"Blackbird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning in May. The white swans were sailing tranquilly to and fro over the silver basin, and the mavis, blackbird, and nightingale, which haunted the groves surrounding the castle and the town, were singing as if the daybreak were ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... twilight's falling softly In the little green orchard; When the grey dew distills And every flower-cup fills; When the last blackbird says, 'What - what!' and goes her way - ssh! I have heard voices calling softly In ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... exactly seven weeks later—that is to say, on the evening of June 18th, 1811—that as I stood in the doorway whistling Come, cheer up, my lads, to Mrs. Trapp's tame blackbird, the old Jew slop-dealer came shuffling up the alley and ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in the sumac, but in his heart he found it lonesome business. Being the son of a king, he was much too dignified to beg for a mate, and besides, it took all his time to guard the sumac; but his eyes were wide open to all that went on around him, and he envied the blackbird his glossy, devoted little sweetheart, with all his might. He almost strained his voice trying to rival the love-song of a skylark that hung among the clouds above a meadow across the river, and poured down to his mate a story of adoring love and sympathy. He screamed a "Chip" of such ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... (horse) enbusxajxo. Bite mordi. Bitter akra—ema. Bitters vermuto. Bitumen terpecxo. Bivouac bivako. Blab babili. Black nigra. Blackboard nigra tabulo. Black-currant nigra ribo. Black pudding sangokolbaso. Blackbird merlo. Blacken nigrigi. Blackguard sentauxgulo. Blacking ciro. Blackish dubenigra. Blacksmith forgxisto. Bladder veziko. Blade (grass) trunketo. Blade (knife) trancxanto. Blamable mallauxdinda. Blame mallauxdi. Blanch paligxi. Bland afabla. Blanket lankovrilo. Blaspheme ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... notion into the skulls of the pampootied boys from Aran, they to be kings of France or of Germany, till they'd go lift their head to the clouds and go knocking all before them. And the police it is likely laughing with themselves, as if listening to the talk of the blackbird would be perched upon ...
— New Irish Comedies • Lady Augusta Gregory
... nest, robin red-breast! Sing, birds, in every furrow! And from each bill let music shrill Give my fair Love good-morrow! Blackbird and thrush in every bush, Stare, linnet, and cocksparrow, You pretty elves, among yourselves Sing my fair Love good-morrow! To give my Love good-morrow! ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... where you are going," said Professor Jim Crow, for it was the old blackbird who had stopped the little rabbit, ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... blackbird in the corn, The locust in the haying; And, like the fabled hunter's horn, Old tunes my ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... and fair. Potter Goram can stuf birds, so they look jest like they was alive. he stufed a red winged blackbird so good that the cat et it and dide. and then Potter he skun the cat and stufed her. i can skin the cat on the horizondle bar, that ...
— 'Sequil' - Or Things Whitch Aint Finished in the First • Henry A. Shute
... have developed into "purple emperors," or spread "the tiger moth's deep damasked wings" before the enraptured eyes of the noble poet. These two caterpillars and a few house-flies are all I saw, heard, or felt, by day or night, of the native fauna of England, except a few birds,—rooks, starlings, a blackbird, and the larks of Salisbury Plain just as they rose; for I lost sight of them almost immediately. I neither heard nor saw the nightingales, to my great regret. They had been singing at Oxford a short ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... single ane amang us a' greetin for his sake?" said one of us aloud; and then indeed did we burst out into rueful sobbing, and ask one another who could carry such tidings to Logan Braes? All at once we heard a clear, rich, mellow whistle as of a blackbird—and there with his favourite collie, searching for a stray lamb among the knolls, was Lawrie Logan, who hailed us with a laughing voice, and then asked us, "Where is Wee Willie?—hae ye flung him like another Joseph into the pit?" The consternation of our faces could not be misunderstood—whether ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... knows its charm when he feels his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached, and I know not why, but they seem more rural,—perhaps because the contrast of their repose with the stir left behind, of ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... murmur of waters lost in deepest woods, and all the fairy echoes whispering when the leaves are motionless in the noonday heat; then followed notes, cool and soft as the drip of summer showers on the parched grass, and then the song of the blackbird sounding as clearly as it sounds in long silent spaces of the evening, and then in one sweet jocund burst the multitudinous voices that hail the breaking of the morn. And the lark, singing and soaring above the minstrel, sank mute and motionless upon his shoulder, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... blackbird, Domine Abbas," said the young monk; "often they sing thus in February, however cold it ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... Abingdon could not approve. She ate mere morsels of everything and talked the whole time, very often with the air of a gourmet; and she would lay down her knife and fork, after a meal such as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though she had finished some aldermanic feast. She accepted a glass of Miss Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a funny story which made every one laugh, and caused ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... great price; there was certainly a quantity of jaspers and blood-stones, and others of no value at all. "But look at these two pearl-shaped diamonds," said she; "why, they are a little fortune! and oh!" The stone that struck this fair creature dumb was a rough ruby as big as a blackbird's egg, and of amazing depth and fire. "No lady in England," said she, "has a ruby to compare ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... are indeed his almshouses, though there be painted on them no such superscription. He never sits up late but when he hunts the badger, the vowed foe of his lambs; nor uses he any cruelty but when he hunts the hare; nor subtilty but when he setteth snares for the snipe or pitfalls for the blackbird; nor oppression but when, in the month of July, he goes to the next river and shears his sheep. He allows of honest pastime, and thinks not the bones of the dead anything bruised or the worse for it though the country lasses dance in the ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... this morning; the trees are blackening out of their spring greens; the warmer suns have melted the hoarfrost of daisies of the paddock; and the blackbird, I fear, already beginning to 'stint his pipe of mellower days' - which is very apposite (I can't spell anything to-day - ONE p or TWO?) and pretty. All the same, we have been having shocking weather - cold winds and ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... type, to make engines of another type without any intermediate course of training or instruction, and he will make no better figure with his engines than a thrush would do if commanded by her mate to make a nest like a blackbird. It is vain then to contend that the ease and certainty with which an action is performed, even though it may have now become matter of such fixed habit that it cannot be suddenly and seriously modified without rendering the whole performance abortive, is ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... done. I looked downward and saw what I had not seen before: the willow bursting into bud; the hepatica in flower at the foot of the camellias, which had ceased to bloom; the pear-trees in the Carmelites' garden flushing red as the sap rose within them; and upon the dead trunk of a fig-tree was a blackbird, escaped from the Luxembourg, who, on tiptoe, with throat outstretched, drunk with delight, answered some far-off call that the wind brought to him, singing, as if in woodland depths, the rapturous song of the year's new birth. Then, oh! then, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... way to the villa publica, where we found Appius Claudius,[159] the Augur, seated on a bench waiting for any call for his services by the Consul: on his left was Cornelius Merula (blackbird) of the Consular family of that name, and Fircellius Pavo (pea-cock) of Reate, and on his right Minutius Pica (mag-pie) and M. Petronius Passer (sparrow). When we had approached them Axius, smiling, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... stopped frequently to look at them, and he longed to touch them, to hold them in his palm, to put them against his lips. But he looked at his big, hard hands, and then at the flowers, and so, shaking his head, walked on. The blackbird was piping and the missel-thrush singing in one or two of her seven languages, and John felt the spring joy stirring in his own heart to melody. He sat in the singing-pew at St. Penfer Chapel, and he had a noble voice, so he shook the ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... pied-billed grebe, red-throated loon, sooty shearwater, gadwall, ruddy duck, black-crowned night heron, Hudsonian godwit, kildeer, northern pileated woodpecker, chimney swift, yellow-bellied flycatcher, red-winged blackbird, pine finch, magnolia ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the luxury of the leaves, and the song in the very air. I seem as if I could feel all the glowing life the sunshine gives and the south wind calls to being. The endless grass, the endless leaves, the immense strength of the oak expanding, the unalloyed joy of finch and blackbird; from all of them I receive a little.... In the blackbird's melody one note is mine; in the dance of the leaf shadows the formed maze is for me, though the motion is theirs; the flowers with a thousand faces ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... a mellow but mocking blackbird's note which very nearly brought the Duke of Kent, and half-a-dozen of his compeers, upon them. However, they passed on, in spite of royal instructions to "stop and search—some of these little ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn't for his mother, and a blackbird he had at home Tozer didn't say much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself moodily, and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in his bed too, before ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... books, trains of cars, toy pianos; but not one of their playthings was alive, like Piccola's birdling. They were as pleased as she, and Rose hunted about the house until she found a large wicker cage that belonged to a blackbird she once had. She gave the cage to Piccola, and the swallow seemed to make himself quite at home in it at once, and sat on the perch winking his bright eyes at the children. Rose had saved a bag ...
— Christmas Stories And Legends • Various
... said the Donkey; and the random chords changed to a crooning melody which wonderfully pleased Buddie, whose opportunities to hear music were sadly few. As for the White Blackbird, he tucked his little head under his ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... vain dream of moody mind, That lists a dirge i' the blackbird's singing; That in gusts hears Nature's own voice complain, And beholds her tears in the gushing rain; When low clouds congregate blank and blind, And Winter's snow-muffled arms are clinging ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... the woodland That hangs upon the hill; Hark! the cock is tuning His morning clarion shrill; And hurriedly awaking From his nest amid the spray, Cheerily now, the blackbird, Whistling, greets the day. For be it early ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... time she was angry with him for loving the taste of mushrooms. One winter she quarrelled with him for not admiring the touch of satin, and one summer she was jealous of him for listening to the song of a blackbird. Then because he could not prefer to all other odours the smell of jessamine, she was ready "to die of a rose in aromatic pain." The domain of taste, in the more enlarged sense of the word, became a glorious field of battle, and afforded subjects ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... but I never heard it get beyond the first bar of "Come into the garden, Maud." Ill as I was, I remember being roused to something like a flicker of animation when I was shown an exceedingly seedy and shabby-looking blackbird with a broken leg in splints, which its master (the same bird-fancying gentleman) assured me he had bought in Melbourne as a great bargain for only 2 pounds ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... to break up her whole existence, and render her unfit for her daily task. But now she found that, once more, she had underrated the strength of her own impulses. For some time she resisted, but one day, the sun shone out strong and genial, the budding trees spread their branches to the warm air, a blackbird warbled ecstatically from among the Priory shrubberies, and Hadria passed into the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... my heart!" she said, and heard His mate the blackbird calling, While through the sheen of the garden green May rain was softly falling,— Aye ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... eye. The water-lily to the light Her chalice reared of silver bright; The doe awoke, and to the lawn, Begemmed with dew-drops, led her fawn; The gray mist left the mountain-side, The torrent showed its glistening pride; Invisible in flecked sky The lark sent clown her revelry: The blackbird and the speckled thrush Good-morrow gave from brake and bush; In answer cooed the cushat dove Her notes of peace and ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... alone—beauty, upright conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now was beauty. He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could still read The Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it down if he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct, property—somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of the early evening ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... answering provoked him to laughter, and he put out a hand and tousled the thick curls in his favorite caress. One of the tresses caught in his jewelled ring; and as he bent to unfasten it, he stared at the wavy mass in lazy surprise. It was as soft and rich as the breast of a blackbird, and the fire had laid over it a sheen ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... gardens green and bright, and rich in fruity treasure, I've heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure; The ballad was a lively one, the tune was loud and cheery, And yet with every setting sun I listened ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... that altitude has much to do with bird life, some, as the meadow-lark and blackbird never being found higher than the Lake shore, others at the intermediate elevations where the Alpine hemlock thrives, while still others, such as the rosy finch and the rock-wren, are found only on the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... little man, with a head as round and nearly as bald as an orange, and not unlike an orange in complexion, either; he had twinkling gray eyes and a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles upon which were deepened by his funereal dress-coat and trousers. He reminded me of Alfred de Musset's blackbird, which, with its yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked like an undertaker ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... heard all and made a rush for the door, where they stood behind Mrs. Steiner, gazing with intense interest at the tall, dark man who had such piercing black eyes and a moustache so large that Fritz told his aunt afterward that it looked as if a blackbird had lighted upon his upper lip and spread its ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... first, jay and blackbird and thrush; They shriek at his coming and curse him, each one; With the clay of the vale on his pads and his brush, It's the Fallowfield fox and he's pretty near done; It's a couple of hours since a whip tally-ho'd him; Now the rookery's stooping to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... king once. Some people might try to make out as how I was only a chief, but you take it from me, Mac, I was a king. I was King Gibney, the first, of Aranuka, in the Gilberts, with the seat of government at Nonuti, which is a blackbird village right under Hakatuea. No matter which way you approach, you can't miss it. Hakatuea's a dead volcano, with ashes on top and just enough fire inside to cast a glow against the sky at night. There's a fair anchorage ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... shadowy wood, from dewy grass and flower, stole wafts of perfume, while from some thicket near by a blackbird filled the air with the rich note of his languorous song; but Barnabas frowned only the blacker, and his hand clenched itself on the stick he carried, a heavy stick, that he had cut from the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone,— A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... a Blackbird, though he chirps, And though he once was black; And now he wears a loose grey coat, All wrinkled on ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... more reason to believe in such a relation than we have to believe that the similar bones in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, and fin of a porpoise, are related to similar conditions of life. No one supposes that the stripes on the whelp of a lion, or the spots on the young blackbird, are of any use ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... what a thankful gladness in his face, (Silent heart-homage—plant of special grace!) At the lane's entrance, slackening oft his pace, Would Ambrose send a loving look before; Conceiting the caged blackbird at the door, The very blackbird, strain'd its little throat In welcome, with a more rejoicing note; And honest Tinker! dog of doubtful breed, All bristle, back, and tail, but "good at need," Pleasant his greeting to the accustomed ear; But of all welcomes pleasantest, most dear, The ringing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... Blackbird. Quiscalus quiscula. Redwing Blackbird. Ageloeus phoeniceus. Yellow-Throated Warbler. Dendroica dominica. Baltimore Oriole. Icterus galbula. White-Bellied Nuthatch. Sitta carolinensis. American Robin. ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... other birds of striking plumage are the Bluejay, the Bluebird, the Baltimore Oriole, the Scarlet Tanager, the Cedar Waxwing, and Red-winged Blackbird. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Carlton, and 'afterwards'. We could change at my Governor's place into borrowed, stolen, and hired evening-kit, paint the village as scarlet as Sin or a trooper's jacket, and then come home, like the Blackbird, to tea. I am going, and if I can't get 'leaf' I shall return under the bread in the rations-cart. Money's the ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... like manner. Then he peeked up all the sections of both worms, packing them into his beak somehow, and flew off. And the robin who was watching him didn't even trouble to fly down to the spot and see if he had left a joint behind. He knew his blackbird, it seemed. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... notes that no one can help noticing its performances. A record has been kept of the variety entertainments provided by the bird. Besides its own calls, whistles, and song, it reproduces the song of the blackbird and thrush absolutely correctly, and mimics with equal nicety the calls of the curlew, the ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... hen blackbird without any trace of feathers on its neck or back is reported by a Worcester ornithologist. The attempt on the part of this bird to follow our present ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 24, 1920. • Various
... in any form, and might not be rightly classified as a grain-eating bird, Prof. Stearns said the crow was thus classified by reason of the structure of its crop being similar to that of the finches, the blackbird, the sparrows, and other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... blackbird that was hopping about, caught it with a little shriek of glee, twisted its neck, looked at the dead bird, and dropped it at the foot of a tree ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... said the Philosopher. "If crime is a condition precedent to the evolution of policemen, then I will submit that jackdaws are a very thievish clan—they are somewhat larger than a blackbird, and will steal wool off a sheep's back to line their nests with; they have, furthermore, been known to abstract one shilling in copper and secrete this booty so ingeniously that it has ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... twilight's falling softly On the little green orchard; When the gray dew distils And every flower cup fills; When the last blackbird says, "What—what!" and goes her way—ssh! I have heard voices calling softly In the little ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... since, in the neighborhood of Ronen and in the valley of Monville, the blackbird was for some time proscribed. The beetles profited well by this proscription; their larvae, infinitely multiplied, carried on their subterranean labors with such success, that a meadow was shown me, the surface of which was completely ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... turned, what time the blackbird Pipes to vespers from his perch, And from out the clattering city Pass'd into ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.
... joys for him, and we let him loose in the plain below. I also picked up a dead bird, of a species common in the desert, with white head or cap, and white tail, except the upper feathers; all the rest, legs and bill, black. It is about the size of a lark, but has a head like a blackbird. We supposed the one found had died from want of water, though it may have been killed by the mother of ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... technical term. But the tendency in language is to put two words of this kind which express but one idea under a single accent, and when this has taken place, no one but the student of language any longer observes what the elements really mean. When the ordinary man talks of a "blackbird" it is certainly not present to his consciousness that he is talking of a black bird, unless for some reason conversation has been dwelling upon the colour rather than ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... creamy honeysuckle, the finger-tips of every blossom coral-red. The living blue above throbs with the tremulous song of innumerable larks; the measured chant of cuckoos awakens the woods; and through the thickets a whole world's gladness sings itself forth from the throat of thrush and blackbird. Through the whole land between the four seas benediction is everywhere; blue-bells and the rosy fingers of heath deck the mountain-tops, where the grouse are crooning to each other among the whins; down ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... lane among the haws and the filberts. I catch once more the smell of the brier. I see again the squirrel up there in the oak and the rabbit under the hedge. I listen as of old to the chirp of the grasshopper in the stubble, to the hum of the bees among the foxgloves, to the song of the blackbird on the hawthorn, and, best of all—yes, best of all for brain unsteadied and nerve unstrung—I see the cows ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... her once she had fallen in love with Jacopo. He was a handsome, dark fellow, with insinuating manners, and a voice like a blackbird. When the two were together there was no one else in the world for them. He had flamed up with the fierceness of his southern nature: she with the heat of a heart slow to love, and once fired ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... began again. 190 This open glen was studded thick with thorns Then white with blossom; and you saw the horns, Through last year's fern, of the shy fallow-deer Who come at noon down to the water here. You saw the bright-eyed squirrels dart along 195 Under the thorns on the green sward; and strong The blackbird whistled from the dingles near, And the weird chipping of the woodpecker Rang lonelily and sharp; the sky was fair, And a fresh breath of spring stirr'd everywhere. 200 Merlin and Vivian stopp'd on the slope's brow, To gaze on the light sea of leaf and bough Which glistering ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... Sunday morning, and as fine a one as I can remember. It was in the month of May, and not likely to be otherwise than fine. The sun was shining brightly, and the birds filled the air with joyous music. The thrush and blackbird mingled their strong vigorous voices, with the mellowed trilling of the skylark, and over the fields could be heard almost continuously the call of the cuckoo—now here, now there, as the active creature ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... off by herself to learn how to be happy, and to be all that a Cat could be. It was a fine sunny morning. She determined to try the meadow first, and, after an hour or two, if she had not succeeded, then to go off to the wood. A Blackbird was piping away on a thornbush as if his heart was running over with happiness. The Cat had breakfasted, and so was able to listen without any mixture of feeling. She didn't sneak. She walked boldly up under ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... painful distinctness, and one was the hanging of a terrier which had in some way displeased him. The beast was past assistance when I arrived on the scene, but the devilish pleasure in the lad's face sent a chill through me. In the other, the gardener's lad flung a stone at a blackbird on the wall above the vinery, and Master Lance, who I fancy did not like the gardener's lad, flung one through the glass. Geoffrey, who was angry, but had not seen what I saw, haled the boy before him, and Lance looked him in the face and lied with the assurance of an ambassador. The end was ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... beauty. A bright ray of the setting sun streamed full upon that face, now reposing in the awful but hallowed calm which is sometimes diffused around the bed of death. The sacred stillness was only broken by the evening song of the blackbird and the distant lowing of the cattle—sounds which had often brought pleasure to that heart, now insensible to all human emotion. All nature shone forth in gaiety and splendour, but the eye and the ear were alike closed against all earthly objects. Yet who can tell ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... two gentlemen were sitting side by side in a rather sloping car that had ascended the bank and buried its nose in a hedge of dog-rose and honeysuckle, from which two missel thrushes, a blackbird and a number of sparrows ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... having a mind to see it. 'Twas on a clear Spring morning, and a blackbird Awoke me with his warbling near my window: My dream had fashioned this into a song That some one with grey eyes was singing me, And which had drawn me so into myself That all the other shapes of sleep were gone: And then, at last, it woke me, as I said. ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... divine weather. The Bishop of Carlisle has been with me two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse(572) to perfection: -not that there was much sight in it. The air was very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening the Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of Twickenham, and drank tea with us. They had none of them seen the gallery since it was finished; even the chapel was new to the Duke, and he was so struck with it that he desired to ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Residency every step of the siege and relief can be followed. I was there first on a serene evening after rain; and but for some tropical trees it might have been an English scene. All that was lacking was a thrush or blackbird's note; but the grass was as soft and green as at home and the air as sweet. I shall long retain the memory of the contrast between the incidents which give this enclosure its unique place in history and the perfect calm brooding over ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... suspected Mr. ROOSEVELT of a negative personality; and it is certain that he has told a very entertaining story. There are in this volume battle, murder, sudden death, outlaws, cowboys, bears, American politics, and the author's views on the English blackbird, all handsomely illustrated, and the price is only what you would (or would not) pay for a stall to see a musical comedy. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 7, 1914 • Various
... one accustomed to dictate to all in and about the stables. In addition to this, there was an indescribable, but ludicrous salvo to his dignity, in the way of surliness. Some one had engaged him to carry a blackbird to town, and caused him to wait. On this subject he sang a Jeremiad in the true cockney key. "He didn't want to take the bla-a-a-ck-bud; but if the man wanted to send the bla-a-a-ck-bud, why didn't he bring ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... implement, patterned after the whale spade (p. 85); a blackbird, one of those that furnished the golden-yellow feathers for the ahuula, ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... and ashes and the most verdant and lively of all the family of trees. Here a broad, rude stone steppeth over a lazy spring, oozing its way into grass and weeds; anon a fresh pathway divergeth, you know not whither. Meanwhile the wild blackbird startles across the way and singeth anew in some other shade. To have seen Fiammetta there, stepping in silk attire, like a flower, and the sunlight looking upon her betwixt the branches! I had not walked (in the body) with Romance before. Then suppose so much of a space ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... HADDA PADDA (She is heard laughing). Shall I stone the raven away from his nest? Beware, you blackbird! (A small stone flies through the air, and falls down near ...
— Hadda Padda • Godmunder Kamban
... musicians were unhappy, inasmuch as they strove not for honour nor of their free choice, but for their safety and of hard necessity. I should have admired them more if they had pleased men, not beasts. Such solitude were far better suited to birds, to blackbird and nightingale and swan. The blackbird whistles like a happy boy in distant wilds, the nightingale trills its song of youthful passion in the lonely places of Africa, the swan by far-off rivers chants the music of old age. But he who would produce a song that shall profit boys, youths, and ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... to David. "How happy this is. No wonder they sing. Any one must sing working like this in great fields. Why, I even remember that the Shropshire Lad whistled once by mistake, while ploughing, on his own admission, until a fatalistic blackbird recalled him to his ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... How do the Blackbird and Thrassel with their melodious voices bid welcome to the cheerful Spring, and in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... dusky yellow And the road a rosy white, And the blackbird's call is mellow At the falling of night; And there's honey in the heather Where we'll make our last abode, My tunes and me together At the ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... scampered in alarm from their logs. Lizards blinked at him. Moccasin snakes darted wicked forked tongues at him and then glided out of reach of his tomahawk. The frogs had stopped their deep bass notes. A swamp-blackbird rose in fright from her nest in the saw-grass, and twittering plaintively fluttered round and round over the pond. The flight of the bird worried Wetzel. Such little things as these might attract the attention of some Indian ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... might be detected standing in some shallow nook, and feasting on the smaller fry. A flight of cawing rooks were settling upon the tall trees on the right bank, and the voices of the thrush, the blackbird, and other feathered songsters burst in redundant melody from ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... sponger bound for Nassau; its blackbird crew spoke English and they willingly helped the strangers overside, laughing and shouting in a child-like display of excitement. How firm, how grateful was the feel of that stout deck! How safe the schooner's measured ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... there could be anything so intensely beautiful. Over the great Abbey the sun was rising heavenwards; down the street past the Almshouses he heard the happy sound of a young girl laughing. The world was full of strange new things; there was a new meaning in the song of the blackbird, in the rustle of the leaves, in the whispering of the warm wind. And suddenly there came over him a sensation of how far he himself was below the splendour of it all. He had walked through life with blinded eyes; ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... of acute despair he arrested Robert's attention. There was something odd about him—something distressful and indignant. Whilst he prayed he made jerky, irritable movements which fluttered out the wings of his gown, so that with his sleek black hair and pointed face he looked like a large angry blackbird, trapped and tied ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... stone from the roadside and aimed it at the slimy little body, but his throw erred, and the missile fell harmlessly into the wheat field beyond, startling a blackbird with scarlet marks, which soared suddenly above the bearded grain and vanished, with a tremulous cry and a flame of outstretched wings, ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... her song with a gay air of bravado; passing from one chanty to another in a voice fluty as a blackbird. Stane smiled to himself. He liked her spirit, and he knew that that would carry her through the difficulties that lay before them, even when the flesh was inclined to failure. But presently the springs of song dried up, and when the silence had lasted a little time he looked ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... London and it was an evening in early spring. There was a faint primrose glow in the sky and a blackbird was whistling at the end of the garden. The hum of the great town was as part of the ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... incessantly for days, growing ever colder and colder as it rained. The sun came out at last, but it shone in a wintry sort of way,—like a duty smile,—as if light, not heat, were its object. A keen wind blew the dead leaves hither and thither in a wild dance that had no merriment in it. A blackbird flew under an old barrel by the wayside, and, ruffling himself into a ball, remarked despondently that feathers were no sort of protection in this kind of climate. A snowbird, flying by, glanced in at the barrel, and ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... chaffinch, now and then a robin, in one place a shrike, perhaps another is a redstart. They are fly-fishing all of them, seizing insects from the sorrel tips and grass, as the kingfisher takes a roach from the water. A blackbird slips up into the oak and a dove descends in the corner by the chestnut tree. But these are not visible together, only one at a time and with intervals. The larger part of the life of the hedge is out of sight. All the thrush-fledglings, ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... flew into a tree, not recognising Evelyn and Monsignor, but the blackbirds and thrushes were tamer and ran in front, watching the visitors with round, thoughtful eyes, the beautiful shape of the blackbird showing against the white background, and everybody admiring his golden bill and legs. The sparrows flew about Sister Mary John in a little cloud, until they were driven away by three great gulls come up from the Thames, driven inland ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... nightingale has a lyre of gold, The lark's is a clarion call, And the blackbird plays but a boxwood flute, But I love him ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... on the lawn," said Teddy's mother, who was standing at the window and looking out. "And just hear that blackbird! I always feel as though spring were really here when I hear ...
— The Counterpane Fairy • Katharine Pyle
... find that my interest and profit do grow daily, for which God be praised and keep me to my duty. To my office, and anon one tells me that Rundall, the house-carpenter of Deptford, hath sent me a fine blackbird, which I went to see. He tells me he was offered 20s. for him as he came along, he do so whistle. So to my office, and busy all the morning, among other things, learning to understand the course of the tides, and I think I do now do it. At noon Mr. Creed comes to me, and he ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of the Church bell to their ears through the window, half open to admit the breezy breath of spring; the cawing of the rooks and the song of the blackbird came with it; the sky was clear and blue, the buds ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was clear, the sun bright, the air full of racy health. Oh, what soft raptures swelled the heart of the wanderer, as he gazed around him! The Poet and the Freeman alike stirred within his shattered heart! He paused to contemplate the berries of the icy trees, to listen to the sharp glee of the blackbird; and once—when he found beneath a hedge a cold, scentless group of hardy violets—he laughed aloud in his joy. In that laughter there was no madness, no danger; but when as he journeyed on, he passed through a little ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VIII • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in the woods of Thrace crept out from the green trees and thick undergrowth, and from the holes and caves in the rocks, to listen to the music that the child's fingers made. The coo of the dove to his mate, the flute-clear trill of the blackbird, the song of the lark, the liquid carol of the nightingale—all ceased when the boy made music. The winds that whispered their secrets to the trees owned him for their lord, and the proudest trees of the forest bowed their heads that ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... footing. After a little time, seeing that their distress made no impression on their assailant, the male bird flew at the cat, settled on its back, and pecked at its head with so much violence that it fell to the ground, followed by the blackbird, which at length succeeded in driving it away. Foiled in this attempt, the cat a short time after again returned to the charge, and was a second time vanquished, which so intimidated her that she relinquished all attempts to get at the young birds. For several days, whenever she made her appearance ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... and I hanker for the ways Which people read of in the psalms and preachers paraphrase— The grassy fields, the leafy woods, the banks where I can lie And listen to the music of the brook that flutters by, Or, by the pond out yonder, hear the redwing blackbird's call Where he makes believe he has a nest, but hasn't one at all; And by my side should be a friend—a trusty, genial friend, With plenteous store of tales galore and natural leaf to lend; Oh, how I pine and hanker for the gracious boon of spring— For then I'm going a-fishing with ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... the garden Hanging out the clothes, Then came a little blackbird And snapped off ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... punei andu, another variety, has the body and wings of deep crimson, with the head, and extremity of its long indented tail, white; the legs red. It lives on the worms generated in the decayed part of old trees, and is about the size of a blackbird. Of the same size is the burong sawei, a bird of a bluish black colour, with a dove-tail, from which extend two very long feathers, terminating circularly. It seems to be what is called the widow-bird, and is formidable ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... whom the kingbird seemed suspicious was a purple crow blackbird, who every day passed over. This bird and the common crow were the only ones he drove away without waiting for them to alight; and if half that is told of them be true, he had reason to ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... and adventures of Marina, Celadyne, Redmond, Fida, Philocel, Aletheia, Metanoia, and Amintas do not hold the reader from delight in descriptions of the blackbird and dove calling from the dewy branches; crystal streams lisping through banks purple with violets, rosy with eglantine, or sweet with wild thyme; thickets where the rabbits hide; sequestered nooks on which the elms and alders throw long shadows; circles ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... was hardly able to crawl about alone; but used to sit resting himself on the truff seat before our door, leaning forward his head on his staff, and finding a kind of pleasure in feeling the beams of God's own sun beaking on him. A blackbird, that he had tamed, hung above his head in a whand-cage of my father's making; and he had taken a pride in learning it to whistle two three turns of his own favourite sang, "Oure the ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... thought an opportunity offered for bringing in a well-prepared anecdote which he had about Cambaceres, and a hot blackbird and white feet, but unluckily a country gentleman would tell some history of a battle between poachers and gamekeepers, which fixed the attention of the company till the moment for the anecdote ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... have found, on examination, that it is perfectly innocuous. A neighbouring yeoman (to whom I am indebted for some good hints) killed and opened a female viper about the 27th May: he found her filled with a chain of eleven eggs, about the size of those of a blackbird; but none of them were advanced so far towards a state of maturity as to contain any rudiments of young. Though they are oviparous, yet they are viviparous also, hatching their young within their bellies, and then bringing ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... lancewood, and arrows of poplar, tipped with spikes of iron. With these we could not only split our "willow wand" at 80 yards distant, but the more skilful deemed an arrow hardly worth having until it had been baptized in the blood of blackbird or pigeon, and some of the neighbouring pigeon cotes suffered accordingly. The writer was presented with a bow made of bamboo, and arrows said to be poisoned, which a great traveller, then residing in Horncastle, had brought from ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... low wind may lift her hair, Motionless in lip and limb; E'en the fearful mouse may skim O'er the window-sill, nor stir From the crumb at sight of her; Through the lattice unheard float Summer blackbird's evening note;— E'en the sullen foe would bless ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... therefore, it was well that the boys should learn how to shoot. He insisted, however, that only one gun should be taken out at a time, to diminish the danger of accidents. After that the boys took out their guns by turns when they went to work of a morning, and many a dead blackbird soon attested to ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... The Blackbird and the Thrush, And charming Nightingale, Whose sweet jug sweetly echoes Through every grove and dale; The Sparrow and Tom Tit, And many more, were there: All came to see the wedding ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... something that has been delayed. In the garden a blackbird made a sudden cry in the hedge. I did smell spring, and ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... any more, but worked quietly and watched the shadow, feeling sure the faint song came from it. Presently she began to hum the tune she caught by snatches; and, before she knew it, she was singing away like a blackbird. Baby stopped crying, and ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... her thus, deep musing, and soon found My daughter, for I traced her by the sound Of Alfred's flageolet; no cares had they, But in the garden bower spent half the day. By starts he sung, then wildest trillings made, To mock a piping blackbird in the glade. I turn'd a corner and approach'd the pair; My little rogue had roses in her hair! She whipp'd them out, and with a downcast look, Conquer'd a laugh by poring on her book. My object was to talk with her aside, But at the sight my resolution died; They look'd so happy in their ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... round him as if to make a close inspection of his figure, then began to tease him. At first I thought it was all in fun—merely animal spirit which in birds often discharges itself in this way in little pretended attacks and fights. But the blackbird had no play and no fight in him, no heart to defend himself; all he did was to try to avoid the strokes aimed at him, and he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... unlike the accustomed carol of the bird,—as the mew of the Cat-Bird, the lamb-like bleating of the Veery and his impatient yeoick, the chaip of the Meadow-Lark, the towyee of the Chewink, the petulant psit and tsee of the Red-Winged Blackbird, and the hoarse cooing of the Bobolink. And with some of our most familiar birds the variety of notes is so great as really to promise difficulties in the American department of the bird-lexicon. I have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... I think I do,' said Elizabeth; 'and he said that he had seen Susan and the children go down the blind walk. Then I said Dora had talked of seeing a blackbird's nest there, and he answered, with a most comical look, 'Ah! ha! Miss Woodbourne, I fancy they be two-legged blackbirds as Susan is ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will bring my quotations to a close with the following, which seeks to prove the contrary. Dr. C. B. GARRETT ("The Human Voice," J. and J. Churchill, London, 1875, p. 17) says, "It is recorded that the larynx of a blackbird was removed by severing the windpipe just below it; that the poor 'thing continued to sing, though in a feebler tone.' This proves that notes can be formed behind the instrument and before the air reaches it." This argument, however, is of no value, because it ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... performers was a distant cousin, Cecilia Morland, a young woman rather tall and fully developed; not strikingly beautiful, but with a lovely reddish-brown tint on her face, indicative of healthy, warm, rich pulsations. She possessed a contralto voice, of a quality like that of a blackbird, and it fell to her and to Frank to sing. She was dressed in a fashion perhaps a little more courtly than was usual in the gatherings at Mr Palmer's house, and Frank, as he stood beside her at the piano, could not restrain his eyes from straying every now ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... therefore bore it not about, Unless on holy-days, or so, As men their best apparel do. 50 Beside, 'tis known he could speak GREEK As naturally as pigs squeek; That LATIN was no more difficile, Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle: Being rich in both, he never scanted 55 His bounty unto such as wanted; But much of either would afford To many, that had not one word. For Hebrew roots, although they're found To flourish most in barren ground, 60 He had such plenty, as suffic'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the Queen were riding Upon a Summer's day, And a Blackbird flew above them, To hear what they ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... lane, By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies. Hark, those two in the hazel coppice— A boy and a girl, if the good fates please, Making love, say,— The happier they! Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, And let them pass, as they will too soon, With the bean-flower's boon, And the blackbird's tune, And ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... bird sing except the nightingale? Must all the lesser voices cease? Lark, thrush and blackbird hold their peace? The woods wait dumb Until ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman |
