"Swart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the nunnery gate, As the darkness fell over the village, Would a swart savage crouch and await, With the patience of devilish hate, A chance to kill women, ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... or the humble accommodation for foot-passengers, admitted into a narrow and short passage running between two rows of lime-trees, whose green foliage during the spring contrasted strangely with the swart complexion of the two walls by the side of which they grew. This access led to the front of the house, which was formed by two gable ends, notched, and having their windows adorned with heavy architectural ornaments. They joined each other at right angles; and ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... shunned him with undisguised abhorrence. Poor innocent maid! she little knew the man's black mind, who thus dared to reach up to the height of her affections; but she saw enough of character in his swart scowling face, and loud assuming manners, to make her dread his very presence, as a thunder-cloud across ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... a swart-complexioned fellow, but quick-eyed, in a white satin doublet of one fashion, green velvet hose of another, a fantastical hat with a plume of feathers of several colours, a little short taffeta cloak, a pair of buskins cut, drawn out with sundry-coloured ribbands, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... Suddenly the swart figure of Time stood up before the gods, with both hands dripping with blood and a red sword dangling idly from his ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... was at the time when I received the details of this story from his lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of hue, of pleasing address, and altogether the last person one would take for a convict serving a term for sneak-thieving. The only outer symptoms of his actual condition were the striped suit he wore, the style and cut of which are still in vogue at Sing Sing prison, and ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... this swart, beardless face, with its brilliant inquisitorial dark blue eyes, handsome secretive mouth veiled by no mustache—and boldly assertive chin deeply cleft in the centre—affected Beryl very unpleasantly, as a perplexing disagreeable memory; an uncanny ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... must thou wake perforce thy Doric quill; 'Tis Fancy's land to which thou sett'st thy feet; Where still, 'tis said, the fairy people meet, 20 Beneath each birken shade, on mead or hill; There, each trim lass, that skims the milky store, To the swart tribes their creamy bowls allots; By night they sip it round the cottage door, While airy minstrels warble jocund notes. 25 There, every herd, by sad experience, knows How, wing'd with fate, their elf-shot arrows fly, When the sick ewe her summer food foregoes, Or, stretch'd on earth, the heart-smit ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... high as a girl's, set off with silver spurs; a very short coat faced with galloons of gold, and a very broad-brimmed and very high-crowned sombrero, on which the silver braid alone was worth the price of a good horse. Even for a Spanish Mexican his face was dark. Swart it was, the cheeks hollow; a tiny, tight mustache with ends truculently pointed and erect helped out the belligerency of the tight-shut lips. The eyes were black as bitumen, and flashed continually ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... of the fettered condition from which he had escaped, the name of Ephraim Swart, "a gambler and spree'r" was mentioned as the individual who had wronged him ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the pit and the stake, it was the woman, arms about me, leg-twining, who fought with me and restrained me not to go out through the dark to my desire. She was part-clad, for warmth only, in skins of animals, mangy and fire-burnt, that I had slain; she was swart and dirty with camp smoke, unwashed since the spring rains, with nails gnarled and broken, and hands that were calloused like footpads and were more like claws than like hands; but her eyes were blue as the summer sky is, as the deep sea is, and there was that in her eyes, and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... the swart gipsies to explain, as they stood knee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what it was that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary moor; gazing thereon he saw how from the crag might be elicited a head, savage, swart, sinister; a form moulded with at least one element of grandeur—power. He wrought with a rude chisel, and from no model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour the crag took human shape; and there ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of chastity? 440 Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow Fair silver-shafted ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... of hurry and confusion among those manikins, and he knew that the French shells were striking them. He rode down to the commander and told him. The swart Frenchman grinned. ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... truth and to expose his slanderers, you would not hear him, but you struck him first." Again and again, as at the end of a paragraph of unadorned but trenchant sentences the small, firm-knit figure quivered with a leonine energy, the great, swart head was thrown backward, and the deep voice swelled into a tone of triumph or defiance, the listeners could not forbear to applaud. Once, even Seward broke forth: "I have never had so much respect for ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... follow thee about? Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That fear'd not you and me ... alas, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... prince of paramours - Eyes coloured like the springtide sea, and hair Bright as with fire of sundawn—face as fair As mine is swart and worn with haggard hours, Though less in years than his—such hap was ours When chance drew forth for us the lots that were Hid close in time's clenched hand: and now I swear, Though his be goodlier than the stars or flowers, I would not change this ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... in profusion over his forehead, which it almost hid; though from the slight separation of a curl, the form of brow became visible; which was remarkable for its projection, and for its pallid hue, which offered a strong contrast to the swart ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... John and Priscilla built their home in 1631, their grandson built the cottage which now stands—the property of the Alden Kindred Association. John Alden seems to have been an attractive young fellow—it is easy to see why Priscilla Mullins preferred him to the swart, truculent widower—but from our point of view John Alden's chief claim to fame is that he was a ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... and yielded up the obedience she could not withhold; though, as she went down the stairs to the door, in a tenebrous, glimmering way she wondered that the accident of white skin or swart made master or servant as the case ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... The desolation seemed even more complete than in the autumn before. In the winter and spring the Iroquois and Tories had destroyed the few remnants of houses that were left. Braxton Wyatt and his band had been particularly active in this work, and many tales had come of his cruelty and that of his swart Tory lieutenant, Coleman. Henry was sure, too, that Wyatt's band, which numbered perhaps fifty Indians and Tories, was now in front ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... but these are mere staring faces, without expression, that make you shudder and feel sad. Miners by birth; human moles fitted to burrow in darkness for a life-time. Is it worth living for? No wonder those swart laborers underground are so grim and taciturn: no wonder there was not a face lighted up by those smoky lamps in the pit, that had one line of human sympathy left in its ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... offing of the sea of Death. And though no friend nor brother ever made My soul the burden of one prayer to Heaven, I dread to go alone into the grave, And fold my cold arms emptily away From the bright shadow of such loveliness. Can the dull mist where swart October hides His wrinkled front and tawny cheek, wind-shorn, Be sprinkled with the orange fire that binds Away from her soft lap o'erbrimmed with flowers, The dew-wet tresses of the virgin May? Or can the heart just sunken from ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... He spared her his swart intensity; he shyly quoted Tennyson, and bounced with cynicisms about "Sherbert Souse" and "the Gas-bag." He brought happiness to her, instead of ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... steeds and chariots and drifting mail The drowned lords of Egypt found a grave With all their swart retainers 'neath the wave; And in their ...
— The Hymns of Prudentius • Aurelius Clemens Prudentius
... a contrast, these two men, the colonel of the Grays, swart and sturdy, his physical vitality so evident, and the captain of the Browns, some seven or eight years the junior, bareheaded, in dishevelled fatigue uniform, his lips twitching, his slender body quivering with the pain that he could not control, ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... kept by Fernandez the smith. And presently they came to the village forge, a cottage with huge, high roof whose beams were safe from sparks; and its fire was glowing redly into the moonlight through the wide door made for horses, although there seemed no work to be done, and a man with a swart moustache was piling more logs on. Over the door was burned on oak in ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... the temple, with its two fire-pillars. About half way up hang a couple of large bells, which the Hindoo sounded by way of preparing us for what we were to see. There was something fearful in the loud clangor, and my boys crowded close beside me. Except our party, no one was to be seen except the swart Geber, in his white turban and long brown robe, with just enough of a pair of light blue trowsers visible to bring into distinctness his naked black feet. His features were noble, and his beard long and black. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... still closer to him as they stepped along the wharf. He lowered his voice to a still more confidential tone. His hard blue eyes peered up into the swart, sardonic face of his companion, who was a head ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... a few moments, from the firing of the first shot, until things took this turn. Swart boy was hardly clear of the bushes before the elephant emerged also; and as the former struck out for the mokhala trees, he was scarce six steps ahead of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... swoon, perplexed she lay, Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppressed Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away; Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day; Blissfully havened both from joy and pain; Clasped like a missal where swart Paynims pray: Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, As though a rose should shut, and ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... quiet I should see that which I had never yet seen—the home-coming of our famous foraying Duke. I had, indeed, seen Duke Casimir often enough in the castle, or striding across the court-yard to speak to my father, for whom he had ever a remarkable affection. He was a tall, swart, black-a-vised man, with a huge hairy mole on his cheek, and long dog-teeth which showed at the sides of his mouth when he smiled, almost as pleasantly as those of a she-wolf looking out of ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... of pool or clod, God-spawn of lizard-footed clans, And those dog-headed hulks that trod Swart necks of the old Egyptians, Raw draughts of ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... as the "Key to the Lake District," and Swartmoor, which adjoined the town, took its name from a German—Colonel Martin Swart—-to whom the Duchess of Burgundy in 1486 gave the command of about 2,000 Flemish troops sent to support the pretended title of Lambert Simnel to the Crown of England. He landed in Ireland, where a great number of the Irish joined him, and then, crossing over to England, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... to sun's parching heat display'd my cheeks, God's mother deigned to appear to me, And in a vision full of majesty Will'd me to leave my base vocation, And free my country from calamity: Her aid she promised and assured success: In complete glory she reveal'd herself; And, whereas I was black and swart before, With those clear rays which she infused on me That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see. Ask me what question thou canst possible, And I will answer unpremeditated: My courage try by combat, if thou dar'st, And thou shalt find that I exceed ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... evening Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... the mountain home Gone was the belov'd of his heart; He sprang so wild about the hill, And changed to a flint rock swart. ...
— Young Swaigder, or The Force of Runes - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... did, and stood before a man of about forty winters. His face was so swart that I could see only the German in the blue eye, and at once imagined that a stream of Plutonic fire had streamed into his veins from some more Oriental race. I stammered out an apology for my intrusion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... far-piercing spears, keen blades, Struggling, and blood, and shrieks—all dimly fades 10 Into some backward corner of the brain; Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet. Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat! Swart planet in the universe of deeds! Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, 20 And golden keel'd, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... order to justify themselves to posterity, have declared in the Assembly of their Noble and Grand Mightinesses that their Committee is of opinion that it is necessary, without loss of time, to write on the part of their High Mightinesses to M. de Swart, their Resident at the Court of Russia, and charge him to enter into a conference, the sooner the better, with the Commissioners of her Imperial Majesty of Russia, and of other neutral powers in the place ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... delicate ebony and silver suite, on a deep red carpet of Aleppo, as soft and yielding as the moss of a forest. In keeping with the furniture was the sole occupant of this stately chamber—a little negro boy in a livery of velvet picked out with silver tinsel, who stood as motionless as a small swart statuette against the door which faced that through which ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... see, The lovely, cultured landscape, waving grain, Wide haughty rivers, and pale, English skies. And lo! a farmer ploughing busily, Who lifts a swart face, looks upon the plain,— I ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... In empyrean wars, The sons of simple men out-vie God's splendid meteors; Where'er the mills of Vulcan roared And blinked against the night, Swart shapes with sweat-washed eyes have stored The clean, lean lightnings of the Lord To be a league-long, leaping sword In this our ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson
... Colebrooke, faithless to his charge, Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams, Form'd for the Train that haunt poetic dreams, Naiads, and Nymphs,—now hears the toiling Barge And the swart Cyclops ever-clanging forge Din in thy dells;—permits the dark-red gleams, From umber'd fires on all thy hills, the beams, Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe Of thy romantic rocks, pollute ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... about, Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That feared not you and me—alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along my knee, And reasoned with ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... swart and bandy-legged, with rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physical bluff and physical menace, in which he had always lived. His ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... The hunter's swart countenance grew darker as he spoke, for he well knew the extremity of danger into which the reckless youth was compelling him to run, but he did not hesitate. Instead, however, of following in the steps of one who was fleeter of foot than himself, he made a detour ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... her seat, amid the palms embowered That shade the Lion-land, Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect towered— The fetters on her hand! Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, The mighty Theban years, And the deep anguish of her mournful lips ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Mrs Nobbs was by his side on her knees in a moment, parting the dark hair from his broad brow, kissing his swart cheeks, and chafing his ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... wood. About her rounded shoulders warm and bare, Like netted sunshine fell her lustrous hair; The rosy flush of young pomegranate bells Dawned on her cheeks; and blue as in lone dells Sleep the Forget-me-nots, her eyes. With bent Brows, sullen-creased, swart Adam gazed intent Upon a leopard, crouched low in its place Beneath his feet. Not once in Lilith's face He looked, nor sought her wistful, downcast eyes With shifting shadows dusk, and strange surprise. "O, Love," she ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... you do?" said Yourii, speaking in a low voice that yet was not low enough. He was not sure if he ought to shake hands in a church. Several members of the congregation looked round, and their swart, parchment-like faces made him feel more uncomfortable. He actually blushed, but Sina, seeing his confusion, smiled at him, as a mother might, with love in her eyes, and Yourii stood there, ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... A ship called the 'Swart Hundt' was by the Queen's command appointed and fitted to carry Whitelocke's copper and other goods from hence to England. By advice of friends, Whitelocke under his hand and seal desired Sir George Fleetwood to consign ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... in his shirt and brought out what I thought was a Boer tobacco pouch made of the skin of the Swart-vet-pens or sable antelope. It was fastened with a little strip of hide, what we call a rimpi, and this he tried to loose, but could not. He handed it to me. 'Untie it,' he said. I did so, and extracted a bit of torn yellow linen on which something ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... and beheld a hundred—no, a thousand!—shadowy forms darting down on the village, upon us. They, too, were just as the girl had pictured them: short, swart beings with but the suggestion of a nose, and with pulsing gill-covers under the angles of their jaws. Each one gripped a long, slim white knife in either hand, and their tight-fitting shark-skin armor gleamed darkly as they swooped down ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various |
