"Whip-poor-will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grandfather's heart, beneath his stiff Puritan garb, beats an unforgettable part. Sorrow for the lost child gave the story its name—"The Wept of Wish-ton-Wish" (then thought to mean in the Indian language, "Place of the Whip-poor-will")and it has been said to describe the settlement of the Fenimore ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... beautiful. All was silent and sublime among the lofty mountains in which the peaceful lake lay deeply embosomed. A grateful coolness pervaded the atmosphere, and no sounds disturbed the general repose, after the night-hawk and whip-poor-will had ceased their vesper-melodies, save the distant hootings of the owl on the mountain-side, or the occasional crash of a dried limb of a tree, over which the prowling wolf, or perchance some heavier ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... quails innumerable broke upon us in the twilight, succeeding to the calls of rose-breasted grosbeaks and a goodly company of daylight followers; in this darkening hour, the low, plaintive note of the whip-poor-will is heard on every hand, now and then interrupted by the hoarse bark of owls. There is a gentle tinkling of cowbells on the Ohio shore, and on both are human voices confused by distance. All pervading is the deep, sullen roar of a great wing-dam, a ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... sound that had awakened her came again—a curious, hoarse call, given in imitation of a whip-poor-will, but badly done. No bird had uttered that cry, and Bessie, country bred, listening intently, knew it. Silently she rose and slipped on moccasins that belonged to Minnehaha, and a dress. And then, making no more ...
— A Campfire Girl's First Council Fire - The Camp Fire Girls In the Woods • Jane L. Stewart
... 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
... to light the tired day to rest. The wild roses in the thicket are breathing vespers at an altar cushioned with moss, while the fire-flies are kindling their dim lamps in the cathedral of the woods. The evening dew on strings of fern is counting its beads in prayer. The "Whip-poor-will" takes up its notes of complaint, making us wonder on our way home what "Will" it was that in boyhood maltreated the ancestors of this species of birds, whether William Wordsworth, or William Cowper, or William Shakspeare, so that the feathered descendants ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... the last of the evening go out from the west. From forest depth and mountain side came the myriad voices of Nature's chorus, blending softly in the evening hymn; and, rising clear above the low breathed tones, yet in perfect harmony, came a whip-poor-will's plaintive call floating up from the darkness below; the sweet cooing of a wood-dove in a tree on the ridge, and the chirping of a cricket in a nearby crevice of the ledge. Like shadowy spirits, ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... in," cried the center fielder to Jack as Hart shook his head at Pete's suggestion that he take Tom out of the box. And Tom began pitching again to the fifth Whip-poor-will who stood at the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... day's employ, ends at dewy eve, Then the happy farmer boy, doth haste his work to leave, Trudging down the quiet lane, climbing o'er the hill, Whistling back the changeless wail, of plaintive whip-poor-will,'— ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... cry of the whip-poor-will. The river had lost all its green and was purple, and purple shadows lay on the distant mountains and opposite ridge. Darkness was mercifully covering this poor demented Indian woman, overcome by the burdens of ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... ears anew and seemed to exert themselves, to make their notes clear, and let us know they had come. The little grey phebe-birds, the robins and the blue birds were the first harbingers of spring. As night put on its shade their little notes were hushed in the darkness, then the whip-poor-will took up the strain. He would come, circle around and over our house and door yard and then light down. He too came to visit us, he had found our place again. In fact, he found us every spring after we settled in Michigan, and ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... the 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 vaguely echoed from the shore—now ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... 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 home ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... not answer. He sat silent and immovable until the light in the valley had quite faded, and the twitter of the birds had been superseded by the monotonous, mournful plaint of a whip-poor-will in a distant tree. Then he stirred and looked up at Eleanor with a ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... awaken, and more from the habit of the cattle range than anything else, he raised his head to listen. The only sounds he heard consisted of the champing of the horses, still busy with their sweet hay, or it might be the distant cry of a whip-poor-will calling to its ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... rising into a mournful wail, then sinking info the soft cries of the whip-poor-will. In a few minutes the perplexed fugitives were deep in a clump of wild hawberries, invisible to any one who should pass. The strains had ceased as suddenly as they began. Then a faint hallo-o-o sounded, being answered in the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... for footprints, but could discover none; a newly-broken twig was all the sign that he could see. He glanced around among the trees, but there was no visible movement, and a whip-poor-will was singing undisturbed from a high bough of a balsam ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... north. The sand of the bar is light, intermixed with small pebbles and some pit coal. The river falls slowly, and, owing either to the muddiness of its water, or the extreme heat of the weather, the men perspire profusely. We encamped on the south having made twelve miles. The bird called whip-poor-will sat on ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... The air was tremulous with heavenly notes, the lights went out in the hall, dusk swept across the stage, a cricket sang and a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great horned owl drowned both their voices. ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... outside the window came a call, the swinging, twilight-eerie notes of a whip-poor-will; while, from afar off, somewhere in the black woods, hooted an owl. Softly, but with a restless spirit, the night-wind began to stir; and a murmur, like the winnowing of many wings, passed tremulously through the branches which swept the schoolhouse roof. But ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... say, were astir in the morning before I was, and some of them were more wakeful through the night, unless they sing in their dreams. At this season one may hear at intervals numerous bird voices during the night. The whip-poor-will was piping when I lay down, and I still heard one when I woke up after midnight. I heard the song sparrow and the kingbird also, like watchers calling the hour, and several times I heard the cuckoo. Indeed, I am convinced that our cuckoo is to a considerable extent ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... nightly vigil keeps, While the river, below him, peacefully sleeps, The whip-poor-will utters his plaintive cry, The trees still whisper, ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... neighbors is most interesting, but so cautiously carried on that we rarely see it, though we may often hear the robin, oriole, whip-poor-will, and many others receive instruction in singing. I have once or twice surprised young birds at their lessons, as for instance, a pewee family learning to hover over the daisies, a beautiful operation ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... calm has succeeded the storm; and silence reigns around the cove where the pirates have put in. The seabirds have returned to their perches on the cliff, and now sit noiselessly—save an occasional angry scream from the osprey, as a whip-poor-will, or some other plumed plunderer of the night, flits past his place of repose, near enough to wake the tyrant of the sea-shore, and ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... straining eye can no longer distinguish them, and they are gone! Ducks, too, whir past in rapid flight, steering wide of the boats, and again bending in long graceful curves into their course. The sweet, plaintive cry of the whip-poor-will rings along the shore; and the faint answer of his mate floats over the lake, mellowed by distance to a long tiny note. The air is motionless as the water; and the enraptured eye gazes in dreamy enjoyment on all that is lovely and peaceful ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... All the little stars were looking down and twinkling and twinkling. Mother Moon was doing her best to make the Green Meadows as light as Mr. Sun did in the daytime. All the little birds except Hooty the Owl and Boomer the Night Hawk, and noisy Mr. Whip-poor-will were fast asleep in their little nests. Old Mother West Wind's Merry Little Breezes had all gone to sleep, too. It was oh so still! Indeed it was so very still that Bobby Coon, coming down the Lone Little Path through the wood, began to ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess
... herself, when she had nearly reached the top of the hill,—"it's mortal queer! Like a whip-poor-will on a moonlight night: you hear it whistlin' on the next fence-rail, it doesn't seem a yard off; you step up to ketch it, and there's nothin' there; then you step back ag'in, and 'whip-poor-will! whip-poor-will!' whistles louder 'n ever,—and so on, the whole night, and some folks ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... bird make any noise, and why is he called the Whip-poor-will?" asked Nat; "that is such a ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues |
