"Purling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not long to listen to the purling Of foam athwart the keel? To hear the nearing rapids softly swirling Among their stones, to feel The boat's unsteady tremor as it braves The wild ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... species of migrant birds, the male is the first to arrive; and he does not seem to be particularly interested in house-hunting until the arrival of the female, when the courtship begins without delay, and the delicate purling song with the refrain, "Dear, dear, think of it, think of it," and the low, two-syllabled answer of the female is heard in every orchard. The building of the nest is not an important function,—merely ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... she asked, in a voice which, to me, was as sweet as the sound of a brook purling its way through a ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... to purchase any such thing made by hand again. But our good resolutions do not last long and in time we forget the strained eyes and bowed backs, or, what is worse, value our bit of lace all the more because it means that some poor woman has put her life and health into it, netting and weaving, purling and knotting, twining and twisting, throwing and drawing, thread by thread, day after day, until her eyes can no longer see and her ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... cabals, where mighty things are resolving, to lonely groves; to thy own abodes where thou dwell'st; gay and pleas'd among the rural swains in shady homely cottages; thou hast brought me to a grove of flowers, to the brink of purling streams, where thou hast laid me down to contemplate on Sylvia, to think my tedious hours away in the softest imagination a soul inspir'd by love can conceive, to increase my passion by every thing I behold; for every sound that ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... said Mr. Leek, assuming an oratorical attitude—"here you have the umbrageous trees stooping down to dip their leaves in the purling waters; here you have the sweet foliage lending a delicious perfume to the balmy air; here you have the murmuring waterfalls playing music of the spheres to the listening birds, who sit responsive upon the dancing boughs; here you have ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... stood on a knoll. On either side were tall and stately trees. A purling brook at the left rolled its silvery current down a gentle declivity, and in front, for half ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... he thinks would drive him mad if he heard it again, and was nearly sending him headlong over some cliff as it was. He retires for relief with his inquirer to a pleasant place, shadowed by planes, where swallows and nightingales are singing, and a quiet brook is purling. Triephon, his friend, expresses a fear lest he has heard some incantation, and is led by the course of the dialogue, before his friend tells his tale, to give some account of Christianity, being himself a Christian. After speaking of the creation, as described by Moses, he falls at ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... morning the two men dragged the little flat boat to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night and out of the darkness came the crash and grind of ice, the dull roar and splash of undermined banks, and the purling rumble ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... my numbers; who could take offence When pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flow'ry theme, A painted mistress or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill— I wish'd the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... silent groves! oh, may ye be For ever mirth's best nursery! May pure contents, For ever pitch their tents Upon these downs, these meads, these rocks, these mountains, And peace still slumber by these purling fountains, Which we may every year Find when ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... her Appetite would permit: After which, she bruis'd the outward green Shells of a Wall-nut or two, and smear'd her lovely Face, Hands, and Part of her Arms, with the Juice; then looking into the little purling Stream, that seem'd to murmur at the Injury she did to so much Beauty, she sigh'd and wept, to think to what base Extremities she was now likely to be reduc'd! That she should be forc'd to stain that Skin which Heaven had made ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... by the purling brook, No friend to lonely places; Or, if he toy with Strephon's crook, His ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... compelled by thirst, went to drink in a clear, purling rivulet; but the current, with its circling eddy, snatched her away, and carried her down the stream. A Dove, pitying her distressed condition, cropped a branch from a neighbouring tree and let it fall into the water, by means of which the Ant saved herself ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... Mrs. Purling, "heiress of the Purlings"; imperious, emphatic, self-opinionated, as women become who have had their own way all ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... spread in regal mode, With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort And savour; beasts of chase, or fowl of game, In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Gris-amber-steamed; all fish from sea or shore, Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained Pontus, and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... of the woodland, Where purling brooks loosen their brown tresses, Where the music of the breeze Is played on viols of the vines and trees, Thy soft words I hear Like songs from enchantment's strings. Ah, vanishing moments of ecstacy! Far-fleeing ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... for a little while, the light from Rowena's torch dancing acappella rigadoons on bare walls and dripping ceilings, Easy Money's hoofbeats hardly audible above the purling of the stream. Presently Rowena said, "It were best that ye drew out thy sword, fair sir, for anon the ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... alone under the clouds of night, and no sound was audible but that of the purling tributaries of the Stour, he said, "So Gillingham, my friend, you had no stronger arguments ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... was he who had planned the nocturnal hunt. She warns her mistress, and begs her to wait. Beauty rests upon the scene like a benediction. To Isolde the horns are but the rustling of the forest leaves as they are caressed by the wind, or the purling and laughing of the brook. Longing has eaten up all patience, all discretion, all fear. In spite of Brangane's pleadings she extinguishes the torch, and with wildly waving scarf beckons on her hurrying lover. Beneath the foliage ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... for fear of igniting them, while we tethered our horses and ox among the longest grass we could find. In that dry region no shelter was required at night, so we lay down to sleep among our bales, with our saddles for pillows, and our rifles by our sides. I had been sleeping soundly, dreaming of purling streams and babbling fountains, when I awoke to find my throat as dry and parched as ever. Hoping to find a few drops of water in my bottle, I sat up to reach for it; when, as I looked across the fire, what was my dismay to see a large tiger-like ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... spot to be better adapted for a number of houses being built in a comparatively small compass: for the whole of the ground is so romantically tossed about by the sportive hand of Nature,—presenting here a lofty ridge of rocks, there a woody dell adorned with a purling stream or a limpid pool, that most of the houses are completely hid from each ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... wooed her in undertones like that of the purling milk—at the cow's side, at skimmings, at butter-makings, at cheese-makings, among broody poultry, and among farrowing pigs—as no milkmaid was ever wooed before by ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... gnarled old olive, by the river's brim, Annunziata sat on the turf, head bowed, so that her curls fell in a tangle all about her cheeks, and gazed fixedly into the green waters, the laughing, dancing, purling waters, green, and, where the sun reached them, shot with seams and cleavages of light, like fluorspar. In the sun-flecked, shadow-dappled grass near by, violets tried to hide themselves, but were betrayed by their truant sweetness. The waters ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... situated amid scenery the most romantic: high-planted rocks, deep glens, and purling streams. For reading and writing we spend much time on a spacious open gallery, protected from the penetrating rays of the sun by a roof; and in the interstices are creepers, vines, ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... the freedom which characterized their treatment of the rigid and somewhat ungraceful costumes before them." Walpole, in his "Anecdotes of Painting," says, "Lely supplied the want of taste with clinquant; his nymphs trail fringes, and embroidery, through meadows and purling streams. Vandyke's habits are those of the times; Lely's, a sort of fantastic night-gown fastened with a single pin." Lely's ladies are not unfrequently en masque, and are habited in the conventional dresses adopted for goddesses in ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... not abed—he was pacing the room in a fine burst of poetic fervor, composing "More Songs From Vagabondia." The songs told of purling streams, hedgerows, bathers lolling on the river-bank, nodding wild flowers, chirping pewees, and other such poetic properties, which the singer conjured forth from boyhood's days, long ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... a village about halfway between Denver and Golden. The place was rife with birds, all of which are described in other chapters of this volume.[10] Mention need be made here only of the song-sparrows, which were seen in a bushy place through which a purling stream wound its way. Of course, they were Melospiza fasciata montana, but their clear, bell-like trills were precise copies of those of the merry lowland minstrels of the East. Special attention is called to the fact that, in my first visit to Colorado, the only place ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... been resuscitated) on Fourteenth Street, I held my breath till I got over alive, and I blessed Heaven for my safe passage at Forty-second and Twenty-third streets, and at divers places on Third Avenue. Now I regard these interlacing iron currents with no more anxiety than I would so many purling brooks, with stepping-stones in them to keep my feet from the wet: they are like gentle eddies—soft, clear, slow tides—where one may pause in the midst at will, compared with the deadly expanses of Fifth Avenue, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... plough and hoe and harrow, from the burden of the day, From the long and lonely furrow in the stiff reluctant clay, From the meads where streams are purling, From the moors where mists are curling,— Evening brings us home at last, To rest, ...
— 'All's Well!' • John Oxenham
... interior that held us but the view looking eastward across the sunlit meadows. In fact this side of the barn had the wide openings of an observatory. The gnarled apple trees of the orchard still bore pink-and-white wreaths on the shady side, and the purling of bluebirds blended with the voice of the river that ran between the hills afar off—the same stream that further up country was to be pent between walls and prisoned to make a reservoir. Sitting there, we gazed upon the soft ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... a walk as of yore through the fields, wandered too far, and got lost. The sky was dotted with little fleecy clouds, the wind was shaking the tiny bells of the oats; a stream was purling along through a meadow—and then, all at once, an infectious odour made them halt, and they saw on the pebbles between the thorn trees the putrid ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... letter to Mudura Ghana, and permits me to depart. He has provided two zaptiehs to escort me outside the town, and in a few minutes I find myself bowling briskly along a beautiful little valley; the pellucid waters of a purling brook dance merrily alongside an excellent piece of road; birds are singing merrily in the willow-trees, and dark rocky crags tower skyward immediately around. The lovely little valley terminates all too soon, for in fifteen minutes I am footing it up another mountain; ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... sin and sea-coal. But since my late forced visit to my estate, I am so pleased with it, that I am resolved to live and die upon it. I am every day abroad among my acres, and can scarce forbear filling my letter with breezes, shades, flowers, meadows, and purling streams. The simplicity of manners which I have heard you so often speak of, and which appears here in perfection, charms me wonderfully. As an instance of it, I must acquaint you, and by your means the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... leaves. "You," Brangaene retorts, "are deceived by the impetuosity of your desire! I hear the sound of the horns." Isolde again listens. "No!" she discourses in her over-running tender exhilaration, "the sound of horns was never so pleasing as that! It is the soft purling of the fountain whose music comes so sweetly borne to us; how could I hear it, if hunting-horns were still blaring near by? In the silence, all I hear is the murmured laughter of the fountain. The one who is waiting for me in the hushed night, are you determined to keep him away from ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... ode appeared upon the occasion, entitled My Whiskers, dedicated to the princess; it was never printed, but attributed to Thomas Moore. The Kiss, or Lady Francis W- W-'s Frolic, had nearly produced a fatal catastrophe. How would poor Lady Anne W-m have borne such a misfortune? or what purling stream would have received the divine form of the charming Mrs. H-d-s? But alas! he escaped little W-'s ball, only to prove man's base ingratitude, for he has since cut with both these beauties for the interesting little Josephine, the protegee of T———y B-t, and the ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... day, by a purling stream That flows through some mossy dell, And watch its silvery waters gleam, And list to its music's swell As it dashes down some wild cascade, On its race to the wide, wide sea, With sweeter strains than old Orpheus played, Is ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... they were some pretty melancholy purling-stream airs, I warrant; perhaps you may recollect;—did she sing, When ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... were under way at sunrise next morning, and all day the river ran through a lonely country. Ranges of buttes stretched away from the banks until they were lost in the distance and from every gully, purling streams flashed their clear waters into the yellow of the river. The banks were blushing with the glory of autumn and vines hung among the trees like curtains of the richest pattern. Game was utterly ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... howled like a stray dog, and the rain still pours on without a break. The water from the fields is rushing in numberless, purling streams to the river. The dripping ryots are crossing the river in the ferryboat, some with their tokas[1] on, others with yam leaves held over their heads. Big cargo-boats are gliding along, the boatman sitting drenched at ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... falling rills Or soft autumnal gales; O! seek thou there Some fountain gurgling from the rifted rock, Of pure translucent wave, whose margent green Is loved by gentlest nymphs, and all the train Of that chaste goddess of the silver bow; For silent, shady groves, by purling springs, Delight the train, and through the gliding hours Their nimble feet in mazy trances wind; And oft at eve, the wondering swain hath heard The Arcadian pipe and breathing minstrelsy, From joyous troops of those rude deities Whose ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... darting through the brain, Die of a rose in aromatic pain? If Nature thundered in his opening ears, And stunned him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr, and the purling rill? Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives, and ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... decided that the State was not responsible for the consequences. John's Brook, which flows into the Au Sable near the farmhouse at which we stayed, bears wild marks of this desolating freshet; indeed, one can scarcely credit the fact that the pretty little stream and smoothly purling river could ever have met in such desperate conflict as is evidenced by the scars and rifts ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Travelling for twelve miles on this bearing, we struck the Finke again, running nearly north and south. Here the river had a stony bed with a fine reach of water in it; so to-night at least our anxiety as regards the horses bogging is at an end. The stream purling over its stony floor produces a most agreeable sound, such as I have not heard for many a day. Here I might say, "Brightly the brook through the green leaflets, giddy with ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... a small stream and the day being far spent we decided to pass the night hereabouts, so we turned aside forthwith and having gone but a few yards, found ourselves quite hidden from the highway, so thick grew the trees and so dense and tangled the thickets that shut us in; and here ran this purling brook, making sweet, soft noises in the shallows mighty soothing to be heard. And here I would have stayed but Sir Richard shook wise head and was for pushing farther into the wild. "For," said he, "there may be other travellers behind us to spy some gleam of our fire ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... Golemar, were making the round of the traps and had been gone for hours. Barry was alone—alone with the beauties of spring in the hills, with the soft call of the meadow lark in the bit of greenery which fringed the still purling stream in the little valley, the song of the breeze through the pines, the sunshine, the ...
— The White Desert • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... water on a quiet, warm night, carried gently along by the tide, seeing only the sky with moon and stars, and, alongside, the wooded hill-tops and the castle battlements in the moonlight, hearing nothing but the gentle purling of one's own motion. I should like to swim thus every evening. Then I drank some very nice wine, and sat for a long time smoking, with Lynar, on the balcony, the Rhine beneath us. My little Testament and the starry firmament caused ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... by slow step, with daintiest noiselessness, I moved to a thread of moss that from the glade passed into the thicket, and along its winding way I stepped, in the direction of the sound. Now my ears caught the purling noise of a brooklet, and following the moss-path, I was led into a mass of bush only two or three feet higher than my head. Through this, prowling like a stealthy cat, I wheedled my painful way, emerged upon ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... the apples of new experiences, Wendy succumbed to her persuasions as readily as Adam. The little purling brook was attractive, mistresses and prefects were safely out of sight, and schoolmates, if they chanced to appear on the scene, might be bribed not to blab. In a twinkling laces were unfastened, and two stout pairs of boots stowed away among the stones, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... now crosses the Rea, I remember there was a footbridge, and beyond that the river was a pretty, purling, sylvan stream, with bushes and rushes growing on its green banks. A field walk past an old farm house led on to Moseley Hall, which was looked upon as being quite away in the country. As for Moseley itself, it was a pretty little village in those days. The ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... heroine, the rural charms of their secluded village were a source of ever pleasing variety. Spring, with its verdured fields, flowery meads, and vocal groves: its vernal gales, purling rills, and its evening whippoorwill: summer, with its embowering shades, reflected in the glassy lake, and the long, pensive, yet sprightly notes of the solitary strawberry-bird;[A] its lightning and its thunder; autumn with its mellow fruit, its yellow foliage and decaying verdure; winter, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... returning. All was green and blooming; the trees and hedges were already in full leaf, and rock, vale, hill and dale were clothed with their new dress. The Rootmen had already quitted their dark winter-quarters, and betaken themselves to their summer abodes by the cool brook, which now once more ran purling merrily along. All awaited with eager expectation the ...
— The King of Root Valley - and his curious daughter • R. Reinick
... the pianist to join them in another drink. Whiskey was sent up to the platform, and the musician drank it at a gulp, his right hand purling over the figuration of "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen." But he took no water. Then making them a little bobbing, startled bow, he began playing. Again it was something of Chopin. On his lean features there was a look of detachment; ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... and scarcely at any place with so much abruptness as to forbid cultivation. Upon these lovely acclivities were built the cabins of the emigrants, at the base of which, and near the house, was always to be found a fountain of pure, sweet water, gushing and purling away over sand and pebbles, meandering through a valley which it fertilized, and which abounds in shrubs flowering in beauty, and sheltered by forests of ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... to the sluices, went purling down over the riffles. The drip from countless negligible leaks commenced in its monotony. Into the puddles of mud and water the three old miners sloshed, with shovels and picks in hand. They were tired before their ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... Sebastia great, But whist'leth to thy flock in cold and heat. Viewing the Sun by day, the Moon by night Endimions, Dianaes dear delight, Upon the grass resting your healthy limbs, By purling Brooks looking how fishes swims, If pride within your lowly Cells ere haunt, Of him that was Shepherd then King go vaunt. This moneth the Roses are distil'd in glasses, Whose fragrant smel all made perfumes surpasses The cherry, Gooseberry are now ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... off immediately after early dinner, and walked across the Common to the Thatched Cottage. I cannot tell you what it was to me to catch sight of the chimney and the purling smoke again; I had to stand still and wait a while, my heart thumped so. (A fool, eh?) I crept noiselessly into the house, and through the hall, then stealthily opened the study door. There he sat on the ground by the fire, with his back ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema
... fighting with the lean dogs that lay lolling their tongues lazily about, there was yet a picturesque air about the place and its extraneous features, which would have captivated the eye of one in search of nature's sunshiny spots. Deeply embosomed within the autumnal tinted wood, a purling spring that burst from the green slope of a little mound was the feature which had attracted the Indians to the locality. Rank grass had once covered the whole surface of this forest meadow, but this the cattle had closely cropped, ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... (speak imperfectly) 583; susurrate^. steal on the ear; melt in the air, float on the air. Adj. inaudible; scarcely audible, just audible; low, dull; stifled, muffled; hoarse, husky; gentle, soft, faint; floating; purling, flowing &c v.; whispered &c v.; liquid; soothing; dulcet &c (melodious) 413; susurrant^, susurrous^. Adv. in a whisper, with bated breath, sotto voce [Lat.], between the teeth, aside; piano, pianissimo; d la sourdine^; out of earshot inaudibly ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... left, into that of Dyoonboors which it joined at a mile and a half from where we had been encamped. At three miles, having crossed a low ridge of forest land, we entered a fine valley, backed on the west by romantic forest hills, and watered by some purling brooks which united in the woods on the east. The flat itself had a few stately trees upon it, and seemed quite ready to receive the plough; while some round hillocks on the north were so smooth and grassy that the men said they looked as if they had already been ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... had overheard that first night. But Constantia had just gone away; he had seen her. There must be some mistake, some joke. No, no, by another path she had managed to get back to the house. Ay! but what playing. Again came that purling rush of notes, those unison passages, as if one gigantic hand grasped them—so perfect was the tonal accord. He did not hesitate. At a bound he was in the corridor and pushed open the door ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... whence our Milk and Honey flow. Such our Barzillai; but Barzillai too, With Moses Fate does Moses Zeal pursue: Leads to that Bliss which his own Silver Hairs Shall never reach, Rich onely to his Heirs. Kind Patriot, who to plant us Banks of Flow'rs, With purling Streams, cool Shades, and Summer Bow'rs, His Ages needful Rest away does fling, Exhausts his Autumn to adorn our Spring: Whilst his last hours in Toyls and Storms are hurl'd, And onely to enrich th'inheriting World. Thus prodigally throws his Lifes short span, To play ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... fashion when danger threatened. The banks thus became honeycombed, and it was not unusual to find a whole family perched all day long with their backs against the protecting wall and their eyes fixed meditatively on the purling stream, awaiting with resignation the whims ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... perfect safety, we rolled merrily away down hill, till we reached Colonel Beam's tavern, a neat, low-browed, Dutch, stone farmhouse, situate in an angle scooped out of a green hill-side, with half a dozen tall and shadowy elms before it—a bright crystal stream purling along into the horse-trough through a miniature aqueduct of hollowed logs, and a clear cold spring in front of it, with half a score of fat and lazy trout ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... handling of public questions was only less conspicuous than the paucity of original ideas. No principles of wise government had place in any mind, a blunt and jolly personalism as to the Ins and Outs animating all. But Jocelyn's interest did not run in this stream: he was like a stone in a purling brook, waiting for some peculiar floating object to be brought towards him and to ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... a low, soft voice. To Juliet, to whom every purling syllable was painfully audible, it sounded cooingly, like ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... district two miles off is lost, perhaps it is not so conspicious as it seems." It is about twenty feet wide at the base, and the position of the hearth and the royal bed are still to be seen, with "the finest purling stream that could be, running by the bed-side." How handy for ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... peculiarity. Mother Fromm was endowed with an inexhaustible store of that treasure called eloquence: and a sharp, strong voice, too, which forbade the interruption of any one else, with a flow like that of the purling stream. The grandmamma had an equally generous gift, only she had no longer any voice: only every second word was audible, like one of those barrel-organs, in which an occasional note, instead of sounding, ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... on the tree, I hear the purling brook, And from the old manse on the lea Flies slow the cawing crow— (In England 'twere ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... sand strewn thickly on it, and the air was damp and cold. But without, scarcely twenty paces from the inn, on the other side of the road, lay the celebrated valley, a garden made by nature herself, and whose charm consists of trees and bushes, wells and purling brooks. ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... who know what they are about, and doubtless why they are about it, I regard with all deference, hailing especially their good fight to free poetry of its ancient inversions, its mincing vocabulary, its thous and thees, its bosky dells and purling streams, its affectations and unrealities, both of speech and subject. But I do say they miss a certain triumphant craftsman's joy at packing precisely what you mean, hard enough to express in unlimited prose, into a fettered, singing line; and I do say that ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... broad bosom of the loch, the stillness lay grey and smooth like glimmering steel, with little puffs of night wind purling across it, and disappearing like breath from a new knife-blade. He saw where the smooth satin plane rippled to the first water-break, as the stream collected itself, deep and black, with the force of the water behind it, to flow beneath the bridge. When Ebie Farrish came to the ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... Miss Lucy Mowbray, who had just arrived with her brother, bent their steps toward the grove, through which ran a purling stream; and thither they were followed after a little by Miss Martha Wayles and her admirer, Bathurst. We cannot follow them and listen to their conversation—that would be indecorous. But we may be permitted to say that two young ladies—one very young—on ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... the Sun, heavens brightest birth, Hath with his burning fervour cleft the earth, Under a spreading Elme, or Oake, hard by A coole cleare fountaine, could I sleeping lie, Safe from the heate? but now, no shadie tree, Nor purling brook, can my refreshing bee? Oft when the medowes were growne rough with frost, The rivers ice-bound, and their currents lost, My thick warme fleece, I wore, was my defence, Or large good fires, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... burning with a hunger to see a New England orchard in the slanting afternoon sunlight of an early June afternoon. The hot white light of this open country makes my eyes ache and seems to dry my soul up. I can't help thinking of cool green shadows, and musky little valleys of gloom with a brook purling over mossy stones. I long for the solemn greenery of great elms, aisles and aisles of cathedral-like gloom and leaf-filtered sunlight. I'd love to hear an English cuckoo again, and feel the soft mild sea-air that blows up through ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... nature, after going through a long course of physical suffering; and by that time Cliff Castle was pretty well restored, and the two lads, after a long absence, were back home again to the land of mighty cliff, green forest, and purling stream. ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... a paroquet and as gay as a lark. She prattled on in a perpetual, purling stream of music. ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... were phenomena that had been rarely witnessed in the colder summers of the north; the forests, majestic in their growth, and free from underwood, deserved admiration for their unrivalled magnificence; the purling streams and the frequent rivers, flowing between alluvial banks, quickened the ever-pregnant soil into an unwearied fertility; the strangest and the most delicate flowers grew familiarly in the fields; the woods were replenished with sweet ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... distant ridge and point the cavalry vedettes keep vigilant watch, against surprise or renewed attack. Down along the banks of a clear, purling stream a sentry paces slowly by the brown line of rifles, swivel-stacked in the sunshine. Men by the dozen are washing their blistered feet and grimy hands and faces in the cool, refreshing water; men by the dozen ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... vigour of the Oise ends. Above it is a weakly, purling stream, the greater part of the traffic going by the Canal Lateral, while below it broadens out into a workable, industrial sort of a waterway which is doing its best to contribute its share ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... shade, A table richly spread in regal mode, With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort And savor: beasts of chase or fowl of game In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled, Gris-amber steamed; all fish from sea or shore, Freshet or purling brook, of shell or fin, And exquisitest name, for which was drained Pontus and Lucrine bay and Afric coast; And at a stately sideboard, by the wine That fragrant smell diffused in order stood Tall stripling youths, rich clad, of fairer hue ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... poetical Arcadia so remote from known reality and speculative possibility, that we can never support its representation through a long work. A pastoral of a hundred lines may be endured; but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers, and purling rivulets, through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life; but will be, for the most part, thrown away, as men grow ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... Who often times would winke and ope again: But now bright Phoebus in his burning car Visits each mortall eye and dimmes each star, The nights sole watch-man, when she casts aside Her curious worke, and doth in haste prouide: For the faire fountaine which not far off stands, Whose purling noise vpon the golden sands Inuites each weary wandring passenger To see and taste those streames which are so cleare. The louing banks like armes seeme to embrace it, Vpon the which there grew (the more to grace it) All sorts of coloured flowers, which seemd to looke And glasse themselues ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... was filled up by long walks broken by delightful rests under the shade of cornricks on grassy hillslopes beside some purling brook. Then Pilar would sit on the rug or the camp stool, while Wilhelm lay at her feet with his head in her lap caressed by the little hands that played with his hair or wandered softly over his face, resting fondly on his lips for him to kiss. If there were flowers ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... others of a spot he knows in Normandy, where one can paint—full of quaint farm-houses, with thatched roofs; picturesque roadsides, rich in foliage; bright waving fields, and cool green woods, and purling streams; quaint gardens, choked with lavender and roses and hollyhocks—and all this fair land running to the white sand of the beach, with the blue sea beyond. He will write to old Pere Jaqueline that they are all coming—it is just the place in which to pose a model "en ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith
... was dead. The wary Cacambo had taken care to fill his wallet with bread, chocolate, bacon, fruit, and a few bottles of wine. With their Andalusian horses they penetrated into an unknown country, where they perceived no beaten track. At length they came to a beautiful meadow intersected with purling rills. Here our two adventurers fed their horses. Cacambo proposed to his master to take some food, and he set ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... the midst of summer, Mr. Drake and his son Albert took a walk in some of the most agreeable environs of the city. The sky was clear, the air cool; and the purling streams, and gentle zyphyrs rustling in the trees, lulled the mind into an agreeable gloom. Albert, enchanted with the natural beauties that surrounded him, could not help exclaiming, "What a lovely evening!" He pressed his father's hand, and, looking up to ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... I meet with make the same impression on my mind as would the trees of your forests, or the flocks of sheep grazing on your common. The busy hum too of these merchants does not disturb one more than the purling of your brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contemplating their anxious motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing those men who cultivate your land; for I reflect that the end of all their labours is to embellish the city which I inhabit, and to anticipate all my wants. If ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... trusting those they made her kindred; 20 And still, the harsher and hide-bounder The damsels prove, become the fonder. For what mad lover ever dy'd To gain a soft and gentle bride? Or for a lady tender-hearted, 25 In purling streams or hemp departed? Leap'd headlong int' Elysium, Through th' windows of a dazzling room? But for some cross, ill-natur'd dame, The am'rous fly burnt in his flame. 30 This to the Knight could be no news, With all mankind so much in use; Who therefore ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... thunder'd in his opening ears, And stunn'd him with the music of the spheres, How would he wish that Heaven had left him still The whispering zephyr and the purling rill!" ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... America there hung, among other things, two staple oil paintings—a still-life for the dining room, showing a dead fish on a plate, and a pastoral for the parlor, showing a collection of cows drinking out of a purling brook. A dead fish with a glazed eye and a cold clammy fin was not a thing you would care to have around the house for any considerable period of time, except in a picture, and the same was true of cows. People who could not abide the idea of ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... freshness of "With verdure clad," and the tender charm of the second section of "Roaming in foaming billows," may possibly be remembered when Haydn is scarcely known except as an instrumental composer. The setting of "Softly purling, glides on, thro' silent vales, the limpid brook" is indeed perfect, the phrase at the repetition of "Thro' silent vales" inevitably calling up a vision, not of a valley sleeping in the sunlight, for of sunlight ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... once," put in "Stump," lazily. He was lounging over the rail with his back to us and his words came faintly. The deck was shrouded in gloom, and the vague outlines of the pilot-house, only a dozen feet away, was the length of our vision aft. A soft, purling sound came from over the side where the waves lapped against the steel hull. A shovel grated stridently now and then in the fire room, and occasionally a block rattled or a halliard flapped against the foremast overhead. The surroundings and the strange, weird "feel" ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... rising Sun, whose Beams increase As he advances upward to our View; We gaze with growing Wonder till we're blind, And every Beauty fades and dies but his. Thus shall I always view your growing Charm, And every Day and Hour with fresh Delight. Witness thou Sun and Moon, and Stars above, Witness ye purling Streams and quivering Lakes, Witness ye Groves and Hills, and Springs and Plains, Witness ye Shades, and the cool Fountain, where I first espied the Image of her Charms, And starting saw her on th' adjacent Bank, If I ...
— Ponteach - The Savages of America • Robert Rogers
... whole place was in utter darkness, and I heard nothing but the dying echoes, and a strange purling ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... reached the boundary line shortly after emerging from the canyon. We still travelled nearly directly west. The ferry was in charge of a Cornishman who also had as pretty a little ranch as one could expect to find in such an unlikely place. A purling stream of water, piped from somewhere up in the hills, had caused the transformation. The ranch was very homey with cattle and horses, sheep and hogs, dogs and cats, all sleek and contented-looking. ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... these orders by the Council, Mr. Francis, then a member of the Council, moves, "That, in obedience to the Company's orders, Mr. Bristow be forthwith appointed and directed to return to his station of Resident at Oude, and that Mr. Purling be ordered to deliver over charge of the office to Mr. Bristow immediately on his arrival, and return himself forthwith to the Presidency; also that the Governor-General be requested to furnish Mr. Bristow with the usual letter of credence to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... attempt to deny the importance of size in winning our first regard: it is a law inseparable from the thing itself; but I must protest against the taste of the age being supplied always with mere physical attributes. The purling stream and babbling brook; the small rill falling from on high, till its feathery stream is lost in mist, are and should be as much sought after as the roaring torrent or the thundering cascade. The effect of the one is to produce awe, that of the other tranquil pleasure. The human ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... water ripples over the old, brown oak sill, and he who listens may hear the brook telling a story all day long in purling undertones. I fancy its language a simple one, too, but its words of one syllable tumble so swiftly over one another that, in spite of their liquid purity of tone, I never quite catch them. It is the brook's rapidity of utterance ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... on until the branch, a silver ribbon on the dark bosom of the meadow, was before me. Grasses and weeds were laden with dew, and the water whirled and whispered about the roots. I could have believed that the purling formed itself into words when I knelt down to fumble for the snake-bite cure. I would not let myself be scared. I kept saying over and over—"To save his life! to save ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... the middle of this state-table runs a purling brook crossed by quaint bridges, in which gold and silver fish frisk about between banks of moss and flowers. The whole scene is lit with wax candles in chandeliers, and in countless candelabra ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... from its holster, and with a determined tightening of the lips, stepped to the window, drew the curtain aside, and stood peering out into the dark. The only sounds were the ticking of the clock, and the purling of the water as it rushed among the stones of the shallow ford. Overhead the stars winked brightly, in sharp contrast to the velvet blackness of the pines. The sound of the water soothed her, and she laughed—a forced little ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... about from place to place in his ancient shovel-topped buggy. About her now there was naught to suggest the prancing rozin-back she once had been; the very look of her eye conjured up images of simple pastoral scenes—green meadows and purling brooks. ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... night was in a moment gone, and sight restored to all created things, when the royal prince looked through the wood, and saw the abode of Po-ka, the Rishi. The purling streams so exquisitely pure and sparkling, and the wild beasts all unalarmed at man, caused the royal prince's heart to exult. Tired, the horse stopped of his own will, to breathe. "This, then," he thought, "is a good sign and fortunate, and doubtless indicates divine approval." And now ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... capsized in its treacherous quarter mile of boiling length. Then came a so-called lake, Old Grass, with the real Grass Lake barely visible through its circle of trees. A crystal-clear creek was its outlet to Plum Run, a thousand gleaming sunfish and tiny bass flashing through its purling rapids or sulking in deep, dark pools. There was good fishing in Grass Lake, but waist-high marsh grass, saw-edged, barred the way for nearly ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... and without it Baalbek could not have existed. As the ambassador leaned over the parapet wondering whether it was his imagination which made this night seem more still than all that had gone before since he came to the city, he suddenly became aware that what he missed was the purling trickle of the water. Peering over the wall of his house, and gazing downward on the moonlit street, he saw no reflecting glitter of the current, and realised, with a leap of the heart, that the ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... went to plain work and to purling brooks, Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks, She went from opera, park, assembly, play, To morning walks and prayers three hours a day, To part her time 'twixt reading and bohea, To muse and spill her ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... see, is it?" he mused, aloud. "That's the precious old town that we've dodged Indians, and shot rattlesnakes, and sunburnt our noses, and rain-soaked our dress suits for! That's why we've pillowed our heads on the cushiony cactus and tramped through purling sands, and blistered our hands pullin' at eider-down ropes, and strained our leg-muscles goin' down, and busted our lungs comin' up, and clawed along the top edge of the world with nothin' but healthy ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... the assaults of censure, detraction, and calumny. In those delightsome meadows, which often extend far out of sight, and where we see so many different species of animals, there it is we have occasion to admire the beneficence of the Creator. To conclude, there it is, that at the gentle purling of a pure and living water, and enchanted with the concerts of birds, which fill the neighbouring thickets, we may agreeably contemplate the wonders of nature, and examine them all at ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... wretches who pine with anguish under her disdain. Grant me, kind Heaven, a more propitious boon; direct her genial regards to one whose love is without example, and whose constancy is unparalleled. Bear witness to my constancy and faith, ye verdant hills, ye fertile plains, ye shady groves, ye purling streams; and if I prove untrue, ah! let me never find a solitary willow or a bubbling brook, by help of which I may be enabled to put a period to my ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... purling brook from the woodland glade Drops down o'er the stones and around it sweeps, Whence a fresh stream is drawn by the rough cane's aid; That in the still night its murmur has made, And in the day's ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... family in such piteous state Was out of question, so young GOODWORTH took The horses out—for now 'twas growing late— To quench their thirst at a clear purling brook, And gave them food within a sheltered nook; Then found some boards and made a coffin rude. Meanwhile the father took God's holy Book And read such portions as teach fortitude To us, that all immoderate ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... is equally tragical. There is something in the poetical Arcadia so remote from known reality and speculative possibility that we can never support its representation through a long work. A pastoral of an hundred lines may be endured, but who will hear of sheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets, through five acts? Such scenes please barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life, but will be for the most part thrown away as men grow wise ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... some that man first learned to talk by imitating the sounds of nature. It is sometimes called the "bow-wow" theory of the origin of language. Words are used to express the meaning of nature. Thus the purling of the brook, the lowing of the cow, the barking of the dog, the moaning of the wind, the rushing of water, the cry of animals, and other expressions of nature were imitated, and thus formed the root words of language. This theory was very commonly upheld ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... seen now seemed the upward drive from Mende—the beautiful gray cathedral cushioned against the soft green hills, the cheerful little town in its fertile valley, its wild entourage of far- stretching waste and barren peak. More musical still sounded in my ears the purling of the Lot, as unseen it ran between sunny pastures over ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... purling a stitch is done by taking up the stitch in front instead of at the back, throwing the thread over and knitting the stitch as in plain knitting; but before beginning to purl, the thread must be brought in front of the needle, and if a plain stitch ...
— Beeton's Book of Needlework • Isabella Beeton
... among Pebbles, and by that means taught to Murmur very agreeably. They are likewise collected into a Beatiful Lake that is Inhabited by a Couple of Swans, and empties it self by a litte Rivulet which runs through a Green Meadow, and is known in the Family by the Name of The Purling Stream. The Knight likewise tells me, that this Lady preserves her Game better than any of the Gentlemen in the Country, not (says Sir ROGER) that she sets so great a Value upon her Partridges and Pheasants, as upon her Larks and Nightingales. For she says that every Bird which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... chance and mood; and since, also, his manner of playing as well as composing was ahead of his time, the weak and imperfect pianofortes of his time could not withstand his gigantic style. It was because of this that Hummel's purling and brilliant manner of play, well adapted to the period, was more intelligible and attractive to the great public. But Beethoven's playing in adagios and legato, in the sustained style, made an almost magical ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... poetic life. Academies cannot shut him out from the odour of the violet or the song of the nightingale. He hears the lark's song filling the heavens, as the happy bird fans the milk-white cloud with its wings. He listens to the purling of the brook, the bleating of the lamb, the song of the milkmaid, and the joyous cry of the reaper. Thus his mind is daily fed with the choicest influences of nature. He cannot but appreciate the joy, the glory, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... real merit, and prevents us from over or undervaluing whatever we hope for, we enjoy, or we lose. It doth not foolishly say to us, Be not glad, or, Be not sorry, which would be as vain and idle as to bid the purling river cease to run, or the raging wind to blow. It prevents us only from exulting, like children, when we receive a toy, or from lamenting when we are deprived of it. Suppose then I have lost the enjoyments of this world, and ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... not verse except enchanted groves And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines? Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves? Must all be veiled, while he that reads divines Catching the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... blood flows calm as a purling river, When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway, It is then that I vow we must part forever, That I will forget you, and put you away Out of my life, as a dream is banished Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes; That I know ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the track of a person far better on a stair than on a ladder, it may be remarked. Thick walls, high window-sills, a commanding position, and a murmuring brook, are great securities against hypnotism, and these would be found in older Scotch castles. Another element of safety, the purling brook, is here mentioned; all noise is a good antidote; it is perhaps the case that with hypnotism from a distance the hypnotic state is continually waxing and waning, one link, generally a weaker one, succeeding another in the chain of impressions on the temperament. The diminution being ...
— Inferences from Haunted Houses and Haunted Men • John Harris
... grades had a sharp turn at the bottom, with a purling stream running under a rustic bridge immediately at the base of the mountain. On the other side of the bridge, the road rose abruptly up the side of another mountain. The descent was made nicely and the Captain's car crossed the bridge, but Jim's car stopped unexpectedly just as it reached ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... content me. It is too much beauty; it is too soft; for, though it has its rocks and huge trees, yet it lacks wildness and sublimity. The rocks are not sufficiently abrupt, the steeps not sufficiently great; there are no chasms, no waterfalls—only purling ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... hand but wont to steal O'er the lyre in gentle mood. From the sparkling waterfalls, From the brook that purling calls, Shall Silenus' loathsome beast Be allow'd at will to feast? Aganippe's * wave he sips With profane and spreading lips,— With ungainly feet stamps madly, Till the waters ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... ran along the side of a purling brook under the shadow of the great trees that skirted the forest, and Edith ambled leisurely along, low humming to herself some pretty song or listening to the merry carols of the birds or noticing the speckled fish that gamboled through the dark, glimmering ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... under present circumstances: it was composed of porous sandstone, which in these climates dries almost immediately after rain. There was plenty of dead wood upon it and it was surrounded by richly-grassed flats, whilst from the base gushed forth a clear spring, which then murmured along a purling brook, traversing the flat on which the ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... quite absorbed in thought, While all beside seemed half forgot, I wandered on till I had strayed Beneath an oak tree's ample shade, Whose lofty top towered up so high, It seemed aspiring for the sky. Just at the basement of the hill, A modest little purling rill Shone like a mirror in the sun,— Flashing and sparkling as it run. The lofty oak scarce deigned to look Upon the little murm'ring brook, But tossed his head in proud disdain, And thus began his boasting strain:— "I've lived almost since time began, The friend and favorite ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... and lightsome heart, Our conscience clear, we gay depart To pebbly brooks and purling streams, And ne'er a care to vex ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... to see the riders now, Thrown off with sudden whirl, A score within the purling brook, Enjoyed their ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Roman poets, all of them inveterate Cockneys, talk of the joys of the country, of purling streams and lowing kine and frisking lamps."— ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 14th, 1920 • Various
... other. The glamour of romance was like a golden mist over all the scene, irradiating each leaf and flower, softening the bird-calls to fairy flutings, draping the nakedness of distant rugged peaks, bearing gently the purling of the limpid brook along which the path ran in devious complacence. Often, indeed, the lovers' way led them into the shallows, through which their bare feet splashed unconcerned. The occasional prismatic flash of a leaping trout in the deeper pools caught their eyes. So, ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... direction to that the earl had taken, and in a little while—still followed by the valet, who bore his painting tools—had climbed into a field knee-deep in grass which was ready for the scythe. At the bottom of this meadow ran a little purling stream, with a slant willow growing over it. In obedience to the young gentleman's instructions, the valet set down his burden here, and having received orders to return in an hour's time, departed. The young gentleman sketched the willow and the brook ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... You may walk beside me—if you like." She glanced up from under her black lashes. "The hall is but a short half mile down the stream here to the left." They proceeded, walking slowly, the brook purling and murmuring at their side. The girl drew in her breath again, ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... severely grand, the simple, the warlike, the lover and painter of all Nature's old original forms—the ocean, the mountains, and the stars—what thorough sympathy could a man have who never saw a real mountain or a battle, and whose enthusiasm for scenery was confined to purling brooks, trim gardens, artificial grottos, and the shades of Windsor Forest? Accordingly, his Homer, although a beautiful and sparkling poem, is not a satisfactory translation of the "Iliad," and still less of the "Odyssey." He has trailed along the naked lances ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... guardian of his boundaries! Sometimes he delights to lie under an aged holm, sometimes on the matted grass: meanwhile the waters glide along in their deep channels; the birds warble in the woods; and the fountains murmur with their purling streams, which invites gentle slumbers. But when the wintery season of the tempestuous air prepares rains and snows, he either drives the fierce boars, with many a dog, into the intercepting toils; or spreads his thin nets with the smooth pole, as a snare for the voracious thrushes; ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... he scrambled down one of the narrow ravines, and, climbing over a low ridge at the further end, he led them into a short valley with a stream purling down the centre of it and a very thick growth of elder and of box upon either side. Pushing their way through the dense brushwood, they looked out upon a scene which made their hearts beat harder ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hens pecking and scraping in the street, and the modest river dimpling and simpering among osiers and apple trees, and old ivied walls close by—you sometimes hear other things than lowing herds, and small birds singing, and purling streams; and shrill accents and voluble rhetoric will now and then trouble the fragrant air, and wake up the dim old river-god ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... who could take offence, While pure description held the place of sense? Like gentle Fanny's was my flowery theme, A painted mistress, or a purling stream. Yet then did Gildon draw his venal quill;— I wished the man a dinner, and sat still. Yet then did Dennis rave in furious fret; I never answered,—I was not in debt. If want provoked, or madness made them print, I waged no war with Bedlam ...
— English Satires • Various
... hair-raising drama, and the blood-curdling film, I find myself losing appreciation for the finer and gentler things in life. I no longer glory, as I used to do, in the sweetness of the morning air and the glitter of the dew-drenched grass; in the purling stream and the fern-draped hills; in the curling waves and the twinkling stars. The bound of the hare and the flight of the sea-bird lose their charm for me. The world is robbed of its wonder and its witchery when ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... were growing tall and pretty to look upon, like suddenly grown girls, and the sun was beginning to shine hot. Now she passed over rustic bridges, under posted warnings to drive slow or pay a fine, or through sandy fords across purling streams, hearing the monotone of some unseen mill-dam, or scaring the tall gray crane from his fishing, or the otter from his pranks. Again she went up into leagues of clear pine forest, with stems as straight as lances; ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... acclaims the listening heavens fill, And Roman women smile. He does not know; or feel A moment's joy or one triumphant thrill. He heeds them not. He sees as in a dream His home and Cyrasella's citron groves; A youth again, beside some purling stream, With gladsome heart ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner
... of Port Arthur was like a pleasure trip; our fleet of old crocks pounded along steadily, with a soft, soothing sound of purling water rising from under their bows, dominated from time to time by the clank of our crazy engines, which our mechanics had doctored up as thoroughly as time permitted, in order to ensure that they should outlast the run across. There was nothing ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... loved the heath-clad hill, And I loved the silent vale, With its dark and purling rill That murmur'd in the gale. Of sighs I'd none to share, They were stored for riper years, When I drain'd the dregs of care ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... compliments and curtseys to your la'ship, and the glad tidings that one of the virgin choir of Twickenham, those Muses to which Mr Horace Walpole is Apollo, has writ an Ode so full of purling streams and warbling birds, that Apollo says he will provide a sidesaddle for Pegasus, and no male shall ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... son Henri, you will enjoy your dinner at the Hotel du Bon Laboureur, tho most likely it will be a solitary one, and you will be put to bed in a great chamber over-looking the park, through which peep, in the moonlight, the turrets of the chateau, and you may hear the purling of the waters of the Cher as it ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... know that most of his friends were Protestants. If the truth must be told, I did not like his best things at first, but long remained chiefly attached to his rubbishing pastorals, which I was perpetually imitating, with a whole apparatus of swains and shepherdesses, purling brooks, enamelled meads, rolling ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the vale, When balmy scents perfume the gale, And purling rills and linnets hail The King of kings, To muse with you I ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... not an ideal camping-ground, and Jane, whose rosy dreams of camping in Kashmir had pictured her little white canvas home set up in a flowery mead by the side of a purling brook, gazed upon the rugged slopes which rose around—the cold snow gleaming through the shaggy pine-trees—with a shiver and a distinct ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... now you are become an intercessor with my son-in-law, to save the honour of my house and compound for the frailties of my daughter. Well, friend, you are enough to reconcile me to the bad world, or else I would retire to deserts and solitudes, and feed harmless sheep by groves and purling streams. Dear Marwood, let us leave the world, and retire ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... stand, with a bowl of indirect light above it. The artist was busy in the barber shop near-by. Admirable opportunity. I mounted the throne and fell to. The first thing I saw was a quaint Japanese woodcut of a buxom maiden washing garments in a rapidly purling stream. She was treading out a petticoat with her bare feet, presumably on a flat stone. In a black storm-cloud above a willow tree a bearded supernatural being, with hands spread in humorous deprecation, gazes down half pleased, half horrified. And the caption is, "Did not ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... and more than comely, and her graceful, intelligent action, to present a really captivating figure of sweet innocence walking unscathed through searing fires of wickedness and vice, and the scenes of mere accessory decoration, like that of the laundresses, the mousm in the first act, with its purling figure borrowed from "Les Huguenots" and its unnecessarily uncanny col legno effect conveyed from "L'Africaine," that the music seemed most effective. "Zanetto" is nothing more than an operatic sketch in one act. In its original shape, as it came from the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... seas, and winds, and deserts will divide you. Under the ledge of Atlas lies a cave, Cut in the living rock by Nature's hands, The venerable seat of holy hermits; Who there, secure in separated cells, Sacred even to the Moors, enjoy devotion; And from the purling streams, and savage fruits. Have wholesome beverage, and ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... little a while at a time a person can be contented. Only a little while back, when I was riding and suffering, what a heaven this peace, this rest, this sweet serenity in this secluded shady nook by this purling stream would have seemed, where I could keep perfectly comfortable all the time by pouring a dipper of water into my armor now and then; yet already I was getting dissatisfied; partly because I could not light my pipe—for, although I had long ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fully refuting the few pretexts alleged in that extraordinary performance in support of the trade by influence and authority. Mr. Hollond, one of the Council, joined Mr. Rouse in opinion that a letter to the purport of that minute should be written; but they were overruled by Messrs. Purling, Hogarth, and Shakespeare, who passed a resolution to defer sending any reply to Mr. Hurst: and none was ever sent. Thus they gave countenance to the doctrine contained in that letter, as well as to the mischievous practices which must inevitably arise from the exercise of such power. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... they had done in earlier years by purling streams and mossy banks, under cool shadows of friendly trees. Every old playground and hallowed spot was visited once more, and they lived over those joyous ...
— The Witch of Salem - or Credulity Run Mad • John R. Musick
... the flowers and the birds, sweet, sweet sounds were wafted to our ears.... We seemed to hear women's voices in them.... And everything round about,—the sky, the sea, the bellying of the sail up aloft, the purling of the waves at the stern,—everything spoke of love, of ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... moment they stood entranced. Kaydessa then gave a little cry, held out her hands to the purling mist and brought them to her lips again ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... draw it out with his eyes or with his breath. And the poor Poet cries out, "Pump! the water is gaining on us, and our shop is going to ruin. Pump!" Whereupon the lazy, absent-minded one resumes pumping, while yearning all the while for the plashing stone-rollers and the purling eaves of his home in Baalbek. And once in a pinch,—they are labouring under a peltering rain,—he stops as is his wont to remind Shakib of the Arabic saying, "From the dripping ceiling to the running gargoyle." He is labouring again under a hurricane ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani |
