"Poor-will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The voice of the whip-poor-will complained over the tops of the woodland in near and far cadence through the warm moonlit air. Beside this and the throb of insect voices there was no sound. "I came out this evening," said Finney, "to tell you that last March in Ohio I saw her." His voice ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... shores the notes of an innumerable variety of insects, which filled the air with a strange but not inharmonious concert; while ever and anon was heard the melancholy plaint of the whip-poor-will, who, perched on some lone tree, wearied the ear of night with his incessant moanings. The mind, soothed into a hallowed melancholy, listened with pensive stillness to catch and distinguish each sound that ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... reach the inn at Brockenhurst until about nine o'clock, just at nightfall, and a few minutes before that we heard a nightjar. It did not sound in the least like either our whip-poor-will or our night-hawk, uttering a long-continued call of one or two syllables, repeated over and over. The chaffinch was very much in evidence, continually chaunting its unimportant little ditty. I was pleased to see the bold, masterful missel thrush, the stormcock as it is often ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... swallows scream, Or hens will cackle clear. In robin's song, the whip-poor-will Pours forth his plaint ...
— Mother Truth's Melodies - Common Sense For Children • Mrs. E. P. Miller
... a singular combination, that comfortable room, abounding in all the elegancies of the highest civilization, and that untrodden wilderness in which the whip-poor-will cried and the wild ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... blues; while fathom-deep beneath the shining web of colour gleamed the reflected snows and the forest slopes sliding downwards to infinity. A few bird-notes were in the air—the scream of an eagle, the note of a whip-poor-will, and far away across the lake a dense flight of wild duck rose above a reedy river-mouth, black against a pale band ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Blackbird and Bobolink will fly after you, and make the day more delightful to you. And when you go home tired after sundown Vesper Sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, Fifebird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will sing to you; and even Whip-poor-will will cheer you up a little. We know where we are safe. In a little while all the birds will come to live in Massachusetts again, and everybody who loves music will like to make a summer ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... all the land is still, The purple shadows steal across the hill, And one lone star above a pine-tree's crest Shines ever brighter, while from out its nest There breaks the low cry of the whip-poor-will. ...
— The Rose-Jar • Thomas S. (Thomas Samuel) Jones
... were heard on the bank Of the river's gentle flow; The whip-poor-will sang when the sun had sank, And the hum-drum bee to his home had shrank, When the wind ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... night hovered about him. He heard confusedly the droning of insects, and the distant mournful call of a whip-poor-will. The roar of the car was strangely missing. What had become of it? And where was Arima? These were the first questions he asked himself as he became able to ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... didn't know you were coming to me. I almost wish I could put you back. Just now you should be in such cool mistiness, while you should be hearing a hermit thrush sing vespers, a cedar bird call, and a whip- poor-will cry. But I'm glad I have you! Oh I'm so glad you came to me! I never materialized a whole swamp with such vividness as only this little part of it brings. Douglas, when you caught the first glimpse of these, how far into the swamp ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... patches were mellowed into a pervading gray, which seemed to cover the rocks and woods like a mantle. Clad in this somber robe, the wooded height which rose to the north seemed the more forbidding. Not a sound was to be heard but the voice of a whip-poor-will somewhere. Even Hervey's buoyant nature was subdued ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... grass to run on. But from the black forest wall there came the soughing of the wind and the nocturnal rustle of things unknown. And suddenly there came from close at hand a startling sound: a clarion call that tore the veil lying over my mental vision: the sharp, repeated whistle of the whip-poor-will. And with my mind's eye I saw the dusky bird: shooting slantways upward in its low flight which ends in a nearly perpendicular slide down to within ten or twelve feet from the ground, the bird being closely followed by a second one pursuing. In reality I did not see ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... of any pronounced white marking in the wings, and by the white tips to the outer tail feathers in the present species, while the Night Hawk has a prominent white band across the tail, but the top is black, and the tail slightly forked. The Whip-poor-will, rarely leaves its place of concealment before dark, and is never seen flying about cities, as are the Nighthawks. In their pursuit of insects, they glide like a shadow over fields and woods, their soft plumage ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... The deep quiet was oppressive after the city's multitude of noises. Earlier in the evening while he talked with his aunt he had remarked upon the great distinctness with which the putt-putt of a motorboat somewhere on the lake had carried. Now when a whip-poor-will flew to a nearby tree its rapid-fire call flung wide insistently: Whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel. . ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... angleworms, and grubs and dirt, or dampness, or the dark. Many of his bird neighbors, for instance, liked the same things to eat that he did. But most of them—except such odd ones as Solomon Owl, and Mr. Nighthawk, and Willie Whip-poor-will—loved the bright sunshine. ...
— The Tale of Grandfather Mole • Arthur Scott Bailey
... note of the Whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the sudden leap and heavy splash of ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... which is not easily understood is a spirit. Among the Creek Indians the Whip-poor-will is a spirit; the Jack o' Lantern is the same: and, with regard to the latter, they agree with the remnant of the Massachusett Indians, who believe it is the shape which the Evil Spirit takes in his visits to the sons of men. An old Indian woman, who lived some time ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones |
