"Mirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be looked for not all men fared alike in fortune, many fled & many who thus made their escape met differing fates. Mirk was it in the evening ere the slaughtering ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... belonged to the Arabian astrologer El Geber, in Spain. Its light was beautiful as the light of stars; and, night after night, as the lonely wight sat alone and read in his lofty tower, through the mist, and mirk, and dropping rain, it streamed out into the darkness, and was seen by many wakeful eyes. To the poor Student Hieronymus it was a wonderful Aladdin's Lamp; for in its flame a Divinity revealed herself unto him, and showed him treasures. Whenever he opened a ponderous, antiquatedtome, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... into his study amang a' his books. It's a lang, laigh, mirk chalmer, perishin' cauld in winter, an' no very dry even in the top o' the simmer, for the manse stands near the burn. Sae doun he sat, and thocht of a' that had come an' gane since he was in Ba'weary, an' his hame, an' the days ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... leave," replied Sandy, "He just droppit oot o' a port-hole into the water after the guard made his rounds and got awa in the mirk; I ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... added by a priest, consisting of one hundred lines in which pious exhortation is mixed with instruction in etiquette, such as lads and even men unaccustomed to polite society and correct deportment would need. These lines were in great part extracted from Instructions for Parish Priests, by Mirk, a manual in use at the time. The whole poem, if so it may be called, is imbued with the spirit of freedom, of gladness, of social good will; so much so, that both Gould and Albert Pike think it points to the existence ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... up the stairs, and though I do not know, there is some reason for thinking that he forgave her all her wickedness in the sweet interspace between the gloaming and the mirk, when the lamps were being lighted on earth, and in heaven the stars ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... an atmosphere unimpregnated with petrol eventually sends me stumbling up the companion-way to the deck. Gripping the rail, I make my way forward, and, peering through the mirk, distinguish a huddled figure in a sou'wester. Aloof, detached, he steers the shrewdest, swiftest path ever carved through a wall of blackness ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... of Arabia In my heart, when out of dreams I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn Descry her gliding streams; Hear her strange lutes on the green banks Ring loud with the grief and delight Of the dim-silked dark-haired Musicians In the brooding ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... it comesna to a'. Ilk ane maun hae the revelation intil his ain sel', as gien there wasna ane mair. And gien it be sae, hoo are we to win at ony trouth no yet revealed, 'cep we gang oot intil the dark to meet it? Ye maun caw canny, I admit, i' the mirk; but ye maun caw gien ye wad win at onything!" "But suppose you know enough to keep going, and do not care to venture into ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... faintest twinkle, or not even that; only something that told there was a light behind drift and darkness. It grew clearer as we looked at it, and again was lost in the mirk, and then ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... mass, Or shouting "Ho! ho!" from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by; But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful flicker of corpse-lights blue, And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... mother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sit with three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at the feet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the eastern fiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day the vaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles guttered under the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lola sat it out like a small thoroughbred, earning ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... a war in a woody place, Lay far across the sea, A war of the march in the mirk midnight And the shot from behind the tree, The shaven head and the painted face, The silent foot in the wood, In a land of a strange, outlandish tongue That was hard to ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... lofty Ochils bright did glow, Though sleepin' was the sun; But mornin's light did sadly show What ragin' flames had done! Oh, mirk, mirk was the misty cloud That hung o'er thy wild wood! Thou wert like beauty in a shroud, And all ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... "Ye hinna the toon mirk rubbed out your een yet, Hamish, or ye would ken the bonny spaewife. I've been watchin' her this ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... all she said; "Ye'll meet when it is mirk." I gave her tippence that I meant for Sabbath-day and kirk; And then I hastened back again; it seemed that never sure The happy sun delay'd so long to gild ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of roofs and railway lines; and the course of ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... and the mirk of night doth help me to my will And seconds me, but the white of dawn ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... black night, With its keen lightnings white, Thunder and floods: new light The glimmering low east streaks. The dense clouds part: between Their jagged rents are seen Pale reaches blue and green, As the mirk curtain breaks. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... the mirk and midnight hour The fairy folk will ride, And they that wad their true-love win, At Miles ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and the shears of his destiny: and standing desperately in the dark at the verge of the abyss, he mentally hurled the three ugly spirits together into his bag, and flung them whirling through the mirk into the lake that burns ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... veritie— They are calling thin an' shrill; We maun rise an' put to sea, We maun gi'e the deid their will, We maun ferry them owre the faem, For they draw us as they list; We maun bear the deid folk hame Through the mirk ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... feared the man before, now she hated him; but hatred had added to her fear instead of replacing it, she remained afraid, desperately afraid, so that even the thought of continuing under the same roof with him was enough to make her prefer to tramp unknown roads alone in the mirk of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... speaking in a well-bred manner, or walking with that air of grace and distinction which was characteristic of her. Such women do not need to preach, and seldom do so. Their lives suggest a torch held high above the common mirk of life. Peter had never imagined for a moment that he was in the least degree good enough for her; but, all the same, he meant to fight for all that he was worth for every single good thing that ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... she stood, its walls Were hung with marble icicles, the work Of ages on its water-fretted halls, Where waves might wash, and seals might breed and lurk; Her hair was dripping, and the very balls Of her black eyes seem'd turn'd to tears, and mirk The sharp rocks look'd below each drop they caught, Which froze to marble as it ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... that Laird Macharg took his halve-net on his back, and his steel spear in his hand, and down to Blawhooly Bay gaed he, and into the water he went right between the two haunted hulks, and placing his net awaited the coming of the tide. The night, ye maun ken, was mirk, and the wind lowne, and the singing of the increasing waters among the shells and the pebbles was heard for sundry miles. All at once lights began to glance and twinkle on board the two Haunted Ships from every hole and seam, and ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... utter dark, as that no eye Shall see the hugg'd impiety. Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And wind all other witnesses; And wilt not thou with gold be tied, To lay thy pen and ink aside, That in the mirk and tongueless night, Wanton I may, and thou not write? —It will not be: And therefore, now, For times to come, I'll make this vow; From aberrations to live free: So I'll not fear the judge, ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... terminated amidships; the helmsman, with his hands upon the spokes, shifted his eyes alternately between the binnacle and the bows, and gave the wheel a turn now this way and now that, while the captain paced cross-wise between the paddle-boxes, and searched the mirk above and ahead to see whether there was any likelihood that ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... were under the surface, looking up through a light so soft that it cast no shadows. And now the dryad took Nora's hand and she found herself in a little boat, no bigger than a leaf, sailing across the pond but still beneath its surface. And here she saw on every hand, working amid the mire and the mirk, such jolly little divers, who were feeding the fish and tending the pond lily roots, and, like all the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... bairn, when ye hae won the croun, use it na' at all, though a' the fiends fra' hell tempted ye, but carry it to the kirkyard at mirk midnight; an' when ye hae cannily lichted a bit bleeze, burn the king's croun, an' say wha' I shall tell ye. "I gie back more than I hae taken, an' I rest on Christ's smercy;" an' then shall ye be safe an' happy if ye fail na' to be constant in ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... on my bonnie byke! My drappie aiblins blinks the noo, An' leesome luve has lapt the dyke Forgatherin' just a wee bit fou. And SCOTIA! while thy rantin' lunt Is mirk and moop with gowans fine, I'll stowlins pit my unco brunt, An' cleek my ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... you draw up to the fire 'betwixt the gloaming and the mirk' of these dull, cold November days, and note the little blue flame playing round the red-hot coals, think kindly of Priestley, for he first told us of the nature of that flame when in the exile to ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... aside runs on to Dumfries and Carlisle; a branch of it keeps along the Ayrshire coast to Ardrossan and Ayr. In a little while we are skimming the surface of a bleak, black moor; it is a dead level, and not in the least interesting: but, after a plunge into the mirk darkness of a long tunnel, we emerge into daylight again; and there, sure enough, are the bright waters of the Clyde. We are on its south side; it has spread out to the breadth of perhaps a couple of miles. That rocky height on its north shore is Dumbarton Castle; that great ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd |
