"Raven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... raven said, "It does him no good now, but if he were to go home again and strike on the great stone on the top of the hill back of Herr Axel's house, then it would do him good; for in it lies a great treasure of silver ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... visible, among which at my last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme point of the Lizard the coast is a series of jagged cliffs and clefts, with tiny coves and black chasms. For seaward and distant views it is best to take the head of the cliffs, but for the caverns a boat ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... Scriptures. Thus Ps. ciii. 5, "Thy youth is renewed like the eagle's," either gave rise to, or refers to, the tradition quoted in our account of the eagle: and likewise Job xxxviii. 41, and Ps. cxlvii. 9, seem to be responsible for the tradition in the account of the raven. It would be interesting to learn whether any independent traditions ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... skin; for instance, rubbing it with dry earth and exposing it to the sun, as I have done with some success when hunting abroad; chalk also will do, if nothing else can be procured. I have at the present moment a raven's head cut off by a rifle ball, cured only with chalk, and which is now, after a lapse of twenty years, in as good a state of preservation as need be. Still we require other aids than sun and chalk to properly preserve our specimens, especially in our usually cold, damp climate; and if we ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... Fatherland! O German love so true! Thou sacred land—thou beauteous land— We swear to thee anew! Outlawed, each knave and coward shall The crow and raven feed; But we will to the battle all— Revenge shall ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... M'seur. Ah, ma belle Mariane—ma cheri—the daughter of an Indian princess and the granddaughter of a chef de bataillon, M'seur! Could there be better than that? And she is be-e-e-utiful, M'seur, with hair like the top side of a raven's wing with the sun shining on ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... so many questions. It is very rude of me." She said it so penitently that Hugh, unable to find words, could only wave his hands in deprecation. "Isn't it a perfect evening?" she went on, turning to the sea. The light breeze blew the straying raven hair away from her temples, leaving the face clearly chiselled out of the night's inkiness. Hugh's heart thumped strangely as he noted her evident intention to remain on deck. She turned to him swiftly and he averted his ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... happy there," says the poor ignorance; "and I may never see it more." It's the etairnal hauntin' thoct o' man in all ages. "We've no abiding city here." "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth." "Never, never more," says poor Poe's raven. Listen, m'n! Ye'll hear Shakespeare's immortal thunder. The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces dissolve with the great globe itself and all that it inherits. It's all there, Paul. It's in the hiccoughing throat of him. Puir felly! Well just ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... native driver, or cochero, in a white shirt, smoking a cigarette, and resting his bare feet upon the dashboard. Behind the curtain of a passing quilez you can catch a glimpse of brown eyes, raven hair, and olive-tinted cheeks, displayed with all the coquetry of a Manila belle. A Filipino family in a rickety cart, tilted at an impossible angle, are drawn by a moth-eaten pony, mostly bones. Public conveyances—if these are not indeed a ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... Their barbarous clamor, insufficiently rendered in the foregoing, suddenly sounded close to leeward, and close up against the light north-wester then blowing came the beautiful quarry, their small, black heads and necks showing as glossy as a raven's wing, in contrast with the asheous hue of their wings, and the pure white of other parts of their plumage. With a wild, tumultuous rush, they circled in head-on over the decoys; and it was so quickly done, that ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... their type in the world of souls, a manitu, which kept guard over them. Ralston, in his "Songs of the Russian People," tells us that Buyan, the island paradise of Russian mythology, contains a serpent older than all others, a larger raven, a finer queen bee, and so of all other animals. Morgan, in his work upon the Iroquois, observes that they believe in a spirit or god of every species of ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... was the reply. "You are looking at the colour of my hair. There are ravens who have seen a hundred seasons of rain without having a feather whitened. Ah! what matters the course of years to me? A raven croaked upon the roof of my father's cabin when I was born, at the same instant that my father had traced upon the floor the figure of one of these birds. Well, then! of course I shall live as long as that raven lives. What use then ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... wish I could make vivid the panorama we saw from this vantage-ground—the desert in the foreground, and far away against the sky the curiously carved pink and purple and lilac mountains, while immediately below us lay the dry river-bed over which a gaunt raven flew and croaked ominously, and a little beyond rose the various buttes, mauve and terra-cotta colored, from whose sides and at whose bases projected the petrified trees. There lay the giant trees, straight and tapering—no branching as in our trees of to-day. The trunks are often flattened, ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... cabin, which bore every mark of poverty and destitution, a young girl about twenty-one, of tall and slender figure, with hair black as the raven's wing, and eyes dark and brilliant, wrangled fiercely with an older woman, her stepmother. From words they passed to a fearful struggle of ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... are alone, by suitable and well-timed praise, they should rarely repeat what they have said, or speak of what they have done, to others, in their presence. This is injurious to the child, betrays vanity in the parents, and is not very edifying to others. The singing of a young raven may be music to its parents, but to us it is like the ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... more beautiful than in Europe.} Birds of Carolina. Eagle bald. Eagle gray. Fishing Hawk. Turkey Buzzard, or Vulture. Herring-tail'd Hawk. Goshawk. Falcon. Merlin. Sparrow-hawk. Hobby. Ring-tail. Raven. Crow. Black Birds, two sorts. Buntings two sorts. Pheasant. Woodcock. Snipe. Partridge. Moorhen. Jay. Green Plover. Plover gray or whistling. Pigeon. Turtle Dove. Parrakeeto. Thrush. Wood-Peckers, five sorts. Mocking-birds, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... been introduced, I may say that many of the mysterious archaic markings on rocks, and decorations of implements, in other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design of the totem animal. Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a triple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design, to our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set of bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on. {64a} Equivalent marks, such as spirals, and tracks of emu's feet, occur on ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... thin-lipped mouth, that showed the teeth, with black prominent eyes, and legs like a stag's, rather thin but beautifully shaped, and full of fire and spirit, for Maria Nikolaevna; a big, powerful, rather thick-set horse, raven black all over, for Sanin; the third horse was destined for the groom. Maria Nikolaevna leaped adroitly on to her mare, who stamped and wheeled round, lifting her tail, and sinking on to her haunches. But Maria Nikolaevna, who was a first-rate horse-woman, reined her ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... "The Wreck of the Hesperus" between her pearly teeth and shook it to death. Then she got a half-Nelson on Poe's "Raven" and put it ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart
... remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the end of this frivolity and talk!" After the flowery season of summer was gone, and the black time of winter was come, thorns took the station of the Rose, and the raven the perch of the Nightingale. The storms of autumn raged in fury, and the foliage of the grove was shed upon the ground. The cheek of the leaf was turned yellow, and the breath of the wind was chill and blasting. The gathering cloud poured ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... and looked out of a window. It was a brilliant morning. With a great rush the fountain shot high, and fell roaring back. The sun sat in its feathery top. Not a bird sang, not a creature was to be seen. Raven nor librarian came near me. The world was dead about me. I took another book, sat down again, and ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... foreign goddesses had no such direct appeal for us as the mocking malicious fairies and witches of the North; we missed the pleasant alliance of the animal—the fox who spread the bushiest of tails to convey us to the enchanted castle, the frog in the well, the raven who croaked advice from the tree; and—to Harold especially—it seemed entirely wrong that the hero should ever be other than the youngest brother of three. This belief, indeed, in the special fortune that ever awaited ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... (She is heard laughing). Shall I stone the raven away from his nest? Beware, you blackbird! (A small stone flies through the air, and falls down ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... search of the 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 ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... at last it dawned on me, the fellow must be mad; And when I soothingly replied: "I do not think he had," The little wizened Spanish man subsided in his chair, And shrouded in his raven cloak resumed his owlish stare. But when I tried to slip away he turned and glared at me, And oh, that fishlike face of his was sinister to see: "Forgive me if I startled you; of course you think I'm queer; No doubt you wonder who I am, so solitary here; You question ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... soldier with slow conviction. He turned and looked down the long perspective of the forest road. Only a raven stalked there all alone over ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... third courtyard, and the second and the first. It rolled out of the first gate and on to the rock upon which the Castle was built. It rolled off the rock. The King of Ireland's Son sprang down and he saw the apple become a raven's head ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... a skald? This boy has hearkened Odin sing Unto the clang and winnowing Of raven's wings. His heart is thralled To music, as ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... 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. The opera ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... her and returns to the Bourse. She cries all night, but discovers that tears make her eyes 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 ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... animals as the elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, tiger, bear, urus (Bos primi-genius) an unknown animal of the size of a wolf, and three species of deer. The smaller animals included the rabbit, water-rat, mouse, raven, pigeon, lark and a small type of duck. Everything was broken into small pieces so that no single skull was found entire and it was, of course, impossible to obtain anything like a complete skeleton. From the fact that the bones of the hyaenas themselves had suffered the ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let Darkness keep her raven gloss; Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with Death to beat ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... at 50 deg. below zero there is the most complete silence. All animal life is hidden away. Not a rabbit flits across the trail; in the absolutely still air not a twig moves. A rare raven passes overhead, and his cry, changed from a hoarse croak to a sweet liquid note, reverberates like the musical glasses. There is no more delightful sound in the wilderness than this occasional lapse into music ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... Miss Bertram's advice, procured a skilful artist, who, on looking at the Dominie attentively, undertook to make for him two suits of clothes, one black and one raven-grey, and even engaged that they should fit him—as well at least (so the tailor qualified his enterprise) as a man of such an out-of-the-way build could be fitted by merely human needles and shears. When this fashioner had accomplished his task, and the dresses were brought ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... world of untold wonder lies Within thy silent lips! how rare a light Of conquer'd joys and ecstasies repress'd Beneath thy dimpled cheek shines half-confess'd! In what luxuriant masses, glossy bright, Those raven locks fall shadowing thy fair breast! And, lo! that bursting brow, with gorgeous wings, And vague young forms of beauty coyly hiding In thy crisp curls, like cherubs there abiding— Charmer, to thee ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... of springs he would be over the frontier. The youth now began to consider how he should act, for if he had to push the iron horse from behind he could not ride upon it as the sorcerer had said he must. But a raven unexpectedly gave him this advice: 'Ride upon the horse, and push the spear against the ground, as if you were pushing off a boat from the land.' The youth did so, and found that in this way he ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... 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 ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... and thin. His hair, formerly black as a raven's wing, was turning gray. He repeated his accusation in a weak ...
— Marie • Alexander Pushkin
... with astonishment. There stood on the threshold of the door a woman whose beauty was such as he had never seen surpassed. She held a boy by the hand. She was a mulatto woman, tall and graceful. Her hair was raven black and was combed away from as beautiful a forehead as nature could chisel. Her eyes were a brown hazel, large and intelligent, tinged with a slight look of melancholy. Her complexion was a rich olive, and seemed especially adapted to her face, that ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... in a don't bother kind of manner, is all that I can obtain. The novel is Miss BRADDON's latest, One Life, One Love (but three volumes, for all that), in which they are absorbed. Later on, at intervals, I get the volumes, and, raven-like, secrete them. I can quite understand the absorption of my young friends. Marvellous, Miss BRADDON! Very few have approached you in sensation-writing, and none in keeping up sensationalism as fresh as ever it was when ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., February 7, 1891 • Various
... Jupiter's descent to earth; and amour with Calistho. Birth of Arcas, and transformation of Calistho to a bear; and afterwards with Arcas to a constellation. Story of Coronis. Tale of the daw to the raven. Change of the raven's color. Esculapius. Ocyrrhoe's prophecies, and transformation to a mare. Apollo's herds stolen by Mercury. Battus' double-dealing, and change to a touchstone. Mercury's love for Herse. Envy. Aglauros changed to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... the good Bishop of Alet, to whom this man was addressing himself, 'more at our Saviour, and less at the instrument. Elijah was as well nourished, when the bread from heaven was brought to him by a raven, as Ishmael, when the spring of water was revealed ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... Wat Raven, who swept Clopton bridge, had seen two boys go up the Warwick road. "One were thy Nick, Muster Attwood," said he, thumping the dirt from his broom across the coping-stone, "and ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... one sounded as bad as the other, said she would take the big lump, and when the man-eater had cut the skin, she went home again. And as she hastened on a raven beheld the blood on the ground, and plastered it with earth, and stayed by her till she reached the castle. And as she entered the door he flew past, and she shrieked from fright, for up to that moment she had not seen him. In her terror she called ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... by the side of which is printed: 'A religious man, inventing the conceits of both birds and beasts drawn in the picture of our Saviour's birth, doth thus express them:— The cock croweth Christus natus est, Christ is born. The raven asked Quando? When? The crow replied Hac nocte, This night. The ox cryeth out Ubi? Ubi? Where? where? The sheep bleated out Bethlehem' ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... the welcome air. They work, they eat, they sleep out of doors. Mothers of families sit about their doors and spin, or walk volubly up and down with other slatternly matrons, armed with spindle and distaff while their raven- haired daughters, lounging near the threshold, chase the covert insects that haunt the tangles of the children's locks. Within doors shines the bare bald head of the grandmother, who never ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... this chatter of the woman from Cleves,' he croaked, like a malevolent raven. 'An Anne she is, and a Lutheran. I mind we had an Anne and a Lutheran for Queen before. She played the whore and ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... had fallen aside a little, disclosing a shimmer of purple garment and flashing emeralds. She looked barbaric, her raven brows knit. It might have been Cleopatra commanding the instant death ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... her and watched her while she slept. Then he observed a knot in a golden clasp, and unfastening it, he found the three rings which he had given her. He laid them on the grass, and, as chance would have it, a black raven flew past, picked up the rings and flew with them on to a tree. Peter climbed up the tree to catch the bird; but, as he was just about to seize it, the raven flew into another tree, and so from one tree to another, and then over ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... Challenge" illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of "corbyn" (a raven) is cor, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is pennac. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and "betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... zeal to deal a blow for his country, with an extremity of valour which he would hardly have displayed had Jules and Henri been free to defend themselves, one youth, possessed of coal-black, flashing eyes, of raven locks, and of pallid and bloated features, darted in between the two constables and struck a blow at Jules which, if it had taken effect, would most decidedly have ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... wot 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
... certainly one of the best poets of his time. Professor Hedge, one of our foremost literary critics, spoke of him as the one American poet whose verses sing themselves; and with the exception of Bryant's "Robert of Lincoln," and Poe's "Raven," and a few other pieces, this may be taken as a ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... not know what to make of this adventure. Presently he became aware that the Indian girl was sitting on a roll of blankets near the wall. With curious interest Shefford studied her appearance. She had long, raven-black hair, tangled and disheveled, and she wore a soiled white band of cord above her brow. The color of her face struck him; it was dark, but not red nor bronzed; it almost had a tinge of gold. Her profile was clear-cut, ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... being in bed, Robin in the shape of a night-raven[7] came to the window, and there did beat with his wings, and croaked in such manner that this old usurer thought he should have presently died for fear. This was but a preparation to what he did intend; for presently after he appeared before him at ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... through the Degree of the Lion,—the constellation Leo, domicile of the Sun and symbol of Mithras, found on his monuments. These ceremonies were termed at Rome Leontic and Heliac; and Coratia or Hiero-Coracia, of the Raven, a bird consecrated to the Sun, and a sign placed in the Heavens below the Lion, with the Hydra, and also appearing on ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... head, behind each came a hound, Padding with gentle paws upon the road. Straight silent pines rose here and there around; A dull stream on the left side hardly flowed; A black snake through the sluggish waters wound. Hark, the night raven! see the crawling toad! She thinks how dark will be the moonless night, How feeblest ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... innumerable autumn cobwebs flashed and trembled. I stopped. I began to feel sad; it seemed a dismal fear of approaching winter was stealing through the gay, though fresh, smile of fading nature. High above me, a cautious raven flew by, heavily and sharply cutting the air with his wings; then he turned his head, looked at me sidewise, and, croaking abruptly, disappeared beyond the forest; a large flock of pigeons rushed past me from a barn, and, suddenly ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev
... the shortness of her black cashmere frock, which was made 'en demoiselle,' after the fashion adhered to in French convents, where girls are compelled to look as ugly as possible, in order that they may eschew the sin of personal vanity,—her hair, of a rich raven black, was plaited in a stiff thick braid resembling a Chinese pigtail, and was fastened at the end with a bow of ribbon,—and a pair of wonderfully brilliant dark eyes flashed under her arching brows, suggesting something weird and witchlike in their roving glances, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... The Raven's meeting with Ethel had been apparently accidental, but was in reality intentional. Her actual captor was one of the chiefs, although not the principal one, of the Pampas Indians; and in the division of the spoil, preparations for which were going on, there was ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... one pass 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 bird again. A few days later news reached them that Mr. Ross-Lewin ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... if she cease to smile, as thy looks say, What if? I shall have drained my splendor down To the last flaming drop! Then take me, darkness, And mirk and mire and black oblivion, Despairs that raven where no camp-fire is, Like the wild beasts. I shall be even blest ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... mention that in several places there is a sort of Crows or Daws that are not Cole-black as ours, but partly of a Whitish Colour) in spight of Porphyries examples of Inseparable Accidents, I have seen a perfectly White Raven, as to Bill as well as Feathers, which I attentively considered, for fear of being impos'd upon. And this recalls into my Memory, what a very Ingenious Physician has divers times related to me of a young Lady, to whom being call'd, he found that though she much complain'd of ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... 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 her hand as if a rifle ball had struck ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... the women and turned the lion loose; he didn't find the pug, but found most everything else; smashed some bird cages and a raven and dove got away; dove came back at sundown, but the raven didn't; let all the birds out to get the air and roost ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... had heard Lion, the big watch-dog, howl long and loud before daylight; another that he had seen a corpse candle as he went homewards the previous evening; a third that she had seen her mistress all in white at her bedside, looking beautiful; a fourth that she had heard a raven croak; in short, if sighs and wonders could kill poor Mrs Prothero, there was little chance for her life. Where every one was usually so busy, so full of energy and spirit, there was more than a Sabbath calm. They were expecting some one, too, for Tom and Bill were ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... thy Parents, God, for surely it is well that they call a halt for thee and thine beside the river of death, and loosen thy burthens of pain and heart-breaking sorrow, and let loose from thy soul that raven, "Never more," which has preyed long upon thy soul and held thee in the grip of unspoken despair and anguish. This is of all demons the blackest and most subtle. In tones of love it has been proclaimed by the divine mind that nought is ever taken ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... one 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 ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... 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
... A curtain o'er the world at once! Crickets stop hissing; not a bird—or, yes, 285 There scuds His raven that has told Him all! It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move, And fast invading fires begin! White blaze— A tree's head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there, 290 ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... ambitious. But thou, though of her size and shape, art of a dark and swarthy hue and thy hair black, meseemeth. Of a verity thou art only the witch Mellent, and so, by reason of thy sun-browned skin and raven hair—aye, and for thy witchcraft—thou, alack! must die—unless thou find thee a champion. Verily I fear me no man will dare take up thy cause, for Sir Gilles is a lusty man and famous at the joust. Moreover—my will is known in ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... improvement. George especially was so grown as to come up to his younger-born brother. The boys could hardly be distinguished one from another, especially when their hair was powdered; but that ceremony being too cumbrous for country life, each of the gentlemen commonly wore his own hair, George his raven black, and Harry his light locks tied with ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... that met Teresa's 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 hue of night; a form richly moulded and of perfect symmetry, ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... That dark delight, Is both as fair And dusk as night. I know some lovelorn hearts that beat In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet, That dance and glance like jewels there, Emblazoning the raven hair! ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington
... thing disquieted the Ylfing's offspring, and the woman who had the child brought forth. Sitting on a lofty tree, on prey intent, a raven to a raven ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... worse than Mr. Poe's crow! Or was it a raven? What's the difference, anyhow? Now don't tell me they're both anthropeds or pods, or whatever it is, because I'm onto you as a disseminator of knowledge! I never got even with you yet for calling me 'something ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... you see? He came aboard half-an-hour ago. Old Bosun Dempsey fetched him out of his lugger; and look yonder, you croaking old cock raven. We always have one jolly as sentry ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... graceful figure. Complexion dark enough to make her pass for a brunette. Large black eyes and raven hair." ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur
... the Pouke, nor other evill sprights, Ne let mischivous witches with theyr charmes, Ne let hob Goblins, names whose sence we see not, Fray us with things that be not: Let not the shriech Oule nor the Storke be heard, Nor the night Raven, that still deadly yels; Nor damned ghosts, cald up with mighty spels, Nor griesly vultures, make us once affeard: Ne let th' unpleasant Quyre of Frogs still croking Make us to wish theyr choking. Let none of these theyr drery accents ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... sumac banners bent, dripping as if with blood, What a mournful presence brooded upon the slumbrous air; A mocking-bird screamed noisily in the depth of the silent wood, And in my heart was crying the raven of despair, Thrilling my being through with its bitter, bitter cry— "It were better to die, it ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... Despite the fact that she was now an old woman,—he knew that she must be at least forty-six or -seven,—she was still remarkably handsome. She was very tall, deep-chested, and as straight as an arrow. Her smoothly brushed hair was as black as the raven's wing. Time and the toil of long, hard hours had brought deep furrows to her cheeks, like lines chiselled in a face of marble, but they had not broken the magnificent body of the Rachel Carter who used to toss ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... never presented a better appearance, with his dark eyes; his tanned and glowing cheeks; his raven mustached lips, which, parting with a smile, showed white and regular teeth. He was the picture of a gallant soldier; all his old melancholy and cynical bitterness gone, as mist is swept away ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... to rid the world of this sly thief. While I hold fast to his raven hair, and his long slim arms, do you seize him by the heels, and we will give his limbs to the fishes, and his body to ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... there were only two of us at Aveley at the time, Kaye, and a younger man, Raven, who had just joined. We determined to say nothing about it till the following morning: the day passed heavily enough. I found I could do nothing with the dread of what it might all mean overhanging me. I admired ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... black as a raven's wing, but I am certain that I can start from the first tee and retrace every step made by Miss Harding over the fourteen holes played, and I will admit that it was far from a straight line. I will wager that I can place my hand on every place ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... A raven, weird epitome of Thlinget myth and legend, croaked spasmodically from the white branch of a dead spruce behind them. The damp air had in it the freshness of new-cut hemlock boughs, a wild, vigorous fragrance that stirs the imagination ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... doth deform thee; In the midst of thee, O field, so fair and verdant! A clump of bushes stands—a clump of hazels, Upon their very top there sits an eagle, And upon the bushes' top—upon the hazels, Compress'd within his claw he holds a raven, And its hot blood he sprinkles on the dry ground; And beneath the bushes' clump—beneath the hazels, Lies void of life the good and gallant stripling; All wounded, pierc'd and mangled is his body. As the little tiny swallow or the chaffinch, ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow
... had managed to spear a huge raven. Rooney, being something of a naturalist, had skinned it, and it was while little Tumbler was gazing at him in open-eyed admiration that the thought struck him—Tumbler being very small ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... word, a parting trope: It is not alone the royal eagle who may despise the croaking of the raven; the swan, too, is proud and takes no note of it. Nothing concerns him except to keep clean the sheen of his white pinions. He thinks only of nestling against Leda's bosom without hurting her, and of breathing forth into song everything that ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... other, promptly; "I've never forgotten how Black Joe looked, blinking his eyes at us when we stood there talking to your aunt. But you're wrong in one thing, Bristles; it isn't just a plain, everyday crow at all. She said it was a raven, one of the wise old kind you read about; and that she brought it across the water. They're more cunning than our crows; and goodness knows I've always found them smart enough, when you ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... strike even at the first glance, possessing as it did all the advantages of a fine person and a commanding carriage. The beauty of her features strikingly assorted in character with that of her figure and deportment. Her hair was raven-black and richly luxuriant, beautifully contrasting with the perfect whiteness of her forehead—her finely pencilled brows were black as the ringlets that clustered near them—and her blue eyes, full, lustrous, and animated, possessed all the power and brilliancy of brown ones, with more than their ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... said the Moo Kow, "with the main guard. The first is Bleareyed, who carries a raven in a cage, which he has stolen from the wife of a deputy commissioner. He will paint the bird snow white and sell it as a dove to the same lady. The second is Otherwise, who is dragging a small garden engine, of which he has despoiled a native ...
— New Burlesques • Bret Harte
... thereon is the dark grey mail-gear well forged in the southern land; Then he looks on the sword that he beareth, and, lo, the eager blade That leaps in the hand of Gunnar when the kings are waxen afraid; And he turns his face o'er his shoulder, and the raven-locks hang down From the dark-blue helm of the Dwarf-folk, and the rings of ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... through the ward—corresponded with the sketch we have given of his character. His head, upon which his 'prentice's flat cap was generally flung in a careless and oblique fashion, was closely covered with thick hair of raven black, which curled naturally and closely, and would have grown to great length, but for the modest custom enjoined by his state in life and strictly enforced by his master, which compelled him to keep it short-cropped,—not unreluctantly, as he ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... quarter-deck loafer, that I should attempt to describe what poet and painter alike would have failed to realise? I know, of course, your stock descriptives: the melting eye, the coral lip, the peachy cheek, the raven tress; but these were coined for mortal woman—and this was not one of them. I will not attempt to describe the glorious tenderness of those eyes she turned upon me presently; the glowing radiance of her skin; the infinite grace of every ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... the words, than the child was indeed changed into a raven, and fluttered from her arms out of the window. And she flew into a dark wood and stayed there a long time, and her parents knew nothing of her. Once a man was passing through the wood, and ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... chisel Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too well, In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, grizzle - Pits, where peonies ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... sycophancy of their countrymen, resolve upon quitting Attica. Having heard of the fame of Epops (the hoopoe), sometime called Tereus, and now King of the Birds, they determine, under the direction of a raven and a jackdaw, to seek from him and his subject birds a city free from all care and strife." Arrived at the Palace of Epops, they knock, and Trochilus (the wren), in a state of great flutter, as he mistakes them for fowlers, opens the door and informs them that his Majesty is asleep. When he awakes, ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... vow went forth from that same consecrated place to be true to the convictions that she now felt. How long a period had elapsed since she stood there before. She is no more forgetful of it than Archie, and she draws forth from her bosom a tress of raven hair, and looks upon it while it is bathed in the moonlight, wondering, meantime, how she had dared to cut it from his head as he leaned against this same tree so long, long ago. True, he did not know it, it was so slyly done; but nothing could tempt her to a like act again. Not that ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... might have looked long enough where this wise old raven came flying; he was, and remained, alone. And without troubling about anything or uttering a sound, he sped on his strong coal-black wings through the dense rain-mist, ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations of Marya Philimonovna, the bailiff's horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in a ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... 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 ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... is," quoth an old raven, who sat on the fence-rail, and was condescending enough to acknowledge that we are all like little birds in the sight of Heaven, and therefore was not above speaking to the sparrows, and giving them information. "I know ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to one Barnaby Rudge, and many people fancied that the Devil himself was disguised under his sable plumage. But poor Grip has drawn his last cork, and has been forced to 'say die' at last. This other raven, hardly less curious, is that in which the soul of King George I. revisited his lady-love, the Duchess ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... twins, who, with the light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing themselves before they retired to rest, but at a quarter past eleven all was still, and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth. The owl beat against the window panes, the raven croaked from the old yew- tree, and the wind wandered moaning round the house like a lost soul; but the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and high above the rain and storm he could hear the steady snoring of the Minister for the United States. He stepped stealthily ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... said Harry, "about the best thing you do to-day is predict trouble for folks. You're as bad as What's-his-name's raven; ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "If so," exclaimed the affrighted sultan, "there is no refuge or help but from the omnipotent Allah: well has the proverb remarked, that the nestling would not be restrained from the air, when suddenly the raven pounced upon it and bore it away. Heaven guard my son from the consequences of his imprudence." Having said thus, the sultan commanded preparations for the requisites of travel, and ordered a force to accompany the headstrong prince; who, having taken leave of his afflicted parents, began his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... Prophet Elias. Anything that is in the Bible is true: if it happened once that a raven brought bread to a hungry prophet, it can happen twice. Now to your work. You have begun this work, and you must finish it. Do it good-naturedly, my faithful friend, or else I'll shoot you in the head and then this ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... Daly usually came with at least three of the stars of his company which I have already mentioned, but even the beautiful Rehan and the nice old Mrs. Gilbert seemed thoroughly awed in the presence of "the Guv'nor." He was a most crusty, dictatorial party, as I remember him with his searching eyes and raven locks, always dressed in black and always failing to find virtue in any actor or actress not a member of his own company. I remember one particularly acrid discussion between him and my father in regard to Julia Marlowe, who ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its dramatis personae, from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy, Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There under Ebon shades and low-brow'd Rocks, As ragged as thy Locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 But com thou Goddes fair and free, In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... Colonel like a dismal raven, as she waited at the head of the stairs for the girls to finish dressing. "This is the la-st mawnin' well all go racin' down to breakfast togethah! I'm glad that Betty isn't goin' away for a while longah. If you all had to leave at the same time, it would ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... fine lot to call yourselves the Raven Patrol!' cried Arthur jeeringly. 'What have you got, I'd ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... only a homely old woman; no prestige comes in to garnish the unvarnished fact—a plain old maid, my dear—with not even the remembrance of beauty as a consolation, nor its remnant as a sign of past triumphs, 'only this and nothing more,' as that wonderful man Poe makes his raven say. We never find our level until we go among people who know and care nothing about us, who have never 'heard of us'—that exordium of most greetings from folks of our own class. It is absolutely refreshing to be so unaffectedly despised and slighted—it ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... Sunday—forty days. It took a long time, therefore, for the waters to go down and finally disappear. When the waters began to go down, Noe, wishing to know if any land was as yet above the water, opened the little window, and sent out a raven or crow over the waters. The raven did not come back, because it is a bird that eats flesh, and it found plenty of dead bodies to feed upon. Then Noe sent out a dove, and the dove came back with ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead
... now the rill, melodious, pure, and cool, 'And meads, with life, and mirth, and beauty, crowned! 'Ah! see, the unsightly slime, and sluggish pool, 'Have all the solitary vale imbrowned; 'Fled each fair form, and mute each melting sound. 'The raven croaks forlorn on naked spray: 'And, hark! the river, bursting every mound, 'Down the vale thunders; and, with wasteful sway, 'Uproots the grove, and ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... hall. She came down in her loveliness into the old oak room, and stood before the mirrored glass. Her robe was of woven velvet, rich, and glossy, and soft; jewels shone like stars in the midnight of her raven hair, and on her hand there gleamed, afar off, a bright and glorious ring! She {226} stood—she gazed upon her own countenance and form, and worshipped! "Now all good angels succour thee, dear Alice, and bend ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 45, Saturday, September 7, 1850 • Various
... their moanings and groanings, and reeked with the smell of their blood. As I stood rooted to the ground with horror, not knowing which way to look or turn, I suddenly saw drop from the ash, the form of a woman, a Highland girl, with bold, handsome features, raven black hair, and the whitest of arms and feet. In one hand she carried a wicker basket, in the other a knife, a broad-bladed, sharp-edged, horn-handled knife. A gleam of avarice and cruelty came into her large ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth, for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... surprised to find a golden cottage instead of the wretched hut that had stood there the day before. But, on entering the house, he was much more surprised and delighted to find a beautiful young girl, with raven hair, sitting by the window and spinning on her distaff with the air ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... the upper air, The world-queen with the raven hair, When stars in silence greet each other, They dream alone of ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... 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 and ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... 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 ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... European warriors; until, as they themselves grew selfish and cruel, the symbols which at first meant heaven-sent victory, or the strength and presence of some Divine spirit, became to them only the signs of their own pride or rage: the victor raven of Corvus sinks into the shamed falcon of Marmion, and the lion-heartedness which gave the glory and the peace of the gods to Leonidas, casts the glory and the might of kinghood to the dust ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... ray the less, Had half impair'd the nameless grace Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... produce in the night. There were various dull-plumaged small birds, with hawks, crows, and occasionally ducks, and one abominable croaking creature at night used to annoy me exceedingly, and though I often walked up the glen I could never discover what sort of bird it was. It might have been a raven; yes, a raven never flitting may be sitting, may be sitting, on those shattered rocks of wretchedness—on that Troglodytes' shore, where in spirit I may wander, o'er those arid regions yonder; but where I wish to squander, time and energies no more. ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... your parrot conceitedly thinking he can do the work of his lazy little mistress, and in another minute it will be all destroyed. Wake up, little sleeper, wake up, and collect those long curls floating like a raven curtain about you. Think what Madame will say if she catches but a glimpse of you. A little apart from all stands one tall figure, taller than all the rest, her dark hair folded back from her forehead, her dark eyes watching each beloved group, while she spins unceasingly. Close at her feet sits ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... ruddie streakes 5 Of lyghte eclypse the greie; And herde the raven's crokynge throte Proclayme ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... waves of morning air came down the mountains, cool, chill, and moist. The grey light became tinged with red. Then the sun rose somewhere. It had not yet appeared, but the peak of the western hill was flushed and a raven flew out and perched on the point of light. Israel's breast expanded, and he strode on with a firmer step. "She will be waking soon," ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... role of wife and companion. It is the story of a high-born Egyptian woman, Tutu, wife of Ani, Royal Scribe and Scribe of the Sacred Revenue of all the gods of Thebes. Tutu, the long-eyed Egyptian woman, young and straight, with raven hair and active form, a Kemaeit of Amon, which means she belonged to the religious chapter or congregation of the great god of Thebes. She was what might be described as lady-in-waiting or honorary priestess, to the god Amon. She, too, wears the typical Egyptian head-dress and straight, long white ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... walk fast, that would have yielded, at the rate of three and a half miles per hour, thirteen plus one third miles. But only two and a half hours were given to walking; the other one and a half to riding. No day was a day of rest; absolutely none. Days so stormy that they "kept the raven to her nest," snow the heaviest, winds the most frantic, were never listened to as any ground of reprieve from the ordinary exaction. I once knew (that is, not personally, for I never saw her, but through the reports of her many friends) an intrepid lady, [Footnote: ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... of a vast whirlpool, not of water or of wind, but of life. Alas! he seemed indeed the very current of that whirlpool, a monstrous force, around which evil circled and lurked and conquered. Wade—who had the ill-omened croak of the raven—Wade—who bent his driven ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey |
