"Lark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... so sings, yet so does wail? O 'tis the ravished Nightingale. Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries, And still her woes at Midnight rise. Brave prick song! who is't now we hear? None but the lark so shrill and clear; Now at heaven's gates she claps her wings, The Morn not waking till she sings. Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat Poor Robin-red-breast tunes his note. Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing 'Cuckoo' to welcome in the ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... quietly, when bang! a war starts! And it spreads, and takes in East and West, smashes cities, stops everything. And one of the young men in the story looks around rather dazed, and says in a low voice: "I've always thought life was a lark. It isn't. This sort of thing has always been happening, I suppose—these things, wars and earthquakes, that sweep across all the decency of life. It's just as though I had woke up to it all for the first time.... ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... thou whose mind, unfetter'd, undisguised, Soars like the lark into the empty air; Whose arch exploits by subtlety devised, Have stamped renown on Finsbury's New Square, Great "hero" list! Whilst the sly muse repeats Thy nuptial ode, thy prowess ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... grasshoppers, The birds, the slumber-winging bees, Alas! again for those and these Demure and sweet things drowned; Drowned in vain raucous words men made Where no lark rose with swift and sweet Ascent and where no dim sheep strayed About the stone immensities, Where no sheep strayed and where no bees Probed any flowers nor swung a blade Of grass ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... shall reach thine ear, Armor's clang, or war steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come, At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here's no war steed's neigh and champing, Shouting clans ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... men of the country shall be obliged to shut their eyes upon external nature, upon the heavens and the earth, and immerse themselves in close and unwholesome workshops; when they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleatings of their own flocks upon their own hills, and to the voice of the lark that cheers them at the plough, that they may open them in dust and smoke and steam to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles, and the grating of rasps and saws. I have made these remarks, sir, not because ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... trees vibrate under the wings of others extricating themselves on a piratical cruise against a whole flotilla of butterflies, which is rising and falling over the sunny parterres beyond. "The well-greaved grillus" bounds twenty feet at a spring, and having thighs as thick as a lark's to double under him, makes little use of his wings. Many a callow bee is buzzing helplessly in the path. The gray curculio walks with snout erect, snuffing the morning air; and here we fall upon a party of apprentice pill-beetles, learning to make up stercoraceous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... ready drawn, in your hand, and if all's paid off clear of the rent, and all that's due, you'll get the new LASE signed; I'll promise you that upon the word and honour of a gentleman." And there's no going beyond that, you know, sir. So my boy came home as light as a feather, and as gay as a lark, to bring us the good news; only he was afraid we might not make up the rent, guineas and all; and because he could not get paid for the work he done, on account of the mistake in the overseer's tally, I sold the cow to a neighbour—dog-cheap; but needs must, as they say, when old Nick ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... poet, who was Berlioz's friend, called him a "colossal nightingale, a lark of eagle-size, such as they tell us existed in the primeval world." The poet goes on to say: "Berlioz's music, in general, has in it something primeval if not antediluvian to my mind; it makes me think of gigantic species of extinct animals, of fabulous empires ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... his chere amie, (always a part of a settler's stock,) and perhaps a few black natives, not unfrequently hostile visitors. Business calls the settler to Melbourne; he puts up at his inn; any thing in the shape of society rejoices his heart, and forthwith he begins "the lark;" he dines out—gets fuddled, returns to his inn, finds a city friend or two waiting for him, treats them to champagne, of which, at ten shillings per bottle, they drink no end. Very well. His horse is in the stable at seven shillings and sixpence a-night, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... fowles such multitudes there are, Earths beasts and waters fish scarce can compare. Th' Ostrich with her plumes th' Eagle with her eyn The Phoenix too (if any be) are mine, The Stork, the crane, the partridg, and the phesant The Thrush, the wren, the lark a prey to th' pesant, With thousands more which now I may omit Without impeachment to my tale or wit. As my fresh air preserves all things in life, So when corrupt, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... take long—he folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket, and he stood in the spot for five minutes to take in the meaning in its length and breadth. A pleasant spring sun was shining upon him through a break in the leafy arch, a handful of primroses were blooming at his feet, a lark was singing in the neighbouring field. Sometimes the Doctor used to speculate how he would have liked being a poor man, and he concluded that he would have disliked it very much. He had never been rich, and he was not given to extravagance, but he was accustomed to easy circumstances, and he ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... he did, too, after he got over his rage, but his night's rest did not seem to refresh him much, for he was cross and sullen the next morning, and ate his breakfast without saying a word to anybody. David was as bright as a lark; and after he had assisted his mother in her household duties, he took down his rusty old single-barrel from the pegs over the fireplace, slung on his powder-horn and shot-pouch, and when his mother was ready to go, he accompanied her down the road toward ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... spends her whole time helping others. She represents the composite beauty, sweetness, and nobility of all those who scorn self for the sake of love and her handmaiden duty—of all those who seek the brightness of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as the lark who soars and sings to the great sun. She is of those who have so much to give they want no time to take, and their name is legion. She is as full of beautiful possibilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the harmonies ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy
... from the public-house. He will probably do and be done by likewise to-night. How many faggots to the dram? one wonders. What is he thinking as he rustles about disconsolately among the bushes? Of what is he dreaming? What does he make of the lark up there? But I notice he never looks at it. Perhaps he cannot bear to. For who knows what is in the heart beneath that poor soiled coat? If you have hopes, he may have memories. Some day your hopes will be memories too—birds ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... more alarmed over our predicament than I. He seemed to sense the danger that attended my decision to shelter and protect this cool-headed, rather self-centred young woman at the top of my castle. To me, it was something of a lark; to him, a tragedy. He takes everything seriously, so much so in fact that he gets on my nerves. I wish he were not always looking at things through the little end of the telescope. I like a change, and it is a novelty to sometimes see things ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... commending me to Sir Hugo's generosity, which, so long as I consulted his wishes, was free enough. Of my own I had a few hundred pounds left me by my mother. I took that and came to this country. I was introduced into society by a fellow-countryman, who thought my change of name a mere lark, and who soon went home, and then straightway I fell in love ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... and the delight which these lovers took in each other's society, were sadly allayed with the prospect of parting, and the fatal adventures of the past day. The unwelcome daybreak seemed to come too soon, and when Juliet heard the morning song of the lark, she would have persuaded herself that it was the nightingale, which sings by night; but it was too truly the lark which sang, and a discordant and unpleasing note it seemed to her; and the streaks of day in the east too certainly pointed out that it was ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... some godlike giant's hold Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and tree. None would dream that grief even here may disembark On the wrathful woful marge of ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of whether NORA is as much of a doll, a squirrel, and a lark, as she seems, and if so, whether it is her own fault, or HELMER's or Society's, will be solved ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various
... hundred species of these beautiful birds, and others are being constantly discovered—one vying with the other in beauty and richness of plumage—truly described as the "feathered gems of the mountain and forest." Some humming-birds tower, like the lark, to a great height in the air; while others keep always near the ground, among the shrubs ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... explanation of the piano from Sylvia. She had gone with Rush and Mr. March to an auction sale late Saturday afternoon at a farm three or four miles away. Just for a lark. They hadn't meant seriously to buy anything. But this old piano, Mr. March having sworn that he would make it play despite the fact that half the keys wouldn't go down at all and the rest when they did made only the most awful noises, they had bought for eleven dollars, and had fetched ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... undergraduates from Cambridge, a very few strangers by rail, and a great many first-class yeoman farmers and graziers. Thus it is equally unlike the fashionable "cut-me-down" multitude to be met at coverside in the "Shires" par excellence, and the scarlet mob who rush, and race, and lark from and back to Leamington and Cheltenham. For seeing a good deal of sport in a short time, the Fitzwilliam is certainly the best, within a hundred miles of London. You have a first-rate pack, first-rate huntsman, a good scenting country, plenty ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... everything. Janet made no comments. She listened with her eyes glaring out into the darkness, sometimes moistening her lips as they became dry. The unconscious note in Sally's voice thrilled her; it was like that of a lark thanking God for the morning. She felt in it the pulse of the great force of sex—nature rising like a trembling god of power out of the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... eyes do," he declared. "They're suggestive of cathedrals and beautiful dimness, and a voice going up and up, like the 'Lark' song of ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... were current of men who had wandered thither in their cups, "for the lark of it," only to return to consciousness days afterwards, stripped, shorn, and shattered in health bodily and mental, to find themselves in some vile kennel miles from Dutch House; and of other men who passed once through its foul portals and—passed ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... men are in general tall and well formed, they use bows over six feet in length, and but little bent. The facial angle is as good in most cases as in Europeans, and they have certainly as little of the "lark-heel" as whites. One or two of the under front teeth are generally knocked out in ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... people, and I can teach you all the technicalities of a reporter's job in half an hour. And you have a head for a mystery; you have imagination and cool judgment along with it. Think how it would feel if you pulled it off!" Trent had admitted that it would be rather a lark; he had smoked, frowned, and at last convinced himself that the only thing that held him back was fear of an unfamiliar task. To react against fear had become a fixed moral habit with him, and he had accepted ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... dove from out her nest doth fly; Far upward in the clear blue sky The lark her way is winging; Hark to the lovely nightingale! With her sweet song each hill and dale, And woods and rocks, ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... you are so strict. I shall never be able to keep time with you, but I do think, if I was off as Jeanette, that I would be as blithe and happy as a lark, and instead of that she seems to be constantly drooping ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... Admiral slept in the green churchyard, with no despatch to receive or send, the importance of Springhaven had declined in all opinion except its own, and even Captain Stubbard could not keep it up. When the Squire was shot, and Master Erle as well, and Carne Castle went higher than a lark could soar, and folk were fools enough to believe that Boney would dare put his foot down there, John Prater had done a most wonderful trade, and never a man who could lay his tongue justly with the pens that came spluttering from London had any call for a fortnight ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... The lark had left the evening cloud, The dew was soft, the wind was lowne, The gentle breath amang the flowers Scarce stirr'd the thistle's tap o' down; The dappled swallow left the pool, The stars were blinking owre the hill, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... happy home, He has that cell, so drear and dark, The narrow walls, for heaven's blue dome, The clank of chains, for song of lark; And for the grateful voice of friends— That voice which ever lends Its charm where human hearts are found— He hears the key's dull, grating sound; No heart is near, No kind heart near, No sigh of sympathy, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... ye see there. They've pumps, and screws, and hydraulic devilments, as much complicated as a watch that's always getting out of order and going wrong; but with that ye'll see what good 'twill do him; he'll be as lively as a lark in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... nor even undulation of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of colour which shall be assimilated to that of the surrounding country is absolutely necessary. Hence without exception the upper plumage of every bird, whether lark, chat, sylvain, or sand-grouse, and also the fur of all the smaller mammals, and the skin of all the snakes and lizards, is of one uniform isabelline or sand colour." After the testimony of so able an observer it is unnecessary to adduce ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... the look of a lover Saluting the eyes of a maid, That blossom to blue as the maid Is ablush to the glances above her, The sunshine is gilding the glade And lifting the lark out ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... banquet with us the friends we loved, and we were inexpressibly proud before them of the help who first wrought miracles of cookery in our honor, and then appeared in a clean white apron and the glossiest black hair to wait upon the table. She was young and certainly very pretty; she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes would have been a credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly basement. She joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... strictness, with the morning light it awoke a rose. But the core of the rose is still hidden from the light, only the outer leaves know it, and so Elizabeth is pure in her first aspiration; she rejoices as the lark rejoices in the sky, without desiring to possess the sky. Ulick could not explain to himself the obsession of this singing; he was thrall to the sensation of a staid German princess of the tenth century, and the wearing of a large hat with ostrich feathers, and ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... lark to bolt," said Gully, with a chuckle. "But," he added, seriously, "if you really mean it, by George, I'll go too! Wilson has just given me a thousand lines; and I'll be hanged if I ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... the top of a bank bordering the rough road which led to the sea. They were listening to the lark, which had risen fluttering from their feet a moment or so ago, and was circling now above their heads. Mannering, with a ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a jolly miller Lived on the river Dee; He sang and worked from morn till night, No lark so blithe as he. And this the burden of his song Forever seemed to be: I care for nobody, no! not I, ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... simple-hearted, shy man, who never did himself justice, except with two or three who saw most of him. Their affection has been enough for him—enough to make him think now that his life has been a very happy one. There!" cried Hope, as a lark sprang up almost from under the feet of the party—"There is another member of Deerbrook society, ladies, who is anxious to make your acquaintance." There were two or three larks hovering above the meadow at this moment, and others were soaring further ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... holding both his sides. Come, and trip it, as you go, On the light fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free: To hear the lark begin his flight, And, singing, startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweet-briar or the vine, Or the twisted ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... as the lark outspreads her wings, And, while she's soaring, sweetly sings To charm the listener's ears, The maiden, springing from her seat, Flew forth, her coming friend to greet. Her ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... and now a halt and all of them entirely out of step with the enthusiastic young band in its natty uniform. They called to one another, chaffed the mounted officers, sang when the spirit moved them and acted in every way like boys who were off on the great lark of their lives. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... appreciated. And yet he is not only a real poet, but he is all poet. The Muses have not merely sprinkled his brow; he was baptized by immersion. His notes are not many; but in them Nature herself sings. He is a sparrow that half sings, half chirps, on a bush, not a lark that floods with orient hilarity the skies of morning; but the bush burns, like that which Moses saw, and the sparrow herself is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... numbers"), Crested Lark, Crossbill, Calandra, House Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Stonechat, Hawfinch, Coal, Yellow-Hammer, Goldcrest, Blackbird, Rock Pipit, Fieldfare, White Wagtail, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Peter, "should learn them after a while. Why didn't you sing out, when you saw us hustling to get out a boat, and tell us not to bother, as you were only playing dead for the lark ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... continually go back to nature. Listen—really listen—to the birds sing. Which of these feathered tribes are most pleasing in their vocal efforts: those whose voices, though sweet, have little or no range, or those that, like the canary, the lark, and the nightingale, not only possess a considerable range but utter their notes in continual variety of combinations? Even a sweet-toned chirp, when reiterated without change, may grow maddening ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... writes to a London paper to say that he heard a lark in full song on Sunday. We can only suppose that the misguided bird did not know it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various
... trip—their pilgrimage she called it. Oh, these affected Wagnerites! You had better go, too, Mr. Tannhaeuser; perhaps the miracle might be renewed and your staff of faith grow green with the leaves of repentance. Oh, Harry, what a lark it all is!" ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... "In proportion as we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of Caligonum and Salsola, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal solitude.... The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land accursed, as the natives call ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... to break, And the light shoots like a streak Of subtle fire; the wind blows cold Whilst the morning doth unfold. Now the birds begin to rouse, And the squirrel from the boughs Leaps to get him nuts and fruit; The early lark, that erst was mute, Carols to the rising day Many a note and many a ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... to relish the wholesome food of the chase. Never-failing sleep will wait on thee at the time she comes to soothe the rest of animated nature, and ere the sun's rays appear in the horizon thou wilt spring from thy hammock fresh as the April lark. Be convinced also that the dangers and difficulties which are generally supposed to accompany the traveller in his journey through distant regions are not half so numerous or dreadful as they are commonly thought ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... lark from beds of bloom will rise And sail and sing among the very skies, Still mounting near and nearer to the light, Impelled alone by love of upward flight, So Genius soars—it does not need to climb— Upon ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... world. The common eye can see Nature's beauty only in such melodramatic and sentimental forms—dizzy chasms, foaming waterfalls, snow-capped mountains and flagrant sunsets, just as it can realize Nature's wildness of heart only in a menagerie. That a squirrel or a meadow-lark, or even a guinea-pig, is just as wild as the wild beasts in a travelling circus is outside the comprehension of the vulgar, who really hunger after mere marvels, whatever they may be, and actually have no eyes for beauty ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... their heads the mavis flew, And the "ouzel-cock so black of hue;" And the "throstle," with his "note so true" (You remember what Shakespeare says—HE knew); And the soaring lark, that kept dropping through Like a bucket spilling in wells of blue; And the merlin—seen on heraldic panes— With legs as vague as the Queen ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... heat. The spring sights and sounds were all about; the lambs were bleating out their gentle weariness before they sank to rest by the side of their mothers; the linnets were chirping in every bush of golden gorse that grew out of the stone walls; the lark was singing her good-night in the cloudless sky, before she dropped down to her nest in the tender green wheat; all spoke of brooding peace—but Philip's heart ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... pretty clean, but had been confined to that area. An hour later they dragged their engine rather dispiritedly back to the house. Ordinarily they would have been in high spirits. Fires were to these men a good deal of a lark. The crews were very effective and well drilled, and the saving of property was as well done as possible, but that was all secondary to the game of it. But to-night they had been "washed," they had lost the game, and ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... we should have to reproduce the relation between body of water, width of stream, and height of fall, and we might succeed in getting the peculiar effect of voluminousness which marks that wonder of Nature. The soaring of a lark is not like the pointing upward of a slender Gothic spire, yet there is a likeness in the attitudes with which we follow them. All these cases have certain form-qualities in common, by virtue of which they resemble each other. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... and ceased to irritate me. Freed, too, from the agony of shaving, I soon found myself eating my breakfast in a more equable frame of mind than I had enjoyed for years. I began also to notice in my walks all sorts of things that had not struck me at first—the lark a-twitter in the blue, the good smell of wet earth after rain, the pale gold of ripening wheat. And at last, before ever I saw it, very gradually I came to love my beard, to love the warm comfort and cosiness of it, and to wonder half ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... with the lark— That is (at present) when it's dark— Breakfasts in haste on tea and toast, Then grapples with the early post, And reads the newspapers, which shed Denunciation on his head. Having digested their vagaries He calls his faithful secretaries And keeps them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... sky-lark stolen from its nest Sang on her finger, though he knew His unclipped wings were free to soar At will into the ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... with the sun, and away where it leads, High over the mountains and down through the meads! The brooks they are singing, the trees hear the call; My heart's like a lark and sings out ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cowboys of his own type and temper, and George Cleveland, a negro, known as a desperate fellow, game for anything. It needed no great argument to secure the co-operation of these men. A mere tip of the lark and the loot to ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... the knee, came still between him and the dark shadows which his own trials cast upon his naturally bright and hoping spirit. "I am wrong to be so depressed," he said to himself; "we may see blessings in every lot, if we are willing to do so; and poor little Ned is as bright as a lark because he can get wood for the carrying, although he was shivering with cold, and his face looked pinched as if he were only half fed. Stay; let me see; I wonder if I cannot make some sort of shoes for him! There is a pile of old boots and shoes in the back shop, which Mr. Walters said ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... was happy as a lark. He threw stones at a telegraph pole, and was in ecstasy when a lucky shot shivered one of the ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... to be a conspirator against public opinion, and possibly the permanent welfare of society, and had avowed, beside, her own horror of a doctor's simplest duties. But poor Miss Fraley looked at her young friend as a caged bird at a window might watch a lark's flight, and was strangely glad whenever there was a chance to spend an hour in ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge: The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... now, under Canute's severe forest laws. The yellow roes stood and stared at him knee-deep in the young fern; the pheasant called his hens out to feed in the dewy grass; the blackbird and thrush sang out from every bough; the wood-lark trilled above the high oak-tops, and sank down on them as his song sank down. And Hereward rode on, rejoicing in it all. It was a fine world in the Bruneswald. What was it then outside? Not to him, as to us, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... limb of the crab-apple tree, a meadow lark began to sing. Bobby tried to find him, but could not see him among the branches. Such a wonderful song he had ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... was made to look for his lost property, and a reward was offered for it, but it seemed he had wandered a good deal off the path, thinking to find a lark's nest, more than once, and looking for a watch and purse on Battersby piewipes was very like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay: besides it might have been found and taken by some tramp, or by a magpie of which ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... but hidden among trees in yon lovely hollow, lies an old, old hamlet, its brown roofs decked with golden lichen; I see the low church tower, and the little graveyard about it. Meanwhile, high in the heaven, a lark is singing. It descends, it drops to its nest, and I could dream that half the happiness of its exultant ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... he cried to two other young men who were already there, smoking clay pipes—'here's a lark! The chief wants fifteen inches on this charming and pathetic art-work as quick as you can. And no antics, he says. Here, Jack, here's fifty pages for you'—Mr. Heeley ripped the beautiful inoffensive ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... however, he was but an hour or so from an uninhabited island (of course it was uninhabited) and bothered by no rival for chief honours. He decided that to fall into the sea from a steamer at night was a lark. But a little while afterwards he thought of sharks and remembered, with something of a pang, good times in England; then he wondered what would happen on the ship when they missed him; then he glowed at the anticipation of the other boys' envy when they learned ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... hands were red and chapped from winter winds; the leather of wrist-bands, belt, and boots was all worn shiny and thin; little streaks of dust fell from him as he breathed heavily. He no longer looked the dashing cowboy, ready for a dance or lark ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... for a while rent-free, and his wants were never many, but for some time he apparently got along with no income whatever. His fertility in composing songs showed itself already. His later feat of writing "Hark, Hark, the Lark" on the back of a bill of fare, finishing it within half an hour of his first seeing the poem, is well known. It seems that he could forget as easily as he invented. At one time he sent a set of songs to his friend ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... richness of foliage, wood and water, and a church-spire, a town and horizon hills. There sung a sky-lark. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... who, like any lark, Dost whet thy beak and trill From misty morn till murky dark, Nor ever pipe thy fill: Hast thou not, in thy cheery note, One poor chirp to confer— One verseful twitter to devote ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... about nine o'clock, we had just finished our breakfasts, and the hands had been turned up, when the last lighter, with the rum on board, came alongside. She was a sloop of fifty tons, called the Lark, and belonged to three brothers, whose names I forget. She was secured to the larboard side of the ship; and the hands were piped 'clear lighter.' Some of our men were in the lighter slinging the casks, others at the yard tackle and stay-falls hoisting ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... "Happy as a lark," said Bob, "the greatest living authority in New England on the Civil War. He's made the post-office the most popular social club I ever saw. If anybody's missing in Brampton, you can nearly always find them in the post-office. But I smiled ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... given at the peak of Knockmany, morning after morning, that we might be able to announce, with an exulting heart, the gratifying and glorious fact, that the snow had disappeared from it—because we knew that then spring must have come! And that universal song of the lark, which fills the air with music; how can we forget the bounding joy with which our young heart drank it in as we danced in ecstacy across the fields? Spring, in fact, is the season dearest to the recollection of man, inasmuch as it is associated ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... room in the office of The Lark. Two walls of the room are completely hidden from floor to ceiling by magnificently-bound books: the third wall at the back is hidden by boxes of immensely expensive cigars. The windows, of course, are in the fourth wall, which, ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne
... welcomed the whites, and were eager to trade with them—particularly for muskets; for their pastime was internecine war, and they greatly preferred the white man's weapons to their own. War was their pastime—I use the word advisedly. They often met and slaughtered each other just for a lark, and when there was no quarrel. The author of "Old New Zealand" mentions a case where a victorious army could have followed up its advantage and exterminated the opposing army, but declined to do it; explaining naively that "if we did that, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Cricket, if you will use this mixture, a spoonful every hour, and rub a little cure-all salve under your red flannel at night, we'll soon have your voice as clear as a lark's, and the soreness all gone. How many kiddies shall you send to my grand-daughter's ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard
... earth, the soul is free, But that freedom oft doth bring Discontent and sorrowing. Oh! that from each waking vision, Gorgeous vista, gleam Elysian, From ambition's dizzy height, And from hope's illusive light, Man, like thee, glad lark, could brook Upon a low green spot to look, And with home affections blest Sink into as calm ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... "But not seriously engaged, Mr. Price. I didn't suppose she would think it was serious—just a lark—but when she appeared that night and fixed me with her eye I suddenly realized what ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... the settlers. One by one the novelties and beauties of the plain had passed away or grown familiar. The plover and blackbird fell silent. The prairie-chicken's piping cry ceased as the flocks grew toward maturity, and the lark and cricket alone possessed the russet plain, which seemed to snap and crackle in the midnight frost, and to wither away ...
— The Moccasin Ranch - A Story of Dakota • Hamlin Garland
... there is nought to displease her, nor lacks she aught that she could wish, when 'neath the flowers and leaves it lists her embrace her lover. At the time when folk go hunting with the sparrow-hawk and with the hound, which seeks the lark and the stonechat and tracks the quail and the partridge, it happened that a knight of Thrace, a young and sprightly noble, esteemed for his prowess, had one day gone a-hawking quite close beside this tower; Bertrand was the knight's name. His sparrow-hawk had ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... answered the surgeon, who, proud of his success, had been carefully watching his patient. "He'll do now, gentlemen," he added, looking up at my uncle and me. "We'll put him to bed, and by to-morrow morning he'll be as blithe as a lark, barring a stiff neck." ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... given up all claim to the orphaned Susy, and how she had resolved to find out "if the poor child was happy." How she succeeded in finding out that she was not happy. How she wrote to her, and even met her secretly at San Francisco and Oakland, and how she had undertaken this journey partly for "a lark," and partly to see Clarence and the property. There was no doubt of the speaker's sincerity; with this outrageous candor there was an equal obliviousness of any indelicacy in her conduct towards Mrs. Peyton that seemed hopeless. Yet he must talk plainly to her; he must say to her what he ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... welcome warmth till the sun declined and hunger sent him to his granary for a hearty meal. These brief, spring-like hours, when the golden furze blossomed in the hedge-bank near the field-vole's home, and the lark, exultant, rose from the barren stubble, were, however, full of danger to Kweek if he but dared to lift his head above the opening ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... with indifference the frost and the storm. They migrate only when driven by want of food; this appears to consist of small round compressed black seeds, oats, buckwheat, &c., with a large proportion of gravel. Shore Lark and Sky Lark are the names by which they are usually known. They are said to sing well, rising in the air and warbling as they ascend, after the manner of ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... ears. The steer forgot to graze, And, where the hedge-row cuts the pathway, stood, Leaning his horns into the neighbour field, And lowing to his fellows. From the woods Came voices of the well-contented doves. The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy, But shook his song together as he near'd His happy home, the ground. To left and right, The cuckoo told his name to all the hills; The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm; The redcap [4] whistled; [5] and the nightingale ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... of "There's a Girl Wanted There," "the silly ass" seemed to become a thousand times sillier than ever. He set down his cup, and, turning to Anita, said with an inane sort of giggle, "I say, you know, here's a lark. Let's have a game of 'Slap Hand,' you and I—what? Know it, don't you? You try to slap my hands, and I try to slap yours, and whichever succeeds in doing it first gets a prize. Awful fun, don't you know. ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... monotony of desolation, monotony even of variety. The glorious blue overhead is monotonous: as for the thermometer, it paces up and down within the narrowest limits, like a prisoner in his cell, or a meadow-lark hopping to and fro in a seven-inch cage. The plan and aspect of the buildings are monotonous, and so is the way of life of those who inhabit them. Fortunately, the sun does rise and set in Southern California: otherwise ...
— The Golden Fleece • Julian Hawthorne
... somewhere, my dear; There is ever a something sings alway: There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear, And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray. The sunshine showers across the grain, And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree; And in and out, when the eaves dip rain, ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... note runs through the whole of A Spiritual AEneid. A thoroughly undergraduate spirit inspires every page save the last. Religion is treated as a lark. It is full of opportunities for plotting and ragging and pulling the episcopal leg. One is never conscious, not for a single moment, that the author is writing about Jesus of Nazareth, Gethsemane, and Calvary. About a Church, yes; about ceremonial, about mysterious rites, about prayers to ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... neglected, it would become extinct, as has recently happened with one of the Polish sub-breeds. Whenever in the course of past centuries a bird appeared with some slight abnormal structure, such as with a lark-like crest on its head, it would probably often have been preserved from that love of novelty which leads some persons in England to keep rumpless fowls, and others in India to keep frizzled fowls. And after a time any such abnormal appearance would be ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... accept an invitation from Lord Northampton to go to one of his soirees, which they sometimes do for a "lark," their antics are vastly amusing; they put on grave, philosophic faces, and mimic the savans to the life; if the noble president, thinking he is doing the polite thing, points out to them a poet, for example, or a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the strange bird that Mistress Flint hath had sent to her over seas?" inquired he. "I do hear that great lords and ladies have kept such like these fifty years or so; but never saw I one thereof aforetime. 'Tis bright yellow of plumage, and singeth all one as a lark: they ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... separated from him by the bed she drew away as if from his touch. He saw that she had forgotten the dead man in a sharp realization of the portent of the living. She glanced about the room in the panic of a trapped lark, an abject fright, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... I know who it will be, too, don't you, darling Jennie?" and she jumped up, and putting her needle in her work, she kissed the astonished child again, and went singing down the stairs as merry as a lark. Jennie sat quietly in the window, thinking of the contrast between her sometime home in the city and the one described by her happy school-mate, and she would have grown very sad over her solitary musings; but a gay laugh in the garden below diverted ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... and so I sung it. Now I'll try another, for I am bound to please you—if I can." And she broke out again with an airy melody as jubilant as if a lark had mistaken moonlight for the dawn and soared skyward, singing as it went. So blithe and beautiful were both voice and song they caused a sigh of pleasure, a sensation of keen delight in the listener, and seemed to gift the singer with an unsuspected charm. As she ended Sylvia ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... superabundance of trees, was in summertime famous for its delightful variety of birds: magpies, jackdaws, thrushes and wagtails, in addition to the usual sparrows and tom-tits, were seen frequently; occasionally a lark or a starling would charm the ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... taught school for a while, and paid my way; but I'll never forget that Martin Heaslip was the man that gave me my chance. I just fancy I see him now, sailing down the river on the slipperiest log in the bunch, and roaring out his song about a 'wat-er-y grave' as gay as a lark." ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... nature," Arnold replied. "If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the orchestra. There is a lark singing above my head, and a thrush somewhere ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The merry merry lark was up and singing, And the hare was out and feeding on the lea; And the merry merry bells below were ringing, When my child's laugh rang ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley
... or gum trees, the banana, sugar-cane, yams, aniseed, and lastly a plant called "Binao," which is used by the natives as bread. Cockatoos, wood pigeons, lories, and black-birds, somewhat larger than those of Europe, abounded in the woods. In the marshes the curlew, sea lark, a species of snipe, and ducks were to be found. The only quadrupeds the country produced ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by though at a hundred yards' distance; and when close at your ear, is scarce any louder than ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... place, though, once before, and for more than a week. The old man was advertising for me then, and a chum I had with me had a notion of getting a couple quid out of him by writing a lot of silly nonsense in a letter. That lark did not come off, though. We had to clear out—and none too soon. But this time I've a chum waiting for me ...
— To-morrow • Joseph Conrad
... enjoyment of the external world it may be doubted whether he does not find as much mental stimulus as the deaf-and-dumb. He cannot see the sunset, but he hears the shout of the cuckoo, the song of the lark, "the hum of bees, and rustle of the bladed corn." And if, as usually happens, he has music in his soul, he has a realm of gold for his inheritance that makes life a perpetual holiday. Have you heard ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... over the plain before him in the early freshness of the day. Cattle were lying about in groups, and the loud, sweet song of the prairie lark was' heard on every side. For the bright snowless winter of the mesas was gone and the springtime was at hand. The grass was greening and all nature seemed turning to ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... dream, it vanish'd with the parting day! Alas! that when on spirit-wing we rise, No wing material lifts our mortal clay. But 'tis our inborn impulse, deep and strong, Upwards and onwards still to urge our flight, When far above us pours its thrilling song The sky-lark, lost in azure light, When on extended wing amain O'er pine-crown'd height the eagle soars, And over moor and lake, the crane Still ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... said the girl eagerly. "I'll pretend to fall in love with that nice-looking sailor you call Harry. What a lark!" ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... sky, so falls the song of the larks. There is no end to them: they are everywhere; over every acre away across the plain to the downs, and up on the highest hill. Every crust of English bread has been sung over at its birth in the green blade by a lark. ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... Hamburg-American record-breaker. Suppose we go down and have a lark with her. I wonder if she's taking news of the war. We're in with Germany, and they may ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... And then, Mary, who is the sweetest, dearest young woman I know, is not impulsive in that way. She is such a very child. I don't suppose she understands what passion means. She has the gaiety of a lark, and the innocence. She is always soaring upwards, ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... in each soul is born the rapture Of yearning upward, and away, When o'er our heads, lost in the azure, The lark sends down her thrilling lay, When over crags and pine-clad highlands The poising eagle slowly soars, And over plains and lakes and islands The crane ...
— The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust' • H. B. Cotterill
... over stock and stone on the public highway. The coffin in its covering of straw tumbled out of the van, and was left on the high-road, while horses, coachman, and carriage flew past in wild career. The lark rose up carolling from the field, twittering her morning lay over the coffin, and presently perched upon it, picking with her beak at the straw covering, as though she would tear it up. The lark rose up again, singing gaily, and I withdrew behind ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... lark was so brim-full of gladness and love, The green fields below him—the blue sky above, That he sang, and he sang, and forever sang he: I love my Love, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... river's stony marge The sand-lark chants a joyous song; The thrush is busy in the wood, And carols loud and strong. A thousand lambs are on the rocks, All newly born! both earth and sky Keep jubilee, and more than all, Those boys with their green coronal; They never hear the cry, That plaintive ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... whirred. High above them an eagle soared, wheeling in great circles about his aerial business. The river whispered in its channel. The blue jays scolded harshly among the thickets, and a meadow lark perched on a black stump near at hand, warbling his throaty song. Life went ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... was," said the junior, "that Charlie was so awfully afraid that he and poor Miles's wife would be taken for the Squire, that he dashed in on his way to warn me to choke them off. If she hadn't been ill, I must have set the boys on for a lark! How is she, though?" he asked in a really ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lark soared upward from the heath, cleaving the silence with its jubilant song. The sleeping echoes woke, the dun moor seemed to smile, and the blithe music fell like dew upon my gloomy spirit, wakening a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... lark for all I care," said Linda. "Early morning in the desert is a mystery and a miracle, and the larks have been there just long enough to get their voices properly tuned ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... their backs on the sea and run inland; swans are black, and eagles white; some of the parrots have webbed feet; and birds laugh and chatter like human beings, while never a song, or even a chirrup, can be heard from their nests and perches. So an English lark or nightingale is at a premium; and many a rough miner, with his shaggy beard and uncouth ways, his oaths and lawlessness and crimes, has been known to walk on Sunday evenings to a little English cottage twelve miles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... until she found an opportunity to slip out into the church-yard. There she took the letter out, and kissed it again and again, as if she would devour it; and all the way home she was as gay as a lark. Amboyne put himself ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade |
