which shone down upon the cloud mists, and tinged them with the hue of blood. Light was over the darkling forests, and as it brightened the voice of the forest legions died away in the distance, and the battleground was deserted of all but the author ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... Darkling{7} I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... three-pronged spear He holds, the sceptre of his fear, And with the other shakes the reins Of his steeds, with foamy, flowing manes, And coures o'er the brine; And when he lifts his trident mace, Broad Ocean crisps his darkling face, And mutters wrath divine; The big waves rush with hissing crest, And beat the shore with ample breast, And ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... or later, far out in the night, The stars shall over me wing their flight; Sooner or later my darkling dews Catch the white spark in their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... did in its numberless changing moods. What unutterable loneliness spoke to the soul in those unknown leagues of tossing sea! how far the eye wandered unchecked, searching vainly for aught to rest upon other than glistening surge or darkling hollow! The mystery of the ages lay unexpressed in those tossing billows, sweeping in out of the black east, making low moan to the unsympathetic and unheeding sky. Deeper and deeper the spirit of unrest, of doubt, of brooding discontent, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... camp-cot stripped of bedding, a dresser with half-open drawers that disclosed emptiness, a dusty book-rack standing on the floor. The little mirror on the tent-pole, hung too high for her own reflection, held a darkling picture of a pine-bough against a patch of stars. She sat on the edge of the cot and picked up a discarded necktie, sawing it across her knee mechanically to free it from the dust. Her husband placed himself beside her. His weight brought down the mattress and rocked her against his ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... now peers Out of darkling clouds. The sad, Sleepless waterfalls forever Roar into ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... good old Sandwich town! Abode of silence and sweet summer dreams— Let speculation pass, nor progress touch Thy silvan homes with hard, unhallowed hand! The light wind whispers, and the air is rich With vapours which exhale into the night; And, round me here, this village in the leaves Darkling doth slumber. How those giant pears Loom with uplifted and high-ancient heads, Like forest trees! A hundred years ago They, like their owner, had their roots in France— In fruitful Normandy—but here refuse Unlike, ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... shadow which she knew was the reflection of a homeward-bound hawk in the skies higher yet. Leaves floated in a still, deep pool, were caught in a maddening eddy, and hurried frantically away, unwilling, frenzied, helpless, unknowing whither, never to return,—allegory of many a life outside those darkling solemn mountain woods, and of some, perhaps, in the midst of them. The reflection of the cliffs in the never still current, of the pines on their summits, of the changing sky growing deeper and deeper, till its amber tint, erstwhile ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock |
