"Raven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 in ...
— The Orange-Yellow Diamond • J. S. Fletcher
... Raven came in and set down his tray. Nan glanced up at him fearfully, but it was apparent he had not heard. She was no longer angry. The occasion was too big. Dick seemed to her to be speaking out of his ignorance and not ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... raven-black tresses a golden diadem set with jewels. Her hair flowed down upon a robe of rosy satin and creamy velvet. She stretched out two small, white hands to the count and addressed him in ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... 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; and ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... The valiant Persens, who 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 height, should I recount ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... thought he would play him a trick, and so turned everything in the lodge upside down, and killed his chickens. Now Manabozho calls all the fowls of the air his chickens; and among the number was a raven, the meanest of birds, which Paup-Puk-Keewiss killed and hung up by the neck to insult him. He then went on till he came to a very high point of rocks running out into the lake, from the top of ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... to his chiefs. "I have sworn to have England, and England shall be mine. The Saxons are scattered and at rest, not dreaming of battle and blood. Now is our time. A hard and sudden blow will end the war, and the fair isle of England will be the Raven's spoil." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... 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 ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... fragmentary poem, but the 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 ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... "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 know, ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... of Yelth the wise— Chief of the Raven clan. Itswoot the Bear had him in care To make him ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... him, passing on our way, When I beheld two spirits by the ice Pent in one hollow, that the head of one Was cowl unto the other; and as bread Is raven'd up through hunger, th' uppermost Did so apply his fangs to th' other's brain, Where the spine joins it. Not more furiously On Menalippus' temples Tydeus gnaw'd, Than on that skull ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... 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-yue eagerly inquired: "Are you also a girl attached to this ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... 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 ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... 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, ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... but without overmuch eccentricity. Under the voluminous cloak, 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 result of the combination of all desirable ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... arranged readings 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 real creature ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... model of the picturesque old Maypole Inn in "Barnaby Rudge," with a number of the characters in the novel wandering about in front of the house. There was Barnaby Rudge himself, there was his supernaturally wicked old raven; old Joe Willet, the landlord, stood smoking in his shirt-sleeves, while pretty Dolly Varden herself was tripping down to town. "There," said my host, "isn't that clever? It stood for many years at the 'Hen and Chickens' in Birmingham, and Dickens used to admire it very much when he used to ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... de Barbazure seized up the long ringlets of her raven hair. "Now!" shouted he to the executioner, with a stamp of his ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... will occur to you in looking round. I should put a very stiff tax on painted cheeks and hair-dyes. Any lady dyeing her hair once would be taxed L5 for the privilege. If, growing tired of auburn, she decided to change again to a raven hue, she would pay L10. The tax, in fact, might be doubled for every change of colour. If rather than pay the tax Mrs. Fitzgibbons Jones resolves to wear her hair as nature arranged that she should, life ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... 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 hammocks. Their wants are few, as there are ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... that shall be, Fail not, black raven, to attend and see; The flesh of men shall there abound ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... 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 of the loved one ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... 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, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... Chester. I wish you could have seen her as she stood upon the deck of the Atlantic steamer, which was to convey the Farnhams to Europe! Those large almond-shaped eyes, velvety and soft, yet capable of intense brilliancy—that raven hair, so glossy and with a purple glow in it, and those oval cheeks, with their peachy richness of bloom. Indeed, Isabel was very beautiful. No wonder she was embarrassed, with all that quantity of bouquets, and seemed a little annoyed by their profusion; for young Farnham was looking ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... prayers for him are uttered whereon many a life relies; 'Tis but one poor fool the fewer when the gulping Raven dies.' ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... JOHNSTON: Your letter, written some six weeks since, was received in due course, and also the paper with the parody. It is true, as suggested it might be, that I have never seen Poe's "Raven"; and I very well know that a parody is almost entirely dependent for its interest upon the reader's acquaintance with the original. Still there is enough in the polecat, self-considered, to afford one several hearty laughs. I think four ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... is like a wilderness, Where beasts of midnight howl; There the sad raven finds her place, And there ...
— The Psalms of David - Imitated in the Language of The New Testament - And Applied to The Christian State and Worship • Isaac Watts
... 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 chapel diligently, poor old anatomy ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... comb and brush your hair for you?" asked Mittie, sitting down by the side of the bed, and gathering together the tangled tresses of hazel brown, that looked dim in contrast with her own shining raven hair. ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... seen. She was hardly more than sixteen, with a slender, not yet matured, yet perfectly rounded little body. She wore, like Lylda, a short blue silk tunic, with a golden cord crossing her breast and encircling her waist. Her raven black hair hung in two twisted locks nearly to her knees. Her skin was very white and, even more than Lylda's, gleamed with ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Where brooding darkness spreads her jealous wings, And the night raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In deep ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... ancles, leggings fringed with deer-skin knotted with bands of coloured quills, with richly wrought mocassins on her feet. On her head she wore a coronet of scarlet and black feathers; her long shining tresses of raven hair descended to her waist, each thick tress confined with a braided band of quills dyed scarlet and blue; her stature was tall and well-formed; her large, liquid, dark eye wore an expression so proud and mournful ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... to swear his folly's true, In sad dissent I turn my longing face To him that sits on the left: 'Brother, — with you?' — 'Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear 'Religion hath black eyes and raven ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... 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 ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... at intervals; but the large hawks have ceased out of the daily life, as it were, of woods and fields. Horned owls are becoming rare; even the barn-owl has all but disappeared from some districts, and the wood-owl is local. The raven is extinct—quite put out. The birds are said to exist near the sea-coast; but it is certain that any one may walk over inland country for years without seeing one. These, being all more or less birds of prey, could not but be excluded from ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... sad-presaging raven, that tolls The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings, Vexed and tormented runs poor Barabas With fatal curses towards these ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... 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 ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... minutes of his arrival, Dudley found his way into the breakfast room, where Doreen, a pug dog and a raven were sitting together on the floor, surrounded by a frightful litter of paper and shavings and string, wooden boxes, hampers, and odds ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... promised the Duchess of Kendall, his mistress, that, if possible, he would pay her a visit after death. Accordingly, a large raven flew into the window of her villa at Isleworth. She believed it to be his soul, and treated it ever after with all respect and tenderness, till either she or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... height, with a small head of almost perfect contour, a symmetrical face, dark almost to swarthiness, black eyes, which moved somewhat restlessly, curly hair of raven tint, a slight mustache, small hands and feet, and fashionable attire, Tom Delamere, the grandson of the old gentleman who had already arrived, was easily the handsomest young man in Wellington. But no discriminating observer would ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... please. We may meet your saint with the insipid eyes in the park." "Good heavens!" he testily answered, "why do you forever drag in that girl's name? She's nothing to me." Mrs. Holda went to the window and he lazily noticed her perfect figure, her raven hair and black eyes. She was a stunner after all, and didn't look a day over twenty-eight. How did she manage to preserve the illusion of youth? She turned to him, and he saw the contour of a face Oriental, with eyes that allured and a mouth that invited. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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 ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... till I recollected that you might probably be of the party—then, every grove was changed into a wilderness, every rivulet into a stagnated pool, and every singing bird into a croaking raven." ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... 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 he saw, The ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... the principal seminaries, and spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in a white moire antique robe trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud, with which most heroines exclusively decorate their hair, was all she wore in her raven locks. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... their sons', wives for their husbands' fate, And orphans for their parents' timeless death,— Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born. The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign; The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time; Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempest shook down trees; The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top, And chatt'ring pies in dismal discord sung. Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain, And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope, An indigested and deformed lump, Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree. ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... its train. Not knowing its interpretation, Tania the meaning would obtain Of such a dread hallucination. Tattiana to the index flies And alphabetically tries The words bear, bridge, fir, darkness, bog, Raven, snowstorm, tempest, fog, Et cetera; but nothing showed Her Martin Zadeka in aid, Though the foul vision promise made Of a most mournful episode, And many a day thereafter laid A load of care ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... Colonel, You're stout and eloquent, But boding; as the raven. Knock ninety-nine per cent. From your Cassandra prophecies, As bogeyish as eternal, And you'll be nearer to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various
... Raven From the Barnyard Fence The First Hawk Origin of the Raven and the Macaw All About the ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... mythology, in the doctrine of divination, in the fables of Aesop, or even in proverbial expressions, has been ingeniously drawn to his purpose by the poet; who even goes back to cosmogony, and shows that at first the raven-winged Night laid a wind-egg, out of which the lovely Eros, with golden pinions (without doubt a bird), soared aloft, and thereupon gave birth to all things. Two fugitives of the human race fall into the domain ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... 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 Russell did "A ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... the most desolate and forbidding desert, along with the lizard, the jackass-rabbit and the raven, and gets an uncertain and precarious living, and earns it. He seems to subsist almost wholly on the carcases of oxen, mules and horses that have dropped out of emigrant trains and died, and upon windfalls of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... lover of human form. He would insist on the loveliness of line of the scapula, finding in the sweep of the acromion ridge a fanciful resemblance to the pinion, and in the angular shape of the coracoid process to the neck and head of a raven in full flight. Following with his finger the triangular outline of the bone, he went on to explain how its freedom of movement is due to its singular independence; laid loosely on the flat muscles ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it.... They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... teeth 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 ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes. His high black plume floats abroad over the throng, like a raven over the field of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers— they rush in—they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... not whether he who stilled the raven's hunger Should of me be praised as of the living or the dead, Since of a truth his men tell either tale (Bootless of himself to question) though ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... 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 ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... countenance. And this last, boyish as it was, could not fail to command the attention even of the most careless observer. It had not only the darkness, but the character of the gipsy face, with large, brilliant eyes, raven hair, long and wavy, but not curling; the features were aquiline, but delicate, and when he spoke he showed teeth dazzling as pearls. It was impossible not to admire the singular beauty of the countenance; and yet it had that expression, at once stealthy and fierce, which war with society ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Deferring a consideration of this last, let me tell briefly what his everyday life was. Through a little money from pamphlets, performing fees, etc., but mainly through the generosity of friends, he managed to live; though, as I have said, he never was quite sure about his next meal, a raven always flew in from somewhere just in the nick of time. Minna came, and her sister, and his home was made comfortable for him; he had many friends; he rapidly became recognized as many a cubit taller than any other musician in the parish. ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... young lovers in 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 together, ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose-leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I CANNOT imagine that red hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, 'Now my hair is a glorious black, black as the raven's wing.' But all the time I KNOW it is just plain red and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. I read of a girl once in a novel who had a lifelong sorrow but it wasn't red hair. Her hair was pure gold rippling back from her ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... 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 down from heaven, where we heard the melodious ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... backwards-going, crab-like fool; a filthy fool; an idiot, sir, without either parts or particle of ambition; an ape, an owl that flits about by day; a bat, and a bad bat, that flits from tavern to sty; chief of the devil's nightingales; a raven that, roving to foul roosts, goes beating the bosom of the night; a soul that loves the darkness; a mole, sir, a blind mole; a piece of animated perversity, a creature that ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... age as her husband when he died. She had been a widow just two years, and had one child, a son. She was indeed a beautiful woman—in fact a very beautiful woman, as one could almost see in her humble condition of life. Her tresses were a raven black, but her skin was white and polished as ivory. Her face was a fine specimen of the oval—her brows exquisitely pencilled—and her large black, but mellow eyes, flashed a look that went into your very heart. But, if there was anything that struck you as ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... moment he was at the window in the light of the dazzling sun, which radiated, not light, but raven-black darkness, like a hole in the heavens pouring out night. The wind suddenly began to moan and howl about the house. It whistled derisively through the door cracks, like the jeers and taunts of a mob of rowdies. Or was it Mr. Rinck's cat miauing? ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... best-furnished shop in the Ferravecchi, and it's close by the Mercato. The Virgin be praised! it's not a pumpkin I carry on my shoulders. But I don't stay caged in my shop all day: I've got a wife and a raven to stay at home and mind the stock. Chi abbaratta—baratta—b'ratta? ... And now, young man, where do you come from, and ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... and for the first time Philip realized there were others in the room. One was Pierre; the other a pretty, dark-faced girl, with hair that glistened like a raven's wing ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... all thy pencil's truth, Portray Bathyllus, lovely youth! Let his hair, in masses bright, Fall like floating rays of light; And there the raven's die confuse With the golden sunbeam's hues. Let no wreath, with artful twine. The flowing of his locks confine; But leave them loose to every breeze, To take what shape and course they please. Beneath the forehead, fair as snow, But ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 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 Raven • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... 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, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... freshness of thy spring was withered. Stricken by thy fell malady, and vanquished, Did'st perish, O my darling! and the blossom Of thy years sawest; Thy heart was never melted At the sweet praise, now of thy raven tresses, Now of thy glances amorous and bashful; Never with thee the holiday-free maidens Reasoned of ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... hard-pressed English garrisons in Brittany. There was scarce a man among them who was not an old soldier, and their leaders were men of note in council and in war. Knolles flew his flag of the black raven aboard the Basilisk. With him were Nigel and his own Squire John Hawthorn. Of his hundred men, forty were Yorkshire Dalesmen and forty were men of Lincoln, all noted archers, with old Wat of Carlisle, a grizzled veteran of ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 locks floating ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... 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
... 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
... float upon the wings Of silence through the empty-vaulted night, At every fall smoothing the raven down Of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... 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 ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... Zbyszko put his hand upon his mouth, because from the roadside came the croak of a raven. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... tresses of raven black; eyebrows, eyelashes, and eyes were all of the same hue; she was a beautiful and proud-looking girl, her complexion clear, with the hue of health upon her cheeks, while a smile played around her lips. The glance ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... do you mean to do, Gerard?" asked Isel of her, when the last and wealthiest of five suitors was thus treated. "You'll never have a better offer for the girl than Raven Soclin. He can spend sixty pound by the year and more; owns eight shops in the Bayly, and a brew-house beside Saint Peter's at East Gate. He's no mother to plague his wife, and he's a good even-tempered ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... 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 ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the great hall, To the door of the room in which I was standing, Stately and swift, came a woman and entered. Tall as the tallest. Made firmly, knit firmly Both in form and in limb, but full and well rounded; Dark of eye, dark of face, with hair like a raven, Like the girls of Nevada, where live the old races, Whose blood is as fire, and whose skin is of olive, Whose mouths are as sweet as a fig when it ripens. Arms bare to the shoulders. Neck and bosom uncovered. Her gown of white satin ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... beside him, who, as he opened his eyes, exclaimed in an ill-boding voice, "Ay, young man, mark my words: that hurt will be the death of you in your forty-second year." He immediately recognised in this old raven one of those soothsayers who usually followed the army, and gained a livelihood by their oracular powers. Mr. L. certainly did mark her words, inasmuch as returning to England, he quitted the army, entered the church, and amongst other red-coat reminiscences, used frequently ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... know 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 for their ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... 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
... her in his 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 ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... 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 to the minds of that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... locked in each other's arms in the tranquil crystal depth of Shirebourne Pond; and the rippled surface is all smooth once more; and you may see the trout shoaling among the still green weeds around that naked raven-haired Sabrina, and her poor drowned brother in his cowskin tunic." So wrote Tupper; a most moving ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... subsequent 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 ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... hundred and forty years later he was seen again, this time at Metapontum, and bade the citizens build a shrine to Apollo, and near it erect a statue to himself, as Apollo would come to them alone of the Italian Greeks, and he would be seen following in the form of a raven. The townsmen were troubled at the apparition, and consulted the Delphic oracle, which confirmed all that Aristeas had said; and Apollo received his temple and Aristeas his statue in ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley
... Ravens engag'd so furiously; that one of them struck down the other Stark Dead; and when he had done, he began to scrape with his Claws till he had digg'd a Pit, in which he Buried the Carcass of his Adversary. Our Philosopher observing this, said to himself, How well has this Raven done in Burying the Body of his Companion, tho' he did ill in Killing him? How much greater reason was there for me to have been forward in performing this Office to my Mother? Upon this he makes a Grave, and lays his Mother ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... tall and slim and superlatively well clad, his garments of that quiet elegance which is the mark of exceeding good taste; but it was his face that drew and held my gaze, a handsome face, paler by contrast with the raven blackness of flowing, curled hair, a delicate-nostrilled, aquiline nose, a thin-lipped mouth and smooth jut of pointed chin. All this I saw as he stood as if awaiting some one, half-turned upon the steps, a magnificent ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... 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 Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... the sufferer, apparently believing him dead. Flies buzzed, and a raven flapped away, beating the air with its startled wings. The horseman dismounted, took his water bag from his horse, and ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... those raven tresses Adown her cheek, like willow leaves, As stooping still, with fond caresses, She plies her task of love, ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... get my staff, and I'll 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 ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... Paris it was, at the opera there; And she looked like a queen that night, With a wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch in her ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... Stone.—In Germany a superstition prevails that if the eggs are taken from a raven's nest, boiled, and replaced, the old raven will bring a root or stone to the nest, which he fetches from the sea. This "raven stone" confers great fortune on its owner, and has the power of rendering him ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... 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 ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... 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 ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... the beautiful Star. No one else can be taken for her, With her beauty no girl can compare. Both the sun and the moon seem to shine, Resplendent they shine from a height, Their rays to her beauty resign Their brilliant light with delight. Her hair is a soft raven black, Her tresses are bound with gold thread, They fall in long folds down her back, And add charm to her beautiful head. Her eyelashes brighten her face, Two rainbows less brilliant and fair, Her eyes full of mercy and grace, With nought but ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... dislocating the spine. Another 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... Jack up; sometimes hard swearin', straight goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... thought a good hand with my sisters' hair. It will be such a treat if you will only let me try,' said she, emboldened to stroke the raven tresses, and then take the comb, while Theodora yielded, well pleased. 'On condition you give me a lesson to-morrow. I am not to be maid-ridden all my life,' and it ended with 'Thank you! That is comfortable. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Norway • A.F. Mockler-Ferryman
... 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
... that the 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.' Nor, in ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... with old, dusky buildings; and this yew tree is one of them. It has altogether a most goblin-like, bewitched air, with its dusky black leaves and ragged branches, throwing themselves straight out with odd twists and angular lines, and might put one in mind of an old raven with some of his feathers pulled out, or a black cat with her hair stroked the wrong way, or any other strange, uncanny thing. Besides this they live almost forever; for when they have grown so old that any respectable tree ought to be thinking of dying, they only take another ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... turned their 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
... loud 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
... to his land; but she to Almesbury Fled all night long by glimmering waste and weald, And heard the Spirits of the waste and weald Moan as she fled, or thought she heard them moan: And in herself she moaned 'Too late, too late!' Till in the cold wind that foreruns the morn, A blot in heaven, the Raven, flying high, Croaked, and she thought, 'He spies a field of death; For now the Heathen of the Northern Sea, Lured by the crimes and frailties of the court, Begin to slay the folk, and spoil ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... 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 ought to belong, as a character, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was oval; 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 ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are to be one of the Jury, and we must get some good limner to take down the evidence. Witnesses will be needless. The features of a man's face will rise up in judgment against him; and the very voice that pleads 'Not Guilty,' will be enough to convict the raven-toned criminal. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... begin without more delay; for the raven, foreknowing the deed, is already croaking, and, as it were, calling out for the revenge ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... to be sure in scarcely 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 Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... SMILLIE, We value you highly Howe'er so ferociously raven you. We must find a way out, And we shall do, no doubt, If we only explore ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... v., (to be a messenger), to announce, to make known: pret. hrefn blaca heofones wynne blīð-heort bodode, the black raven announced joyfully heaven's delight (the rising ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.
... gloomy raven hoarsely croaks; The slaves of justice summon me again; My left eye twitches; these repeated strokes Of threatened evil frighten me and ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka
... 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 way he ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... looking into his face and muttering together. Again, he was in a crowd, a dancing, noisy crowd, searching for a great woman who shook as she walked. It was madness to seek her here, they were all pigmies, and he turned away; another moment they were all big, all the women had raven hair, large hands and feet; he would never be able to find the woman he sought. Then this scene faded and there came others, some horrible, all fantastic; and always there came, sooner or later, a woman, ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... 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 you to be married next week?" He dropped ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... lurking distrustfulness of look. These years made less change in Mrs. Blount than in her sons; she was the same active, black-eyed woman, only that her sternness and reserve seemed to increase with her age, and a few silver threads appeared in her raven hair. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... 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' Home ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... 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 ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... drew 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. ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... 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 Woodlander now ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... 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 savageness. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... fine lot to call yourselves the Raven Patrol!' cried Arthur jeeringly. 'What have you got, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... arms dependent on the heads of two leopards, which emblematically intimate courage and constancy. This chariot is drawn by two golden unicorns, in excellent carving work, with equal magnitude, to the left; on whose backs are mounted two raven-black negroes, attired according to the dress of India; on their heads, wreaths of divers coloured feathers; in their right hands they hold golden cups; in their left hands, two displayed banners, the one of the king's, the other of the Company's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... surprised to hear some of the Manhattanese pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny the existence of the Molly, Capt. Spike, and even of Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what they say, and shall go on and finish our narrative in our own way, just as if there were no such raven-throated commentators at all. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... deliberately pronounced God to be on the side of the Dauphin, while the University of Paris as deliberately pronounced God to be on the side of the Burgundians and the English. His messenger need not necessarily be an angel. He might employ a creature human or not human, like the raven that fed Elijah. And that a woman should engage in war accorded with what was written in books concerning Camilla, the Amazons, and Queen Penthesilea, and with what the Bible says of the strong women, Deborah, Jahel, Judith of Bethulia, raised up by God for the salvation of Israel. For ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... more lay the spectre that wasted his mind than the thirst-demon which raged in his body. He shut his eyes, and then his arm was beating at something to keep it away. Pillowed on his saddle, he beat until he forgot. A blow at the corner of his eye brought him up sitting, and a raven jumped from ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Time's 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
... America include about 320 species. They are divided into migratory and resident; though comparatively few in the fur countries are strictly entitled to be called resident. The raven and Canadian and short-billed jays were the only species recognised as being equally numerous at their breeding-places in winter and summer. Many of the species which raise two or more broods within the United States rear only ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... fishes and game, rare wines and incense, and pillows for sleeping on. During its progress the procession met black figures carrying a dead man. The body lay swathed in white linen on a high board, and a raven circled round it in the air. Simeon turned indignantly away; he had a horror of all that was dead. He scattered coins among the mourners, for he would have liked to throw a gay covering adorned with precious stones over all sorrow ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... is, we are confident, the saddest chapter in human biography. The soul of the man seems from the first to have gone forth darkly voyaging, like Poe's raven, ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... 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 a beak of ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... 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
... hair, I said, 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 ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... Where art thou, boy? where is Calipolis? Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth, And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades; Some foul contagion of the infected heavens Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops The dismal night-raven and tragic owl Breed and become ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... 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 ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... there not beauty in other lands, And locks of raven hue, That thou must pine for a maiden cold, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... 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 dress ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... 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
... 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 ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... fell upon the young man's shoulder; he turned sharply, angrily, and beheld the bland face and trim figure of Captain Evan. With the Captain was a handsome lady in black, who had already created in Jim's mind a confused impression of massed raven hair and big, innocent dark eyes that had a trick of floating up from under heavy lids and thick, long lashes to their greatest magnitude, and then disappearing ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... of that fair bosom 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
... 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 depth ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... that strikes the stranger at Nice is its Italian population. These black-eyed, dark-complexioned, raven-haired, easy-going folks form as distinct a type as the fresh-complexioned, blue-eyed Alsatian. That the Niois are French at heart is self-evident, and no wonder, when we compare their present condition with that of the past. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... scattered through his plays. Now no one who reads Titus Andronicus with an open mind can doubt that Aaron was, in our sense, black; and he appears to have been a Negro. To mention nothing else, he is twice called 'coal-black'; his colour is compared with that of a raven and a swan's legs; his child is coal-black and thick-lipped; he himself has a 'fleece of woolly hair.' Yet he is 'Aaron the Moor,' just as Othello is 'Othello the Moor.' In the Battle of Alcazar (Dyce's Peele, p. 421) Muly the Moor is called ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... 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 ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... passions 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 ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... 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 a rill of wolf[14] to sup, But thee burning thirst down-beareth, Prince of ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... 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 treasure like this. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... 'tis Hermann, your raven. Come to the grating and eat. (Owls are screeching.) Your night companions make a horrid noise, old man! Do you relish ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 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, and ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... of the Sky is angry. He has sent all the spirits to destroy us. The Spirit of Hunger—the Gaunt Gray Wolf—is at our back. The raven, the Black Spirit of Death, is ready to attack us. The Spirit of the Tempest torments us. The Spirits of the Forest and of the Barrens mock us. The Great Spirit of the Sky has driven away the atuk, and our people are starving. Many of our people ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... Ireland received a present of a beautiful black setter puppy, from an unknown hand. He bred and cherished him, and the memory of Black York is still fresh in his country; not only for his perfect symmetry, his silky, raven black hair, but for his gentle, submissive disposition. He was a nervous dog when young, for even a loud word alarmed him, which, combined with his mysterious arrival, and an involuntary affection, induced his master to transfer him from the kennel to the drawing-room. From that time York acquired ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... 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 ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... regardless of repeated shots." The common lark is drawn down from the sky, and is caught in large numbers, by a small mirror made to move and glitter in the sun. Is it admiration or curiosity which leads the magpie, raven, and some other birds to steal and secrete bright objects, such as silver ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin |
