"Mirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cliffs, across our hollowing bays Thicker the light-ship beacons flash, the lighthouse lanterns blaze. From sweep to sweep, from steep to steep, our shores are starred with light, Burning across the briny floods through the black mirk of night, Forth-gleaming like the eyes of Hope, or like the fires of Home, Upon the eager eyes of men far-straining o'er the foam. Good! But how greatly less than good to fear, to think, to know That inland England's less alert against a whelming foe Than when bonfire and beacon flared ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... the candle, viewed by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I thought she was one of the maids. Perhaps she was, but she went into an empty set of rooms, and did not come out again. Footsteps are apt to approach the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... day, mother. If I was to du onything no fit i' this His warl', luikin' oot o' the e'en He gae me, wi' the han's an' feet He gae me, I wad jist deserve to be nippit oot at ance, or sent intil the ooter mirk (darkness)!" ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... 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 the larger river in the direction of ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... time Edward had succeeded, after a most stubborn fight, in effecting a terrible breach through Somerset's wing; and the fog continued still so dense and mirk, that his foe itself—for Somerset had prudently drawn back to re-form his disordered squadron—seemed vanished from the field. Halting now, as through the dim atmosphere came from different quarters the many battle-cries of that ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 'It was mirk, mirk nicht and nae starlicht, And they waded through red bluid to the knee; For a' the bluid that 's shed on earth Rins through the springs ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... holy Wareburghus filled my mind, As fair a saint as any town can boast, Or be the earth with light or mirk ywrynde,[4] I see his image walking through the coast: Fitz-Hardynge, Bithrickus, and twenty moe, In vision 'fore my ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... one moment, hoping the next, that her message had not reached him in time, that he would not come—till another night, though she was aware that it must be now or never.... And at last, down below, a mere spark of light moved in the mirk. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... such a stupid,' said Betty stoutly; and they sat together silent in the twilight, missing the little figure that always squeezed up between them during that idle half-hour—''twixt the gloaming and the mirk.' At last Angel stood ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... trees, and no hare or eagle could have kept a more particular watch. When that hour began the sun was already set, but the sky still all golden and the daylight clear; before the hour was done it had fallen to be half mirk, the images and distances of things were mingled, and observation began to be difficult. All that time not a foot of man had come east from Silvermills, and the few that had gone west were honest countryfolk and their wives upon the road ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now gane, a' wha ventured to save; The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave: But the sun thro' the mirk blinks blythe in my e'e, 'I'll shine on ye yet in yere ain countrie.' Hame, hame, hame, hame fain wad I be, Hame, hame, hame, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... saw within that murderous den, The warrior stout, within the prison mirk, Singing the praise of God, and worshiping The angels' King. Alone he sat in grief In that drear dwelling. On this earth once more His brother dear he saw—a holy saint Beheld a holy saint—and hope grew strong. 1010 Up rose ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... is the long 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
... nicht, Mr. Osbaldistone," said a voice which there was no mistaking for that of the Mac-Gregor himself; "we have met at the mirk hour ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... for his eyes were used to the mirk of the Pit, and saw beside him the face of a youth, glimmering white as the dead moon at midday, and shining with tears and sweat of agony; and the lad was tearing at the walls, trying to make a way out; but his hands slipped on the slimy stones, and he ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... not ruinous, although Great ruins of an unremembered past, With others of a few short years ago More sad, are found within its precincts vast. The street-lamps always burn; but scarce a casement 40 In house or palace front from roof to basement Doth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast. ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... Mysie—"ou, she's sitting some gate aneath the dais in the hall, and I am feared to gae in in the dark for the dogle; and if I didna see the bogle, I could as ill see the hen, for it's pit-mirk, and there's no another light in the house, save that very blessed lamp whilk the Master has in his ain hand. And if I had the hen, she's to pu', and to draw, and to dress; how can I do that, and them sitting by the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... meet," was 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
... to. But if Alexander could be so indifferent, he could be determined and ardent. "What's a little mirk and cold? I want to say I've swum in it." He began to unbutton ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... Mustardseed! there squats a pestilent sweet notion in that chamber could spellican but set him capering. Prithee your mousemilk hand on this smooth brow, mistress! Your nectar throbbeth like a blacksmith's anvil. Master Moth, draw you these bristling lashes down, they mirk the stars and call yon nothing Quince to mind—a vain, official knave, in and out, to and fro, play or pleasure; and old Sam Snout, the wanton! Lad's days and all—'twas life, Tittany; and I was ever foremost. They'd bob and crook to me like spaniels at a trencher. Mine was the prettiest ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... she cease to smile, as thy looks say, What if? I shall have drained my splendor down To the last flaming drop! Then take me, darkness, And mirk and mire and black oblivion, Despairs that raven where no camp-fire is, Like the wild beasts. I shall be even ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... rizzon had she for that, gien a' 'at gangs throu' my heid er I fa' asleep i' the lang mirk nichts be a hair better nor ane o' the auld wives' fables 'at fowk says the holy buik maks ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... infatuate, he sees not, neither knows he That we are at his side; So closely round about him, darkly flitting, The cloud of guilt doth glide. Heavily 'tis uttered, how around his hearthstone The mirk of hell doth rise. Stern and fixed the law is; we have hands t'achieve it, Cunning to devise. Queens are we and mindful of our solemn vengeance. Not by tear or prayer Shall a man avert it. In unhonoured darkness, Far from gods, ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... trees, and sows good seed, where the weeds grew. So does GOD, who is called a gardener while He is in man's soul: He rives up sins by the roots, and grafts in that soul virtues and good ways: what was dry He bedews it with grace: what was black and mirk, He makes it white: what was bound, He looses: what was cold, He makes warm with love. By these stirrings, mayst thou know thy Lord is come; by stirring of thy heart, destroying of vices, withdrawing from lusts, amending of life, repenting misdeeds, beginning of a new man in GOD, every day more and ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... 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 of symbolic Masonry at the date from which it speaks, ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... 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 ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday. {148f} She prophesied that, late or soon, Thou wouldst be found deep drowned in Doon! Or catched wi' warlocks i' the mirk, {148a} ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday, Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday— She prophesy'd, that late or soon, Thou wad be found deep drown'd in Doon; Or catch't wi' warlocks in the mirk, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... The simmer-skies are blue; The dawnin' brings the dazzle, An' the gloamin' brings the dew,— The mirk o' nicht the glory O' the moon, an' kindles, too, The stars that shift aboon the lift.— But nae ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... for 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
... proof neared in sight. She had wrought much and suffered more of late, and she knew herself less strong than she had been. When the blue light that hung from a post by the ladder-hole blinked "Home" through the mirk of a night of thin rain and mist-shrouded stars, she knew infinite relief. Her great eyes were as wild and strained as a hunted deer's, and her bosom heaved with her panting breaths. She paused a moment to regain her composure before she ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... wind blaws loud an' shill, [western, keen] The night's baith mirk and rainy, O; [both dark] But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal, An' owre the hill to Nannie, ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson |
