"Halcyon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I must pass quickly over that time of my life on which I should most love to linger, those halcyon hours when, with Marian by my side and the prospect bright before us, we voyaged through those Indian seas, down the long coast of Malabar and up the long coast of Coromandel, past the Isle of Serendib, and the reefs and ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... season in Washington society—she felt like singing. Was there ever such a dawn? Did ever song of birds sound so like the voice of eternal youth? Whence had come this air like the fumes from the winepresses of the gods? And the light! What colors, what tints, upon mountain and valley and halcyon lake! And the man asleep in the next room—yes, there WAS a Joshua Craig whom she found extremely trying at times; but that Joshua Craig had somehow resigned the tenancy of the strong, straight form there, had resigned it to a man who was the living ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... halcyon days in which such delights were possible Uncle Matt belonged. He was too old to look forward; he wanted his past again; and to find himself the sole faithful retainer in a once brilliant household, with the chance of making himself ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... for a quart d'heure, Sir Paul. Helas! It was not so in the old days. It was always gay then at this time of the night, with the band playing and all the guests chattering like mad." The maitre d'hotel breathed a gentle sigh for the halcyon days of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... along down the centuries, and though there have been the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian, the philosopher, the historian and the humble listener, there has been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come.' ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... bear to hear you mention it. Oh, surely Job himself never suffered such a trial of his patience! In fact, his troubles were scarcely worth mentioning, for he was never cursed with learned servants!" Saying this, the doctor retired, lamenting his hard fate in not having been born in those halcyon days when cooks drew nothing but their poultry; whilst the gentle Celestina's breast panted with indignation at his complaint. An opportunity soon offered for revenge; and seeing the doctor's steam valet ready to be carried to its master's chamber, she treacherously ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these Because my love is ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... discovering or touching the same, I heard more than one of the men give expression to a resolve to hunt for Captain Jackson's cave as soon as he should have an opportunity, when his spell of work was over, or, at all events, on the completion of the dock and the floating of the ship—a halcyon period most devoutly prayed for by all of us as we slaved at our ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of his virtues. On ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... knew, loved her well, and for whom she had always felt at any rate the warmest friendship? Such were not her thoughts, nor were they in any way akin to this. They ran back instantly to years gone by,—over long years, as her few years were counted, and settled themselves on certain halcyon days, in which she had dreamed that he had loved her, and had fancied that she had loved him. How she had schooled herself for those days since that, and taught herself to know that her thoughts had been over-bold! And now it had all come round. The ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... halcyon day, and as they neared the shore and the salt breezes scurried by, he began to picture the ocean and long, level stretches of sand and red roofs over blue sea. Then they hurried through the little town and it all flashed upon his consciousness to ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... colour serjeant with some degree of pride used to tell the story. But yet, somehow or other, although Major Clifford was an universal favourite, they always forgot to reward him. A man of the world, would have deemed the Major's ideas to be rather contracted; and to confess the truth, there were two halcyon periods of his life, to which he was fond of recurring. The one was, when he commanded a light company, attached to General Crauford's light brigade;—the other, when he had the temporary command of the regimental depot, and at his own expense, had dressed out its little band, as it had never ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... holes in tie fences adjoining, through which the gipsy boys used to scramble into the plantations to gather birds' nests, the seniors of the village to make a short cut from one point to another, and the lads and lasses for evening rendezvous—all without offence taken, or leave asked. But these halcyon days were now to have an end, and a minatory inscription on one side of the gate intimated "prosecution according to law" (the painter had spelt it persecution—l'un vaut bien l'autre) to all who should be found trespassing ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... bird, often called a "hornbill" by foreigners in the Philippines, is probably the halcyon kingfisher (Ceyx euerythra) of the islands. The ground hornbill is confined to Africa; and the tree hornbill of the Philippines does not make its nest at the foot of ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... all the storms that shake the pole Can e'er disturb thy halcyon soul, And smooth th' unaltered brow." —Day's Gram., p. 78; E. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... canal population of Holland the halcyon days are past. The spirit of reform is in the air. It may not be long before the tjalk, with its doll's house and its residential population, will finally disappear, and leave the canals of Holland as dull ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may have served to carry some dignitary of the Church, did not founder instead of merely groaning under that excessive and ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... of Cardenas in 1650, to about 1720, was the halcyon period of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. During that time things went on in the missions after the fashion I have attempted to describe. The people passed their time in their semi-communistic labour, sweetened by constant prayer; their pastors ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... For two halcyon months Yuki San lived in a dream. The ample compensation Merrit insisted upon making for the hospitality extended to him more than met the modest needs of the little household, and once again, as in the earlier days, they went on jolly ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little
... of myths and fables, kingfishers or halcyons were said to build a floating nest on the sea, and to possess some mysterious power that calmed the troubled waves while the eggs were hatching and the young birds were being reared, hence the term "halcyon days," meaning days of ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... Huntingdons was far away, somewhere in the midland counties; but when fully aware of the true localities, he was almost mad with impatience, until, on a Saturday afternoon, he could get relieved from the turmoil of business, to fly to scenes hallowed by recollections of the halcyon days of youthful aspirations of hope, and love, and innocence—and sweetly and fresh do such reminiscences ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... like a lamb, roar you as gently as any sucking dove [Midsummer-Night's Dream]. Adj. moderate; lenient &c 740; gentle, mild, mellow; cool, sober, temperate, reasonable, measured; tempered &c v.; calm, unruffled, quiet, tranquil, still; slow, smooth, untroubled; tame; peaceful, peaceable; pacific, halcyon. unexciting, unirritating^; soft, bland, oily, demulcent, lenitive, anodyne; hypnotic &c 683; sedative; antiorgastic^, anaphrodisiac^. mild as mother's milk; milk and water. Adv. moderately &c adj.; gingerly; piano; under ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... channel of a brook that circled along the foot of the descent; and here, turning joyfully to the left, we rode in luxury and ease over the white pebbles and the rippling water, shaded from the glaring sun by an overarching green transparency. These halcyon moments were of short duration. The friendly brook, turning sharply to one side, went brawling and foaming down the rocky hill into an abyss, which, as far as we could discern, had no bottom; so once more we betook ourselves to the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Horsf. Podargus brachypterus, Gould. Eurostopodus guttatus, Gould. Halcyon sanctus, Vig. and Horsf. Merops ornatus, Lath. Hirundo pacifica ? Lath. Collocalia ? leucosterna, Gould. Cotyle pyrrhonota. Cotyle familiaris, Gould. Seisura volitans, Vig. and Horsf. Microeca assimilis, Gould. Rhipidura albiscapa, Gould. Rhipidura isura, ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... taught by the manner of his friend Poppins that he could not now expect to receive that high deference which was paid to him about the time that Johnson of Manchester had been in the ascendant. Those had been the halcyon days of the firm, and Robinson had then been happy. Men at that time would point him out as he passed, as one worthy of notice; his companions felt proud when he would join them; and they would hint ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... quite such a song in my life; I have nothing but jeers for the tears of my wife; She may moan, she may groan, she may weep and grow wild, But the Spring shall remain undisturbed, undefiled, Spring with a new and more beautiful meaning, Spring as it ought to be, Spring without cleaning; Halcyon days! Oh, let us raise Shouts of thanksgiving and paeans of praise. Join me, O men. Bound the world let it ring— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... the sensory surface of whose open mind such seeds of knowledge and of wisdom fall, and happy the land where one and all may dare to warm chill hands and hearts before its sacred flame; that halcyon land, the Ultima Thule of our fond imaginings, wherein true freedom reigns; wherein the legalized tyranny of the chartered libertines of a so-called learned profession shall be finally relegated, in common cause to the limbo of a sordid and degraded past. For these ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... languages these exquisite little creatures bear.] The amount is very large of curious legendary lore which is everywhere bound up in words, and which they, if duly solicited, will give back to us again. For example, the Greek 'halcyon,' which we have adopted without change, has reference, and wraps up in itself an allusion, to one of the most beautiful and significant legends of heathen antiquity; according to which the sea preserved a perfect calmness for all the period, the fourteen 'halcyon days,' during which ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... of the present age has perhaps fallen somewhat in estate. It was natural that it should rush to a high perfection in the halcyon days of its growth. It is easy to make mournful predictions of decadence. The truth is the symphony is a great form of art, like a temple or a tragedy. Like them it has had, it will have its special eras of great expression. Like them it ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... was an all-conquering love. For as the soul of Halcyone had passed into the body of a white-winged sea-bird, so also passed the soul of her husband the king. And for evermore Halcyone and her mate, known as the Halcyon birds, defied the storm and tempest, and proudly breasted, side by side, the angriest ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... food, that in a short time they become extremely fat, and are supposed by some of our epicures to be equal to the famous Ortolans of Europe. Their note at this season is a single chuck, and is heard overhead, with little intermission from morning till night. These are halcyon days for our gunners of all descriptions, and many a lame and rusty gun-barrel is put in requisition for the sport. The report of musketry along the reedy shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill is almost incessant, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... might not be turned to diversion. The coach would not always traverse sunny byways; the dry leaf floating from the majestic arm of the oak, the sound of an acorn as it struck the earth presaged days less halcyon to come. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... In the halcyon days of Cartagena's greatness, when, under the protection of the powerful mother-country, her commerce extended to the confines of the known world, her streets and markets presented a scene of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of Aeneas, and the beloved wife of Ceyx, who, when he was drowned, flew to his floating body, and the pitying gods changed them both to birds (kingfishers), who nest at sea during a certain calm week in winter ("halcyon weather") ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... "Alessandro," 1726; "Admeto," 727; "Siroe," 1728; and "Tolommeo," 1728. They made as great a furore among the musical public of that day as would an opera from Gounod or Verdi in the present. The principal airs were sung throughout the land, and published as harpsichord pieces; for in these halcyon days of our composers the whole atmosphere of the land was full of the flavor and color of Handel. Many of the melodies in these now forgotten operas have been worked up by modern composers, and ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... on the ocean Own no dear domestic cave, Yet he slumbers without motion On the still and halcyon wave; If on rainy days the loafer Gamble when he cannot roam, The police will help him so far As to ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... palaces which are haunted by so many memories. And every day Brian meant to speak, but could not because the peace, and restfulness, and glamour of the present was so perfect, and perhaps because, unconsciously, he felt that these were "halcyon days." ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... recommendation. Wells, having known the applicant less than a fortnight, was pleased with him and said what he could. Allison was impressed by the applicant's fluency and apparent frankness, and in less than a week the erudite Elmendorf found himself in halcyon waters. Then came the foreign trip, another thing to rejoice in; but before he sailed Elmendorf had had an opportunity of doing good to his kind, as he conceived it. Seeking an inexpensive lodging on his arrival in Chicago, he had found a ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... them back to many scenes connected with past experiences; and they lived again in the various happenings marking those halcyon days. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... in your style and expressions: and the affectionate things you say of me are inexpressibly obliging; and again, with this kiss, said he, do I confirm for truth all that you have promised for my intentions in this letter.—O what halcyon days are these! God continue them!—A change would ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... House," and what a suitable and lovely name for one in his business, and one who had settled here after his service in the Revolution. For the halcyon was a fabled bird, whose nest floated upon the sea. It had the power of charming winds and waves, hence, "halcyon days" are days of tranquillity and peace. He had married Rebecca Loundes, the daughter ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... firmament. And as the air by a bird's wing laven, Or a deep pool by a white hand waven, Floated the swells of the dewy tide Round the sea-maiden and me beside. Onward we went where a diamond portal Kept the pure light of the dawn immortal, Making the heart sicken o'er to win The halcyon joys it enclosed within; Entered we under its arching sweep Into the palace hall of the deep, Where 'neath the vault of its lofty dome Have the nymphs and mermen gay their home; There sat old Neptune upon his throne, A foaming wave that was turn'd ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... conducted, we decided to forego, and contented ourselves with exploring the old hostelry, close and faint of atmosphere and of a smell at once mouldy and dusty. The room that was called Nelson's, for no very definite reason, and the room in which the ministry used to have their whitebait dinners in the halcyon days before whitebait was extinct in Greenwich, pretended to some state but no beauty, and some smaller dining-rooms that overhung the river had the merit of commanding a full view of the Isle of Dogs, and in the immediate foreground—it was as much earth as water that lapped ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... beyond all this, he meant something more, which gives the real spice to his writings. It was something not quite easy to put into formulas; but characteristic of the vague discomfort of the holders of sinecures in those halcyon days arising from the perception that the ground was hollow under their feet. To understand him we must remember that the period of his activity marks precisely the lowest ebb of political principle. Old issues had been settled, and the new ones were only ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... long and somewhat anxious day. While we were bowling along in the sweet sunshine and sweeter moonlight of the halcyon time, Uncle Sam might be dethroned by somebody in buckram, or Baltimore burnt by the boys from Lynn and Marblehead, revenging the massacre of their fellows. Every one begins to comprehend the fiery eagerness of men who live in historic times. "I wish I had control of chain-lightning ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... became its hostess. The Premier of South Australia has announced that the Governor's salary will in future be reduced by two thousand pounds; his reasons are obvious. The other Colonies will follow suit for a certainty, so the halcyon days of an Australian Governor may fairly be said ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... back the halcyon days Of grateful rest; the week of leisure, The journey lapped in autumn haze, The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure, The morning ride, the noonday halt, The blazing slopes, the red dust rising, And then—the dim, brown, columned vault, With ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte
... returning to their native town of Grovebury. The six weeks by the sea seemed a kind of oasis between the anxious period of the war that was past and gone, and the new epoch that stretched ahead in the future. To Ingred they were halcyon days. To have her father and brothers safely back, and for the family to be together in the midst of such beautiful scenery, was sufficient for utter enjoyment. She did not wish her mind to venture outside the charmed circle ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... future occasion; for I could not but feel, that being an officer of the Company, it was robbing me of a part of my pay under the pretext of an indulgence. Availing myself, however, of this ungenerous grant of freedom, I spent some halcyon days in the company of relatives most dear to me, and expected no interruption to my enjoyment until the time appointed for the embarkation: but a few days after I had joined my relatives in the vicinity of Montreal, I received a letter, commanding ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... equal to a hundred pounds, gold—was secured, and a bargain struck with a farmer to bring from Greenwood such supplies of clothes as Mrs. Meredith wrote to Sukey to pack and send. To most the prospect would not have been a cheering one, but after the last few days it seemed truly halcyon, and Janice was scarcely able to contain her happiness. She poured her warmest gratitude and thanks out in a letter to Washington, which would have surprised him not a little had he ever received it, but the mail in which it went was captured, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... fresh meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor. Ill lodged, ill fed, and scantily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... were at lunch, the breeze freshened so much that we were all glad to add some wraps to our light and airy costumes. A little later, a summer gale was blowing ahead, making some of us feel very uncomfortable and long for the halcyon days of the past, even with the accompaniment of the inevitable heat. Such is mankind, and womankind too for that matter, 'never blessed but always to be blessed.' The gale freshened, the screw was raised, the yacht pitched and rolled, and we were obliged to put her off her ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... But such halcyon days could not last long. Even Paradise might pall on such a restless temperament as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He began to sigh for the outer world in which he felt that it was his destiny to shine, for an arena in which he could do justice to the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... chemists found out that from a cheap substance known as beef suet, an imitation butter could be made, which was in composition and appearance the same as butter made by the ordinary process, and was exactly as nourishing a food. There has been much talk of the halcyon days to come when the progress of science will be so great that food will be made in the laboratory. Well, here was an important practical step in that direction. A cheap product worth three or four cents a pound could be easily converted by a chemical treatment ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... dead,—and everybody respects the dead, except profligate editors, prostitutes, and political clergymen. Besides, his life was such a hard one,—so full of clouds, with so few gleams of sunshine,—so agitated by storm,—so bereaved of halcyon days,—'twould be most cruel to deny him the grave's dearest privilege, peace and quiet. Amen! Amen! with all my heart to thy benediction and prayer, O priest! as, aspersing his lifeless remains with holy-water, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... known as "the field of honor," Tiltock kept the lieutenant in his eye, and took him finally aside and demanded a meeting in the name of Utie. The naval officer answered that he had simply relieved a lady from a drunken boy; but Tiltock, in the dramatic way common to halcyon old times, refused to accept either "drunken" or "boy" as terms appropriate to "the code," and pressed for an answer. In five minutes the naval officer replied, through his naval companion, that having ascertained ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... anything of Asa's reign except the war which, as it says, was between him and Baasha of Israel 'all their days.' But, according to 2 Chronicles xvi. 1, Baasha did not proceed to war till Asa's thirty-sixth year, and the halcyon time of peace evidently followed immediately on the religious reformation at ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... lay, in calm beauty, sweet tokens of a pure and loving heart. How tenderly she looked down, now and then, upon the slumbering cherub whose winning ways and murmurs of affection had blessed her through the day! Happy young wife! these are thy halcyon days. Care has not thrown upon thee a single shadow from his gloomy wing, and hope pictures the smiling future with a ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... His heart is light as boy's on holiday. He walks abroad and joys in his release. The cat is gone, the frisky mouse doth play. The fox remote, walk forth the wandering geese. So he, delivered, thinks his troubles past, O halcyon days!—if they could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... great services at St. Peter's in those halcyon days were perfect in their kind, the same could not be said of many others. The worst that I ever saw—one which especially dwells in my memory—was at Pisa. I had previously visited the place and knew it well, so that when, one Sunday morning, a Canadian clergyman ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... inaugurate the existence of new republics. One face I shall never forget. It was that of the self-made temporary dictator of a little country whose importance was dwindling to the dimensions of a footnote in the history of the century. I had been acquainted with him personally in the halcyon day of his transient glory. Like his picturesque land, he won the immortality of a day, was courted and subsidized by competing states in turn, and then suddenly cast aside like a sucked orange. Then he sank into the depths of squalor. He was eloquent, resourceful, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... conjectured that I was of course glad to return to the bosom of my kindred. Well! the amiable conjecture does no harm, and may therefore be safely left uncontradicted. Far from saying nay, indeed, I will permit the reader to picture me, for the next eight years, as a bark slumbering through halcyon weather, in a harbour still as glass—the steersman stretched on the little deck, his face up to heaven, his eyes closed: buried, if you will, in a long prayer. A great many women and girls are supposed to pass their lives something in that ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... road running north and south there had once been an open field of some thirty or forty acres, where the wagoners were wont to camp and the drovers to picket their stock in the halcyon days of the old hostelry. It had been the muster-ground of the militia too, and there were men yet alive, at the time of which we write, whose fathers had mustered with the county forces on that ground. When it was ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... signature and date were added by the painter after exhibiting it, and probably while he worked on it, with the advantage of having compared the painting with others in the Royal Academy. The landscape recalls that glimpse of halcyon country of which we caught sight in The Infant Academy—its trees, its glowing sky, are equally adaptable to both subjects. The picture was exhibited at the British Institution in 1843, and was then the property of Sir James Cockburn, ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... first time he became himself, consciously and deliberately at first, but soon lost in the joy of creating in making life as he knew it appear before his listeners' eyes. He had been a member of the crew of the smuggling schooner Halcyon when she was captured by a revenue cutter. He saw with wide eyes, and he could tell what he saw. He brought the pulsing sea before them, and the men and the ships upon the sea. He communicated his power of vision, till they saw with ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... thou seem'st not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are; A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon; Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone; Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar, Being of its furthest fires oracular;— The evident heart of all life ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... always dine at home on Christmas Day, and measure the steps of my children's heads on the wall, and see how much higher each of them has risen since the same time last year, in the scale of physical life. There are many poetical charms in the heraldings of Christmas. The halcyon builds its nest on the tranquil sea. "The bird of dawning singeth all night long." I have never verified either of these poetical facts. I am willing to take them for granted. I like the idea of the Yule-log, the enormous block of wood carefully selected long before, and preserved where it ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... prescient of the storm, as by his instinct he ought to be,) appearing at that uncertain season before the rigs of old Michaelmas were yet well composed, and when the inclement storms of winter were approaching, began to flicker over the seas, and was busy in building its halcyon nest, as if the angry ocean had been soothed by the genial breath of May. Very unfortunately, this auspice was instantly followed by a speech from the throne in the very spirit and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to us; she is looking at us, and we are looking at her. You see that woman reclining on the cushions of her couch—so beautiful and so contemplative—whose eyes shed tears, and whose lips abound with kisses! It is she! Lovely as in the time of Priam and the halcyon days of Asia, Eunoia is ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... inexpressible magic for the man wandering on the moor. So did the movements of birds—the rise of a couple of startled grouse, the hovering of two kestrels, a flight of wild duck in the distance. Each and all reminded him of the halcyon times of life—adventures of his boyhood, the sporting pleasures of his manhood. By George!—how he ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to-day account it among our most precious heritages that our sires and grandsires kept stations on that same road, and many an escaped bondsman looking back from his safe asylum in Canada called them "blessed." Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine was in the halcyon days of "Fugitive Slave Law" lovers. If John Wesley considered Slavery the "sum of all villainies," I wonder what terse definition he would have given to this the vilest enactment that ever rested on our Statute Book. Not satisfied with whipping, shooting, hanging, destroying ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... in the seventh and eighth centuries, when the arts were fostered in monasteries—the arts of gold-work and illuminated missals—'Ireland's halcyon days,' he said; a deep peace brooded, and under the guidance of the monks Ireland was the centre of learning when England was in barbarism. The first renaissance was the Irish, centuries before a gleam showed in Italy or in France. But in the middle of ...
— The Lake • George Moore
... fullest capacity. The cantata was given to the unbounded delight of Mr. Badger, and the audience cheered us all to the utmost. Enthusiasm was at the highest pitch and encomiums of praise were showered upon us. Those were halcyon days for fine singers. We had no lack of voices to call upon at ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... the northern shore. Almost due south of the Ilha do Boi is the Zunga chya Kampenzi, whence our word chimpanzee: in the hydrographic chart it is miswritten Zoonga Campendi, and in Tuckey's map, which contradicts his text, "Zoonga Casaquoisa." His "Zoonga Kampenzey," also named "Halcyon Island," appears to be the Draper's Island or the "Monkey Island" of Mr. Maxwell: the latter in modern charts is more to the north-east, that is, above Porto da Lenha, than the former. The Simiads have been killed out; Captain Tuckey going up the river saw upwards of twenty which, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... emotions like these their appropriate vent, we are not called upon to forget that there is much that is inspiring and delightful in the commencement of the year. The time-honored custom of our metropolis has made it a point of peculiar radiance; a halcyon period, when heart's-ease would seem to be the general feeling, and smiles the social insignia. Then the visit is exchanged between friends whom perhaps the departed year had somewhat alienated; old associations are revived, and cordialities that had well nigh been forgotten ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... rounded cheeks, the dewy light of hope in their trusting eyes, exulting confidence in their springing step, themselves blithe and radiant with the glory of the dawn. Today, and here, we meet ourselves. Not to these familiar scenes alone—yonder college-green with its reverend traditions; the halcyon cove of the Seekonk, upon which the memory of Roger Williams broods like a bird of calm; the historic bay, beating forever with the muffled oars of Barton and of Abraham Whipple; here, the humming city of the living; there, the peaceful city of the dead;—not to these only or chiefly ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... bird, that by the rocky cliffs of the sea, halcyon,[144] dost chant thy mournful elegy, a sound well understood by the skilled, namely, that thou art ever bemoaning thine husband in song, I, a wingless bird, compare my dirge with thine, longing ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... but not gaudy"?—Soon Despond (Too soon!) at flouted faith and fond, Soon tempests halcyon tides above Shall wreck this ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... prosperous, more secure, more comfortable. The heavens of international politics were as serene as the evening sky; not yet was the storm-cloud that hung over Ireland bigger than a man's hand; east, west, north and south there brooded the peace of the close of a halcyon day, and the amazing doings of the Suffragettes but added a slight incentive to the perusal of the morning paper. The arts flourished, harvests prospered; the world like a newly-wound clock seemed to be in for a spell of serene and ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... prophetic vision is required of us. We are told that all perils which seem to threaten the first stages of our course are entirely illusive—that they will vanish as we approach—that we shall soon arrive in halcyon waters, and regions where wisdom, peace, and purity reign supreme. If we cautiously inquire after some assurance of such results, we are told that to those sailing under the flag of progress triumph is inevitable, failure is impossible; and that many of the direst evils hitherto known ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Colonial war. To suppress these sporadic disorders a small professional army was incomparably the best instrument, and it was, of course, best secured and maintained by the system of voluntary enlistment. Thus in the halcyon Georgian and Victorian days the right inherent in every sovereign Government to call upon its subjects for national service sank into forgetfulness, the ancient military obligations of Englishmen fell into desuetude, and voluntarism held ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... you see what I'm druv to. It's a great thing for a man to have a companion of sperrit, same as I have, that keeps a' drivin an a drivin at him, and makes him be up an doin. An now, I declar, if I ain't gittin to be a confirmed wanderer agin, same as I was in the days of my halcyon an shinin youth. Besides, I have a kine o' feelin as if I'd be a continewin this here the rest of all my ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... mere side-show. It appeared to be a Heaven-sent opportunity to escape the cold wet misery of the trenches in Flanders. To some it spelt an expedition of the picnic variety; they saw in this an opportunity of spending halcyon days in the game preserves, glorious opportunities for making collections of big game heads, all sandwiched in with pleasant and successful enterprises against an enemy that was waiting only a ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... could obtain any nourishment from them; yet I often shot these birds with several palm-fruits in the crop, which generally burst when they fell to the ground. I obtained here eight species of Kingfishers; among which was a very beautiful new one, named by Mr. Gould, Halcyon fulgidus. It was found always in thickets, away from water, and seemed to feed on snails and insects picked up from the ground after the manner of the great Laughing Jackass of Australia. The beautiful little violet and orange ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... your two notes, dear master. You send me "halcyon" to replace the word, "dragonfly." Georges Pouchet suggested gerre of the lakes (genus, Gerris). Well! neither the one nor the other suits me, because they do not immediately make a ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Thought, but also of so beautifully hiding from us the want of Thought! Paper is made from the rags of things that did once exist; there are endless excellences in Paper.—What wisest Philosophe, in this halcyon uneventful period, could prophesy that there was approaching, big with darkness and confusion, the event of events? Hope ushers in a Revolution,—as earthquakes are preceded by bright weather. On the Fifth of May, fifteen years hence, old Louis will not be sending for the Sacraments; but ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... "The swallow I hear in the household eaves." Io Aegien! Peace! "And the skylark at poise o'er the bended sheaves," Io Aegien! Peace! Here and there, everywhere, hear we Peace, Hear her, and see her, and clasp her—Peace! The grasshopper chaunts in the bells of thyme, And the halcyon is back to ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... of the Pueblo, where the trappers and hunters had such good times in the halcyon days of the border, like that which befell nearly all the trading-posts and ranches on the Old Santa Fe Trail, was to be partially destroyed by the savages. During the early months of the winter of ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... schoolboy game and the amateur pastime of later years is being rounded out into a full-grown business. The professional clubs of the country begin to rival in number those of the halcyon amateur days; and yet the latter class has lost none of its love for the sport. The only thing now lacking to forever establish base-ball as our national sport is a more liberal encouragement of the amateur element. Professional ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... thy Communion with my nobler mind By pity or grief, already felt too long! Nor let my words import more blame than needs. 100 The tumult rose and ceas'd: for Peace is nigh Where Wisdom's voice has found a list'ning Heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms The Halcyon hears the Voice of vernal ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... is, he now resumes his old Reinsberg Program of Life; probably with double relish, after such experiences the other way; and prosecutes it with the old ardor; hoping much that his History will be of halcyon pacific nature, after all. Would the mad War-whirlpool but quench itself; dangerous for singeing a near neighbor, who is only just got out of it! Fain would he be arbiter, and help to quench it; but it will not quench. For a space of Two Years or more (till August, 1744, Twenty-six Months ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... of a gentleman residing at the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were halcyon. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... hat in hand, as he chivalrously sent Madame Frangipanni home in a carriage. The poor old singer's bosom was thrilled with a sunset glow of departing greatness, as she lingered tearfully that night over the memories of the halcyon days when the officers of Francis Joseph's bodyguard had fought for the honors of the carriage courtesies of the Diva. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... knew on the day of my ordination, and in those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential friend in a hundred families in the town,—cutting the social trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... acquiescence also results in the acceptance of hopes as things not be struggled for but rested in as a substantial portion of the divine order of our lives. In autumn come for spirits rightly attuned these pellucid halcyon ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... a god too proud to wait in palaces; And yet so humble, too, as not to scorn The meanest country cottages; His poppy grows among the corn. The halcyon sleep will never build his nest In any stormy breast. 'Tis not enough that he does find Clouds and darkness in their mind; Darkness but half his work will do, 'Tis not enough; he must find ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... his, . . no, not his, but Sah-luma's poem, . . the lovely, gracious, delicate, entrancing poem he remembered so well! And by and by, as each mellifluous stanza sounded softly on his ears, a strangely solemn tranquillity swept over him,—a most soothing halcyon calm, as though some passing angel's hand had touched his brow ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli |
