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Yew

noun
1.
Wood of a yew; especially the durable fine-grained light brown or red wood of the English yew valued for cabinetwork and archery bows.
2.
Any of numerous evergreen trees or shrubs having red cup-shaped berries and flattened needlelike leaves.



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"Yew" Quotes from Famous Books



... not of the budding bay, Nor the yew by the new-made grave, And waft me not in spirit away, Where the sorrowing willows wave; Let the shag-bark walnut blend its shade With the elm on the verdant lea— But let us his to the distant glade, Where blossoms the ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... green recess shut in from the lawn by high yew hedges. Nicky at his tea-table was more charming than ever, surrounded by old silver and fine linen, making tea delicately, and pouring it into fragile cups and offering it, doing everything with an almost ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... all grave; but she often, weeps. Then she is so absent, that she cut out the frieze gowns for the alms-women too short, and spoiled Mrs. Mellicent's eye-water. The tapestry chairs are thrown aside, and she steals from us to the bower in the yew-tree that overlooks the green, where she devotes her mornings to reading Sydney's Arcadia. My dear Eusebius, I see her disease, for I recollect my own behaviour when I was doubtful whether you preferred me; but surely, if a connection with Evellin would involve our dear Isabel in distress, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... with the bird's descant another kind of singing. Beyond the yew-hedge as these two stood silent, breast to breast, passed young Jehan Kuypelant, one of the pages, fitting to the accompaniment of a lute his paraphrase of the song which Archilochus of Sicyon very anciently made in honor of Venus Melaenis, the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... be quite possible for a person to pass several years in the country and never see one of these birds. There is a trick in finding birds' nests, and a trick in seeing birds. The first I noticed was in an orchard; soon after, I found a second in a yew-tree (close to a window), and after that constantly came upon them as they crept through brambles or in hedgerows, or a mere speck up in a fir-tree. So soon as I had ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... midst of well-kept grounds a goodly mansion, which held this pleasant room. It was always light and cheerful and warm, for the three windows down to the broad gravel-walk before it faced south; and though the lawn was darkened just in front of them by two magnificent yew-trees, the atmosphere of the room itself, in its silent, sunny loftiness, was at once gay and solemn to my small imagination and senses,—much as the interior of Saint Peter's of Rome has been since to them. Wonderful, large, tall jars of precious old china stood ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... chapel was a ruin old, That stood so low, in lonely glen. The gothic windows high and dark Were hung with ivy, brier, and yew." ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... house, darling (honeysuckle porch, yew clipt hedge, bees, poetry and eight shillings a week), I think you will have to do the shopping. Particularly at Felixstowe. There was a great and glorious man who said, 'Give us the luxuries of life and we will dispense with ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... roofed over with poles covered with turf, or plastered with cow dung. In summer they lived in rude waggons or in huts made of the branches of trees. Of metals, native copper may have been beaten into ornaments, but tools and weapons were mostly of stone. Bows were made of the wood of the yew, ... trees were hollowed out for canoes by stone axes, aided ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies

... missel-thrushes, and feeding on the berries of the yew tree, which answered to the description of the merula torquata, or ring-ouzel, were lately seen in this neighbourhood. I employed some people to procure me a specimen, but without ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... the morning sun shone in the gems of her apparel, and her jewelled feet fell like flowers upon the deep grass of the upper Vale, and shone strange and bright amongst the black stones of the pass. She bore a quiver at her back and a shining yew bow in her hand, and went amongst the bowmen, for she was a very ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... beyond the destined hour? Consider, man; weigh well thy frame; The king, the beggar is the same. 70 Dust forms us all. Each breathes his day, Then sinks into his native clay. Beneath a venerable yew, That in the lonely church-yard grew, Two ravens sat. In solemn croak Thus one his hungry friend bespoke: 'Methinks I scent some rich repast; The savour strengthens with the blast; Snuff then, the promised feast inhale; I taste the carcase in the gale; 80 Near yonder trees, the farmer's ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... "it's more cumfortable-like for us four to 'old together, and it's a better protection for the lady. I bean't afear'd of no Gers, I bean't! I'll go along o' yew officers and the lady, if yew don't ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... degrees to the west. Eleven of these trees were silicified and well preserved; Mr. R. Brown has been so kind as to examine the wood when sliced and polished; he says it is coniferous, partaking of the characters of the Araucarian tribe, with some curious points of affinity with the Yew. The bark round the trunks must have been circularly furrowed with irregular lines, for the mudstone round them is thus plainly marked. One cast consisted of dark argillaceous limestone; and forty of them of coarsely crystallised carbonate of lime, with cavities lined by quartz crystals: ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... was in the old Yew Avenue in the Priory garden. He was on his way to call at the Red House. She stood on a patch of grass by a rustic seat commanding the vista of yews, and above them, a wilderness of lilacs and laburnums, in full flower. It looked to her like a pathway that led to some exquisite fairy ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... my eye against the iron-grey of the horizon, were some of those shrubs or trees that grow like our junipers, some six feet high, in form like a miniature poplar, with the darker foliage of the yew. I do not know the name of the plant, but I have often seen it in ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... gave too garden-like and adorned a look to so solemn and sacred a spot; persons will not all think alike on such a matter: and yet something may be done in this direction with an effect which would please everybody. A few trees of the arbor vitae, the cypress, and the Irish yew, scattered here and there, with tirs in the hedge-rows or boundary fences, would be unobjectionable; while wooden baskets, or boxes, placed by the sides of the walks, and filled in summer with the fuchsia or scarlet ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... John then cried, stepping into the middle of the row, "take thou this good stout bow of yew. You are going to join us and make one of Sherwood's merry men till his Majesty returns and reinstates you as the rightful Earl of Huntingdon. Come! Say you will be one of us." All the outlaws crowded affectionately about Robert and ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... they bore a stronger bow, one tapered at the end opposite the natural tapering of the branch, so that it was far more flexible and symmetrical than the one they had tried before. They had abundance of ash and yew and these remained the good bow wood of all the time of archery. And the shaft was straight and bore a miniature spearhead at its end. The thought of notching the shaft to fit the string came naturally and inevitably. The bow had its ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... for you! I hide my diminished head. Look here, though, I've got an idea which I present as a peace-offering. If you don't succeed in getting a house near town, what do you say to Yew Hedge, in our neighbourhood? It's to be sold, and you used to admire it in the old days, I remember. It's a quaint, old-fashioned place, with a drawing-room out of which you could make great things; six acres of land, and some fine trees. Altogether you might ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... do, John, if you were shut up here, and had to get over the yew hedge? You could ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... how her autocracy was threatened, tottered and recovered. I wish I had space to quote the description of the Lucas home, "converted" from two genuine cottages, to which had been added a wing at right-angles, even more Elizabethan than the original, and a yew-hedge, "brought entire from a neighbouring farm and transplanted with solid lumps of earth and indignant snails around its roots." Perhaps, apart from the joy of the setting, you may find some of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various

... its circling screen of sycamores. Sweet violets, both purple and white, grow in abundance beneath its south wall. Large elms protrude their rough branches, old hawthorns shed their blossoms over the graves, and the hollow yew-tree must be at least ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... over the Park. Dangerfield is one of those places that seem always to be in the shade. How the strawberries ever ripen, or the flowers ever bloom, or the birds ever sing there is to me a mystery. Outside there are dark walls and yew hedges and cypresses, and here and there a copper beech, with lawns that are never mown and copses that are never thinned, to say nothing of that stagnant moat, with its sombre and prolific vegetation; whilst within, black oak wainscoting, and heavy tapestry, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... dingle, still the rustics name; 'T was there the blushing maid confessed her flame. Down yon green lane they oft were seen to hie, When evening slumber'd on the western sky. That blasted yew, that mouldering walnut bare. Each bears mementos of the ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... Tasso once in England, ambassador of Philip the Second; another, like Cervantes, distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto; and a third gave rise to the sovereign German house of Tour and Taxis. Taxus is the Latin of Tasso. The Latin word, like the Italian, means both a badger and a yew-tree; and the family in general appear to have taken it in the former sense. The animal is in their coat of arms. But the poet, or his immediate relatives, preferred being more romantically shadowed forth by the yew-tree. The parent ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... a little sheltered recess clipped out of the yew- trees. When that softly spoken "Sigismund" fell from her lips, Zaluski caught her in his arms and kissed her again ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... revealed to Cosmo the age-long neglect of the place. Next appeared a wing built out from the back of the inner court of the castle—in a dilapidated, almost dangerous condition. Then he came to a great hedge of yew, very lofty, but very thin, like a fence of old wire that had caught cart-loads of withered rubbish in its meshes. Here he heard the sound of a spade, and by the accompanying sounds judged the implement was ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... grave, far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and from the defilement of the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... pasture, pasturage; turbary[obs3]; sedge, rush, weed; fungus, mushroom, toadstool; lichen, moss, conferva[obs3], mold; growth; alfalfa, alfilaria[obs3], banyan; blow, blowth[obs3]; floret[obs3], petiole; pin grass, timothy, yam, yew, zinnia. foliage, branch, bough, ramage[obs3], stem, tigella[obs3]; spray &c. 51; leaf. flower, blossom, bine[obs3]; flowering plant; timber tree, fruit tree; pulse, legume. Adj. vegetable, vegetal, vegetive[obs3], vegitous|; herbaceous, herbal; botanic[obs3]; sylvan, silvan[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... lanes, and Lucian, letting his hand touch a leaf by accident, felt the sting burn like fire. Beyond the ditch there was an undergrowth, a dense thicket of trees, stunted and old, crooked and withered by the winds into awkward and ugly forms; beech and oak and hazel and ash and yew twisted and so shortened and deformed that each seemed, like the nettle, of no common kind. He began to fight his way through the ugly growth, stumbling and getting hard knocks from the rebound of twisted boughs. His foot struck once or twice against something harder than ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... of herself. When she and her spouse married, they lived close to the manufactory, in a sweet little villa replete with every elegance and convenience—a pond, which they called a lake—laburnums without end; a yew, clipped into a dock-tailed waggon-horse; standing for three horses and gigs, with an acre and half of land ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... oni other onie cumen her onyenes, we willen and hoaten th{ae}t alle ure treowe heom healden deadliche ifoan. And for th{ae}t we willen th{ae}t this beo stedef{ae}st and lestinde, we senden yew this writ open, iseined with ure seel, to ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat

... consideration induced him to prefer the track least frequented or attended with risk. At the extremity of the wall, where it turned at a right angle to afford an opening for a gateway, grew an immense yew-tree, solitary and alone, like some dark and malignant giant, stretching out its arms to battle with centuries and storms; softened by no shadow, cheered by no sunbeam, enlivened by no shower, no ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... Susan, as they had reached the corner of a thick screen of yew-trees, "all is safe. There they stand, and father between them speaking to them. No, we will not go nearer, since we know that it is well with them. Men deal with each other better out of women's earshot. Ah, ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... a wild scene of woods and hills where we have come to visit a waterfall. I never saw finer or more copious hemlocks, many of them large, some old and hoary. Such a sentiment to them, secretive, shaggy, what I call weather-beaten, and let-alone—a rich underlay of ferns, yew sprouts and mosses, beginning to be spotted with the early summer wild flowers. Enveloping all, the monotone and liquid gurgle from the hoarse, impetuous, copious fall—the greenish-tawny, darkly transparent waters ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus

... neighbours, and held it in his hand—he thought he should be more at ease holding something in his hand—as he walked on to the far end of the garden, where he remembered there was the largest row of currant-trees, not far off from the great yew-tree arbour. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... west of England some two and a half centuries ago; an old-world garden, with prim yew hedges and a sundial, and, in one shady and sequestered nook, two persons standing; one, a man some forty years of age, tall and handsome, the other a lady of grace and beauty some fifteen years his junior. Both were cloaked and muffled and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... navy of England may lie with safety in many of those lagoons, but the coast is too dangerous for any ship to fall in with the land. The people today were very much afflicted with the gripes and pains in their side. Here are abundance of trees, not unlike our yew-trees, they are not above seven or eight inches in diameter, and the bark is like cedar. The land is to appearance very good, but on digging beneath the surface we find it almost an entire stone. We saw no people here, though it is plain there have been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... an angle through Queen Mary's closet we pass on to inspect the series of rooms which Her Majesty did not live to occupy, and from the generous windows we get beautiful views of the yew-grown lawns and the park beyond—the view straight up the Long Canal from the Queen's Drawing Room is particularly fine, especially when the broad gravel walks between the avenued yews are dotted with summer visitors, and the beds are gorgeous with many flowers ...
— Hampton Court • Walter Jerrold

... spring-tide; vast beds of reed and sedge and fern; vast copses of willow, alder, and grey poplar, rooted in the floating peat, which was swallowing up slowly, all-devouring, yet all-preserving, the forests of fir and oak, ash and poplar, hazel and yew, which had once grown on that low, rank soil, sinking slowly (so geologists assure us) beneath the sea from age to age. Trees, torn down by flood and storm, floated and lodged in rafts, damming the waters back upon the land. Streams, bewildered in the flats, changed their ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... the garden-bed, Mid box and thyme and yew, And spikes of purple lavender, And spikes of larkspur blue, The bind-weed tendrils win their way, And find a ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge

... she was laid in her little coffin. She was pale, and so very cold. There were some flowers lying on her pillow, and a rose-bud in each little hand. The soul of the dear baby was gone to God; and her body was laid in a grave, under the yew tree in the churchyard. ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson

... which had been left him by an old uncle, with a small estate of about one hundred pounds a-year. Behind this house, and contiguous to it, was a kitchen-garden of about half an acre, and at the bottom of the garden, and cut off from it by a tall yew hedge, was a bowling-green, containing just about as much ground as Corporal Trim wished for;—so that as Trim uttered the words, 'A rood and a half of ground to do what they would with,'—this identical bowling-green instantly ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... an intellectual rather than an emotional poet; he is an artist rather than a seer. His poems are constructions of taste and intellectual judgment. Let me take, as an example, his poem upon the Father of the Forest. A yew tree, which may be fifteen centuries old, is addressed by him; and, musing on the historical scenes it must have lived through, he gives us a series of verses which touch musically upon salient epochs ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... them anoint it with an herb.[227-1] They do not shoot as in other parts, but in a certain way which cannot do much harm. Here they have a great deal of fine and long cotton, and plenty of mastic. The bows appeared to be of yew, and there is gold and copper. There is also plenty of aji,[227-2] which is their pepper, which is more valuable than pepper, and all the people eat nothing else, it being very wholesome. Fifty caravels might be annually loaded with it from Espanola. The Admiral ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various

... rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, Where heaves the turf in many a moldering heap, Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The rude forefathers of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... morn of woodbine fresh She made her garlanding, And every night the dark glen yew She wore; and she would sing, And with her fingers old and brown She plaited mats of rushes, And gave them to the cottagers ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various

... relations between the Hall and the Dower House were all that they should be, and the path that ran through the gardens of the one and the yew hedge and orchard of the other was almost as well trodden as if ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... archery is made of lancewood or yew and for men's use is usually 6 feet long and for women and children 6 inches shorter. The strength or pull necessary to bend the bow, given in pounds, determines its classification. The arrows for ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... conflict, without discipline, comparatively speaking, and uncouthly armed, they all but vanquished the Norman chivalry. Trace their deeds in France, which they twice subdued; and even follow them to Spain, where they twanged the yew and raised the battle-axe, and left behind them a name of glory at Inglis Mendi, a name that shall last till fire consumes the Cantabrian hills. And, oh, in modern times, trace the deeds of these gallant men all over the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... Portion of this yew Is a man my grandsire knew, Bosomed here at its foot: This branch may be his wife, A ruddy human life Now turned to a ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy

... Bobby, unafraid; swallows swooped down from their mud villages, under the dizzy dormers and gables, to flush the flies on his muzzle, and whole flocks of little blue titmice fluttered just overhead, in their rovings from holly and laurel to newly tasseled firs and yew trees. ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... when composing his famous discourses, like another celebrated French writer, Balzac, wholly secluding himself from the world whilst thus occupied. A little garden-house in which he ate and slept leads out of this delightful walk, a cloister of greenery, the high square-cut walls of yew shutting out everything but the sky. What would some of us give for such a retreat as this! an ideal of perfect tranquillity and isolation from the outer world that might have satisfied the soul of ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... 9.50, so I started early and caught the 9.13. At Farnham Station I had no difficulty in being directed to Charlington Heath. It was impossible to mistake the scene of the young lady's adventure, for the road runs between the open heath on one side and an old yew hedge upon the other, surrounding a park which is studded with magnificent trees. There was a main gateway of lichen-studded stone, each side pillar surmounted by mouldering heraldic emblems; but besides this central carriage drive I observed several points where ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Susceptibility Wheat Stalks, Riches Whin, Anger Whortleberry, Treason Willow, creeping, Love forsaken Willow, Water, Freedom Willow, Weeping, Mourning Willow Herb, Pretension Woodbine, Fraternal Love Wormwood, Absence Xanthium, Pertinacity Yew, Sorrow ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... shifting moonlight, for the night was cloudy. At last they too were tired of the revel, they wandered towards a more secluded place and made for the avenue which Pierrot had sought. On their way they passed through a narrow grass walk between two rows of closely cropped yew hedges. There on a marble seat a tall man in a black domino was sitting, his head resting on his hands; and between the loose folds of his satin cloak, one caught the glint of precious stones. When they had passed him Columbine whispered ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring

... Spanish yew so strong, Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpents stung, Piercing the weather; None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And like true English ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester

... me, I took a pathway to the left, which conducted me up the hill-side. I soon found myself in the deep shade of heavy foliage, where the branches of the yew and willow mingled, interwoven with the tendrils and blossoms of the honeysuckle. I now stood in the most populous part of this city of tombs. Every step awakened a new train of thrilling recollections; for at every step my eye caught the name of some one whose glory had exalted the character ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... that year, and she was at Wellwood, and all through the sleet and snow I rode there after dark, tied my horse to a tree, crept up that nut-walk—you know it?—and round by the east terrace to the porch, and laid my valentine on the door-step, and clanged the bell, and hid behind the yew-fence till the man came out to get it. Then I went home. And last thing at night there was a clatter-clatter at the door at Redford, and I dashed out to catch whoever it was—her brother she sent—but wasn't quite smart enough. If only I'd seen him. I should have known—as I ought to have, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... their good yew bow-es, And looked their strings were round, The market-place of merry Carlisle They beset in that stound; And as they look-ed them beside, A pair of new gallows there they see, And the Justice with a quest of squires, That judged William ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various

... The house is not large for the park and property, which is, all together, about 7,000 acres; but pictures and china are renowned; so is the cooking; and, with such wealth as is at our host's command, all the details are in perfection. In the park there are many fine beech and other trees, and the yew grows wonderfully, contrasting its dark tint with the soft, white may. On the slope of the hill, about three miles off, grow service-trees and juniper; and, from the ridge, one sees across the New Forest to the Solent and the Isle ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... she danced through a long, dark passageway, and whisked down a narrow winding stair, and stood at last in the door of the Great Tower in the sunlight. And when she heard the stranger's feet upon the gravel she composed her face; and when he appeared round the corner of a clipped yew she rattled the keys at her belt and bustled on her feet, as becomes a housekeeper, and ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... at all tired, and a little circuit was made towards a fine yew-tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side of the house. As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old tree. Mr. Brooke, who was walking in ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... and your Sister's: and used to think what a little waspish Dilettante it was: and now I see he was something very much better indeed: and I only hope I may have Courage to face my Death as he had. Dickens loved him, who did not love Humbugs: and Chorley would have two strips of Gadshill Yew {54} put with him in his Coffin. Which again reminds me that—a propos of your comments on Dickens' crimson waistcoat, etc., Thackeray told me thirty years ago, that Dickens did it, not from any idea ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... signor," replied the Corsican. "Though yew would never believe it, to look at her, she carries her canvas better and longer than any boat belonging to Ajaccio, and as for working to ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... conversation to erudite subjects, and so they came in sight of the town, when the vicar stopped and pointed towards the church, of which the spire rose a little to the left, with two aged yew-trees half shadowing the burial-ground, and in the rear a glimpse of the vicarage seen amid the shrubs of its ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?" And she stamped her foot and turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. And Hobb came behind her and kissed ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. Genius of the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew trees and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge an uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine visions of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... Western coast Was theirs; old sea-beat Cornwall's granite cliffs, And purple hills of Cambria; northward thence Strathclyde, from towered Carnegia's winding Dee To Morecombe's shining sands, and those fair vales, Since loved by every muse, where silver meres Slept in the embrace of yew-clad mountain walls; With tracts of midland Britain and the East. Remained the memory of the greatness lost; The Druid circles of the olden age; The ash-strewn cities radiant late with arts Extinct this day; bath, circus, theatre Mosaic-paved; the Roman halls defaced; ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... She remembered still how, standing on the narrow ledge, he had passed his arm about her while their gaze flew to the long, tossed horizon-line of the downs, and then dropped contentedly back to trace the arabesque of yew hedges about the fish-pond, and the shadow of the ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton

... poisons was fascinating. There were the vegetable poisons known on Earth, such as hellebore, setterwort, deadly nightshade, and the yew tree. He learned about the action of hemlock—its preliminary intoxication and its final convulsions. There was prussic acid poisoning from almonds and digitalin poisoning from purple foxglove. There was the awesome efficiency of wolfsbane with ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... smoothly ordered country house with its huge sentinel elms and its peculiar atmosphere of leisure and peace. No doubt Mrs. Payne was aware of this when she kissed her son. From the lawn where we were sitting she could see the yew-parlour and the cypress hedge in the shadow of which she had stood on the tremendous evening about which she had been telling me. We walked back to the terrace, and on the way she gave me a shy smile, half triumph, half apology. She never mentioned the episode again ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young

... mouth of the hive, ten paces away, nor the noisy bustle of the drones. It was only when the swarm poured out upon the air with a whir of wings and, darkening for an instant the sunny doorway of the summer-house, sailed over the yew hedge towards the road, that Tristram leapt to his feet and ran at full speed towards ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... utilization is of doubtful practibility, on account of its distance from navigable water, and the obstructions of the streams flowing therein. There is an occasional alder bottom, hemlock is quite common, bull pine is found in a few localities, and yew, dog-wood and crab-apple occur upon all the islands. There is a dense undergrowth of salal, whortle, salmon, raspberry and other ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden

... found that Mademoiselle had conducted her visitor to a grassy terrace which ran along the south side of the house, and was screened from the forest by an alley of apple trees, and from the east wind by a hedge of yew. Here, where the last rays of the sun threw sinuous shadows on the turf, and Paris seemed a million miles away, they were walking up and down, the sound of their laughter breaking the woodland silence. Mademoiselle had a fan, with which and an air of convent ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman

... shades Or blossoms, but indulgent to the strong And natural dread of man's last home, the grave, Its frost and silence—they disposed around, To soothe the melancholy spirit that dwelt Too sadly on life's close, the forms and hues Of vegetable beauty. There the yew, Green ever amid the snows of winter, told Of immortality, and gracefully The willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped; And there the gadding woodbine crept about, And there the ancient ivy. From the spot Where the sweet maiden, in her blossoming years Cut off, was laid with streaming ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant

... were seen about the house and moving towards the house for some days previously. Just before his death three foxes were playing about and making a noise close to the house, and just in front of the "cloisters," which are yew-trees planted and trained in that shape. The Hon. Mrs. Farrell states as regards the same that the foxes came in pairs into the demesne, and sat under the Viscount's bedroom window, and barked and howled all night. Next morning they were to be found crouching about ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour

... on mine, And dark hair loosed, shalt see Take the far stars for fruit The cypress tree, And in the yew's ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... see our excellent 'ounds, and I would fain have him galvanised.—Do show us a run, and let it end with blood, so that he may have something to tell the natives when he gets back to his own parts. That's him, see, sitting under the yew-tree, in a bottle-green coat with basket buttons, just striking a light on the pommel of his saddle to indulge in a fumigation.—Keep your eye on him all day, and if you can lead him over an awkward place, and get him a purl, so much the better.—If ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... this road ovah the caw tracks, and unda a bridge and keep a-goin' up a ridge and ova till yew come to a shawp tu'n to the raht. Big whaht mansion, ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... morning, Brandon found that he had an hour to spare before breakfast, and sallied forth for an early walk. A delicate hoarfrost still made white the shade, and sparkled all over the sombre leaves of some fine yew-trees that grew ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... destruction of the house, but they did not survive the devastating zeal of Merchant Jack. They were swept away by a pupil of Capability Brown's, who allowed the old walls of the kitchen garden to stand because they were useful for growing fruit, but destroyed walls and terraces and old yew hedges everywhere else, brought the well-treed park into relation, as he thought, with the garden, by means of sunk fences, planted shrubberies, laid down vast lawns, and retired very well pleased with ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall

... out of date! The good old cross-bow bends to Fate, 'Tis gone—the archer's craft! No tough arm bends the springing yew. And jolly draymen ride, in lieu Of Death, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... you'd out with it!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "What could happen? No one ever comes along Yew-lane; and if they did they wouldn't ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... walk yesterday. I have a notion of encamping on the Boulsworth moors to study heather; and heartily tired of being caged up here in my library, with nothing to see but wet garden-walks and dripping yew trees, and a sundial whereon no shadow had fallen the livelong day, I determined, in spite of the rain to be off to the moors to choose a site for my encampment. Not very far from this house still dwells an old servant of my uncle's with whom I am on the friendliest terms. ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... windows below the cranes,—all perfectly useless, but also perfectly picturesque and perfectly Dutch. The rooms were large and airy, and the garden sloped down to the river-side. It had paths bordered by clipped box, and shaded by holly and yew ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr

... bow? The bow was made in England: Of true wood, of yew-wood, The wood of English bows; So men who are free Love the old yew-tree And the land where ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... detectives had many matters of detail into which to inquire; so I returned alone to our modest quarters at the village inn. But before doing so I took a stroll in the curious old-world garden which flanked the house. Rows of very ancient yew trees cut into strange designs girded it round. Inside was a beautiful stretch of lawn with an old sundial in the middle, the whole effect so soothing and restful that it was welcome to my ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... hee exspire! oh may the murth'rer fall! Most execrable, cruell, tragicall! Upon his kingdom's pile, and flaming yew Let his high carkasse blaze; the ayre anew May th' monster purge from his infectious breath, The mocke of ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski

... spoil In ocean-smelling osier, and his face, Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales, Not only to the market-cross were known, But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock yew-tree of the lonely Hall, Whose Friday fare ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... bower is wild and drear, And sad the dark yew's shade; The flowers which bloom in silence here, In silence ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... there was magic in the air to-night; for, with a swift, dexterous movement, Lisbeth had swept her long train across her arm, and we were running hand in hand, all three of us, running across lawns and down winding paths between yew hedges, sometimes so close together that I could feel a tress of her fragrant hair brushing my face with a touch almost like a caress. Surely, surely, there was ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... to him it must have been that land his father meant and he writing his poem of the Green Graveyard of Creggan. While he was sleeping under the weeping yew-trees the young queen had touched the sleeping poet on ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... yew so strong, (p. 420) Arrows a cloth-yard long, That like to serpent stung, Piercing the weather. None from his fellow starts, But playing manly parts, And, like true English hearts, Stuck ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... had not been used to such a show In this soft age, where we no valour have, But pride) admired his habit, strange and brave, And having raised mine eyes, which wearied were, To understand this sight was all my care. Four snowy steeds a fiery chariot drew; There sat the cruel boy; a threatening yew His right hand bore, his quiver arrows held, Against whose force no helm or shield prevail'd. Two party-colour'd wings his shoulders ware; All naked else; and round about his chair Were thousand mortals: some in battle ta'en, Many were hurt ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... waiting for him. He was in his most even and mellow humour. We walked in a leisurely way and through roundabout tracks for some four hours along the ancient green road which you know, over the high grassy downs, into old chalk pits picturesque with juniper and yew, across heaths and commons, and so up to our windy promontory, where the majestic prospect stirred him with lively delight. You know he is a fervent botanist, and every ten minutes he stooped to look at this or that on the path. Unluckily I am ignorant of the very rudiments ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... pastures and forests are in general commons, and any person that pleases may use them; but some forests are reserved for the Court. Although these forests contain many oak, chestnut, pine, and yew trees, none of these are by the natives esteemed of much value; but for carpenter’s work a preference is given to the Champa or Michelia, which is certainly a ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... mine beyond wish when I met her - The pride of the lowland - Embowered in Tintinhull Valley By laurel and yew; ...
— Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy

... money, and he always came back with little parcels, which he locked up in the chest of drawers. Pecuchet started one morning to repair to Bretteville, and returned very late with a basket, which he hid under his bed. Next day, when he awoke, Bouvard was surprised. The first two yew trees of the principal walk, which the day before were still spherical, had the appearance of peacocks, and a horn with two porcelain knobs represented the beak and the eyes. Pecuchet had risen at dawn, and trembling lest he should be discovered, he had ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... discerned through a cleft between two high mountains about twenty shepherds coming down, all clad in jerkins of black wool, and crowned with garlands, some of which were of yew, and some of cypress. Six of them carried a bier covered with various flowers and boughs. One of the goatherds said: "Those who come hither are bearing the corpse of Chrysostom, and at the foot of yonder mountain is the place where he desired to be interred." Four of them, with sharp ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... at Hethpoole; and saying that if he ever returned he would plant a good deal there; adding, however, that he feared before that could take place both he and Lady Collingwood might themselves be planted in the churchyard beneath some old yew tree. ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry

... away—David and Canon Aylwin strolling off together—and soon Lucy found herself alone. She sat down in a seat round which curved a yew hedge, and whence there was a somewhat wide view over a bare, hilly country, with suggestions everywhere of factory life in the hollows, till on the southwest it rose and melted into the Derbyshire ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Cottage, half a mile distant. The ingredients of his Elegy—actually the greatest, but in his judgment among the least, of his few works—exist all around. "The rugged elm," "the ivy-mantled tower," and "the yew tree's shade," the most specific among the simple "properties" of his little spectacle, are common to so many places that there are several competitors for the honor of having furnished them. The cocks, ploughmen, herds and owls cannot, of course, at this late day be identified. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... of the Sun would seem to be also due to the Chinese. Confucius relates that during the reign of the Emperor Yew-Wang an eclipse took place. This Emperor reigned between 781 B.C. and 771 B.C., and it has been generally thought that the eclipse of 775 B.C. is the one referred to, but Johnson doubts this on the ground that this eclipse was chiefly visible in the circumpolar regions, ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... their pretty heads to look, and did not seem startled at all. And after a long stretch of turf they passed under the heaped-up heavy masses of lime-trees and came into a rose-garden, bordered with thick, close-cut yew hedges, and lying red and pink and green and white in the sun, like a giant's many-coloured, ...
— The Enchanted Castle • E. Nesbit

... windows. The bar-room, no doubt, is still much the same as on the stormy night which Dickens chose for the opening of his story. Just across the road from the inn is the church which also figures in the tale, and a dark avenue of ancient yew trees leads from the gateway to the door. One can easily imagine the situation which Dickens describes when the old sexton crossed the street and rang the church bells on the night of ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... of mellow red brick, and back premises of tile, oak, and modern rough-cast, with old brew-houses that almost enclosed a graveled court behind. Behind this again lay a great kitchen garden with box-lined paths dividing it all into a dozen rectangles, separated from the orchard and yew walk by a broad double hedge down the center of which ran a sheltered path. Round the south of the house and in the narrow strip westwards lay broad lawns surrounded by high trees completely shading it from all view of the houses that formed ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... be sure that he was alone, and at last lit up, only as he raised his eyes in gratitude for the first blissful inhalation to discover that dreadful little boy peeping at him from the crotch in the yew-tree in the next garden. As though God had sent him to ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells

... said nothing. They drifted nearer to the bank, and Helena perceived, at the end of a little creek, a magnificent group of yew trees, of which the lower branches were almost in the water. Behind them, and to the side of them, through a gap in the wood, the moonlight found its way, but they themselves stood against the faint light, superbly dark, and impenetrable, ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... fronted on the street, The latest house to landward; but behind With one small gate that open'd on the waste, Flourish'd a little garden square and wall'd: And in it throve an ancient evergreen, A yew tree, and all round it ran a walk Of shingle, and a walk divided it: But Enoch shunn'd the middle walk and stole Up by the wall, behind the yew; and thence That which he better might have shunn'd, if griefs Like his have worse or ...
— Beauties of Tennyson • Alfred Tennyson

... lay in this direction, and liked to look at the site of the old hall near the road: nothing remained of it but the tall gate posts and rusty iron gates looking strangely dreary and deserted, and within one could see, between some dark yew trees, an old terrace walk with stone steps and balustrades—the most ghostly-looking place ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... Yew-lane echoed a round of "Good-nights;" and Bill and the gardener went off in high spirits. As they crossed the road, Bill looked round, and under the trees saw the young gentlemen strolling back to the Rectory, arm in arm. ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... preparation for Christmas, and Gwen stood rather forlornly in the church porch, her hands in her pockets, watching a few snowflakes that were beginning to fall silently from the heavy grey sky and to whiten the tops of the gravestones and the outlines of the crooked yew trees near the gate. The peace and goodwill that ought to have been present everywhere to-day ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... departed friends in the early Victorian era. There was old Time with his beard and scythe, a broken column, veiled mourners and a dejected-looking cherub, and the stiff funereal urn; but Elizabeth was looking at a cluster of grassy mounds under a yew tree, with simple headstones, and here and there a cross. She looked up at ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... voice, Barnabas came to a lawn screened from the house by hedges of clipped yew. At the further end of this lawn was a small building which had been made to look as much as possible like the after-cabin of a ship. It had a door midway, with a row of small, square windows on either side, and was flanked at each end by a flight of wooden steps, with elaborately ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al

... step into what seemed to be Eternity. The rope cut into his hands for the first three or four yards, as the red sand crumbled away beneath his feet, and he was obliged to grip for his life. Presently he gained a little ledge, from which a single yew tree was growing, ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... were over and gone, But the ivy and yew were green, When to Bewsey hall came a jovial crew On the ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... kind of tree this Wood was hewn out, Teague made a good pun by a brogue in his speech: And said, "By my shoul, he's the son of a BEECH." Some call him a thorn, the curse of the nation, As thorns were design'd to be from the creation. Some think him cut out from the poisonous yew, Beneath whose ill shade no plant ever grew. Some say he's a birch, a thought very odd; For none but a dunce would come under his rod. But I'll tell the secret; and pray do not blab: He is an old stump, cut out of a crab; And England has put this crab to a hard use, To cudgel our bones, and ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift

... garden and look uphill, our horizon is the stone balustrade of a flagged platform on the edge of infinite space at the top of the hill. Between us and this platform is a flower garden with a circular basin and fountain in the centre, surrounded by geometrical flower beds, gravel paths, and clipped yew trees in the genteelest order. The garden is higher than our lawn; so we reach it by a few steps in the middle of its embankment. The platform is higher again than the garden, from which we mount a couple more steps to look over the balustrade ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw

... about my love affairs? These were the two questions which pressed for an answer. So out we went together into the sweet coast-land air, the sweeter for the gale of the night before, and we walked through the old yew-lined paths, and out into the park, and so round the castle, looking up at the gables, the grey pinnacles, the oak-mullioned windows, the ancient wing with its crenulated walls and its meurtriere windows, the modern with its pleasant verandah and veil of honeysuckle. And as she showed me each fresh ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle

... indifferently. "When that day cometh I am content to hear of it." Then he led the way back to Walter Skinner's hiding-place, while Hugo followed. And there they found the bow, which was of yew with a silken string. And with it was a goodly store of ash arrows tipped with steel and ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger

... Jim gloomily; and fell into reflection. 'Where did you get those high notions from, Margery?' he presently inquired. 'I'll swear you hadn't got 'em a week ago.' She did not answer, and he added, 'YEW don't expect to have such things, I hope; deserve them as ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy

... what shall my blue eyes go see? Shall it be pretty Quack-Quack to-day? Or the Peacock upon the Yew Tree? Or the dear little white Lambs at play? Say Baby. For Baby is such a young Petsy, And Baby is such a sweet Dear. And Baby is growing quite old now— She's just getting ...
— Marigold Garden • Kate Greenaway

... red lightning strays, And scares the gliding ghosts of the heath! Now on the leafless yew it plays, Where hangs the shield of ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... lawn, right before us," said Lucy to him, in a low tone. "Underneath the spreading yew-tree. Do you not fancy the trunk looks remarkably ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... hour's travel he reached a clearing in the wood, hedged all about with yew-trees and holm oaks very old; and in the midst of it saw a little stone altar with the figure of a woman upon it. He was not too hungry to be curious, so he dismounted and went to examine. The saint ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... rode on, Until together had they pledged their faith To snare Rolland and lead him to his death. Thus on they rode through vales and mountain-paths, Till Sarraguce was reached. Beneath a yew They lighted: a faldstool by shady pines O'erhung, was spread with Alexandrine silk. There sat the King who ruled all Spain, and stood Around him twenty thousand Saracens, Who neither spoke nor breathed, to hear the news; And lo! came ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... is well wooded and very pleasing to the eye. The church, on the hill-top, dates only from 1790; but the site was occupied by an earlier structure. The memorials are of no historic interest; but near the enormous yew tree in the churchyard stands the tomb of the first Lord Cottenham (d. 1851). Near by, too, lies Sir Lucas Pepys, physician to George III. (d. 1830). Totteridge Park, W. from the village, was the residence of ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins

... foot under ground find perfect trees over-covered with earth. Nut trees, with the branches and the very nuts upon them; some of whose nuts he showed us. Their shells black with age, and their kernell, upon opening, decayed, but their shell perfectly hard as ever. And a yew tree he showed us (upon which, he says, the very ivy was taken up whole about it), which upon cutting with an addes [adze], we found to be rather harder than the living tree usually is. They say, very much, but I do not know how hard a yew ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... strength nor spirits to urge him further, and they continued to break their way through the bewildering underwood, until they approached Mariemont. Here Stanislaus, unable to stir another step, sunk down at the foot of the old yew-tree, and again implored for one moment's rest. Kosinski no longer refused. This unexpected humanity encouraged his majesty to employ the minutes they sat together in another attempt to soften his heart, and to convince him that the oath which he had taken was atrocious, and by no means binding ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... odorous with pines; to hear the birds' chorus at sunrise and the distant sound of reaping; to see innumerable marvels; the belts of clover mantling wine-dark in the wind; the poppies in the standing corn, the carmine yew-stems on the downs; above you the soft grey clouds delicately floating; below you, as the day declines, some distant lonely water emerging in its glory to be the mirror and refuge of all heaven's light; to remember ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith

... the tiny post-office to buy their tickets of admission to the castle, and when she called out that there were also pretty post-cards to be had, the others quickly followed. Having chosen their cards, they all walked through the little church-yard, with its ancient yew trees, and out into a field from which they could see Penshurst ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson

... the cenotaph of their former greatness, Dorothy dived into a long pleached alley, careless of the drip from overhead, and hurrying through it came to a circular patch of thin grass, rounded by a lofty hedge of yew-trees, in the midst of which stood what had once been a sun-dial. It mattered little, however, that only the stump of a gnomon was left, seeing the hedge around it had grown to such a height in relation to the diameter of the circle, ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... yew?" he said, coolly. "Didn't know yew was coming aboard. Can yew trade me a barrel or two o' good whites ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... evenings ago he made a new and startling proposition. We were walking in my garden, and he had been urging me once more to rejoin the gang—unsuccessfully, I need not say. Presently he sat down on a seat against a yew-hedge at the bottom of the garden, and, after an interval ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... breathed their bloom, Had breathed their bloom on her dainty cheek, When they bore her away to the voiceless tomb With hearts so full they were like to break. And down in the churchyard old and green, In the churchyard green where the yew-tree waves, A dark little mound of earth is seen— One billow more to ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... tombs in this churchyard; perhaps its beauty consisted in its extreme neatness, and the flowers that the vicar, Mr. Myrvin, took so much pleasure in carefully preserving. One lowly grave, beneath a large and spreading yew, was never passed unnoticed. A plain marble stone denoted that there lay one, who had once been the brightest amid the bright, the brilliant star of a lordly circle. The name, her age, and two simple verses were there inscribed; but around that humble grave there were ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... The general feeling of it is refinement, combined with great strength. It is fully deserving of monopolizing a fine setting of dignified architecture, so richly emphasized by some of the finest old yew ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... her were combined with the creative imagination. She was born in 1775, at Steventon, in Hampshire, a country parish, of which her father was the rector. A village of cottages at the foot of a gentle slope, an old church with its coeval yew, an old manor-house, an old parsonage all surrounded by tall elms, green meadows, hedgerows full of primroses and wild hyacinths—such was the scene in which Jane Austen grew. It is the picture which rises in the mind of every Englishman when he thinks of his country. Around dwelt the gentry, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... this off in one complete piece, and when cold, within half an hour it stood up like a cuirass. This was one of the finest that I ever saw, and we took the trouble to cut up all the choicest joints, and concealed them in the branches of a species of yew that was growing upon the edge of the ravine. The delay from my folly in taking this shot exceeded an hour, but the head of the stag was a handsome specimen, and we placed it upon a large boulder of rock, to be sent for ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... His successor, Yew, "the Dark," appears to even less advantage. No redeeming acts relieve the general disorder of his reign, and at the instigation of a favorite concubine he is said to have committed acts which place him on a level with Kee and Show. Earthquakes, storms, and astrological portents appeared as ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

... from the weaver's cottage stood the Church and the Manor House side by side. The churchyard had a wall of solid red bricks, overshadowed by a border of solemn old yew-trees. The Manor House was encircled by a moat on which graceful white swans swam to and fro. For centuries the Purefoy family had been Squires of Drayton village. They had inhabited the Manor House while they were alive, and had been buried in the churchyard close by after they ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... cry of the famished eagle and the gloomy desolation of the yew trees covered with snow saddened him much longer and more keenly than the perfume of the orange trees, the gracefulness of the vines, and the Moorish song ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... in Holy Week. It commemorates the entry of our Lord into Jerusalem when the people strewed {205} the way with palm branches and cried, "Hosanna to the Son of David." It was formerly customary for worshippers to appear on this day in procession carrying in their hands palms, or yew or willow branches, which were blessed before the beginning of the Communion Service. On Palm Sunday the Church has always begun to set before God and man the Gospel account of the Passion of our Lord, that by St. Matthew being read on this day. ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... something in this way: "Your cruelty causes me sorrow," "Your absence is a pleasure." For this, according to the code of Mr. Thomas Miller (third edition, 1841, with elegantly coloured plates) you would have to get a sweet-pea blossom for Pleasure, wormwood for Absence, and indicate Sorrow by the yew, and Cruelty by the stinging-nettle. There is always a little risk of mixing your predicates in this kind of communication, and he might, for instance, read that his Absence caused you Sorrow, but he could scarcely miss the point of the stinging-nettle. That and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells

... we turn to the serious pieces, the better part of the volume. The Foster-Mother's Tale is in the best style of dramatic narrative. The Dungeon, and the Lines upon the Yew-tree Seat, are beautiful. The Tale of the Female Vagrant is written in the stanza, not the style, of Spenser. We extract a part ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... done there seemed to be any trouble or burdensome. But at the first course there came a surprise in the form of a knight outside the door. As he sat on his charger, all armed from head to feet, he looked prouder than a bull, and a bull is a yew proud beast. One leg was fixed in the stirrup, but the other he had thrown over the mane of his horse's neck, to give himself a careless and jaunty air. Behold him advancing thus, though no one noticed him until he came forward with the words: "I ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes

... Resound with festive echo, let me sit, Blest with the lowly cricket's drowsy dirge. . . . O come then, Melancholy, queen of thought! O come with saintly look, and steadfast step, From forth thy cave embower'd with mournful yew, Where ever to the curfeu's solemn sound List'ning thou sitt'st, and with thy cypress bind Thy votary's hair, and seal ...
— Romance - Two Lectures • Walter Raleigh

... wither on a Whitehead's brow; 290 The fig, which, large as what in India grows, Itself a grove, gave our first parents clothes; The vine, which, like a blushing new-made bride, Clustering, empurples all the mountain's side; The yew, which, in the place of sculptured stone, Marks out the resting-place of men unknown; The hedge-row elm; the pine, of mountain race; The fir, the Scotch fir, never out of place; The cedar, whose top mates the highest cloud, Whilst his old father Lebanon grows proud 300 Of such a child, and his ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... by an intervening yew tree, she watched him coming down the church path, conscious of a somewhat pleasurable sense of anticipation, and when he had passed under the lichgate and, turning to the left, came face to face with her, she bowed and smiled, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... together; where the waves break it into cliffs, they are characteristic of our shores, and through its thin coat of whitish mould go the thirsty roots of our three trees—the beech, the holly, and the yew. For the clay and the sand might be deserted or flooded and the South Country would still remain, but if the Chalk Hills were taken away we might as well be in the Midlands." (Hilaire Belloc: The ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes



Words linked to "Yew" :   Torrey tree, plum-yew family, Taxus baccata, coniferous tree, California nutmeg, Taxus brevifolia, wood, Austrotaxus spicata, family Taxaceae, Torreya californica, Taxus floridana, conifer, Taxus cuspidata, Taxaceae, Torreya taxifolia, stinking cedar, Pseudotaxus chienii, Japanese yew



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