"Croak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of low Nile when all the land is baked like a crust of bread, when the creaking of the shadoofs and the singing croak of the sakkia are heard the night long like untiring crickets with throats of frogs. It was the time succeeding the khamsin, when the skin dries like slaked lime and the face is for ever powdered with dust; and the fellaheen, in the slavery of superstition, strain their eyes day and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the bank, where 't was dark and cool, Where bushes over the water hung, And grasses nodded and rushes swung— Just where the brook flowed out of the bog— There lived a gouty and mean old Frog, Who'd sit all day in the mud, and soak, And do just nothing but croak and croak. ...
— Cape Cod Ballads, and Other Verse • Joseph C. Lincoln
... croak proceeding from the other side of the wall. The skipper's cell had been changed, as Archie had hoped, and the skipper himself was doing his duty to the bitter end. The street was deserted. They acted quickly. Josiah gave Archie a leg. He threw his jacket over the broken glass and mounted the wall. ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... "It is the croak of a raven newly alighted in the tree above us," replied Richard. "The sagacious bird will ever attend the huntsman in the chase, in the hope of obtaining a morsel when they ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... learn; I did. I used to croak and fret dreadfully, and get so unhappy, I was n't fit for anything. I do it still more than I ought, but I try not to, and it gets easier, I find. Get a-top of your troubles, and then they are half cured, Miss ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... what I meant," said Sugarman with a little croak of victory, "I have told her the story before. When the Almighty Shadchan was making marriages in Heaven, before we were yet born, the name of my wife was coupled with my own. The spirit of her eldest uncle hearing this flew up to the Angel who made the proclamation ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... barn. The crow flew down from its perch, and followed us a great distance, hopping along the road, and flying, with its large, black, flapping wings, from post to post of the fence, or from tree to tree. At last he gave up the pursuit with a croak of disappointment. The driver said, perhaps correctly, that the crow had scented some salmon which was in a basket under the seat, and that this was the secret of his pursuing us. This would be a terrific incident if it were a dead body that the crow scented, instead of a basket of salmon. ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the moon shines bright, Both current and ripple are dancing in light. We have roused the night raven, I heard him croak, As we plashed along beneath the oak That flings its broad branches so far and so wide, Their shadows are dancing in midst of the tide. "Who wakens my nestlings," the raven he said, "My beak shall ere morn ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... won't croak, whatever else we do. If we are to be sent to the bottom of this bay, we will go down with the best grace possible," added Felix, who was certainly in as good humor as ever he was, in spite of the brass gun that protruded at the side of ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... another pair of dark-hued wings hove near, and Thor, the majestic raven which was Mr. Adiesen's particular pet, alighted on the bow with a croak so hoarse and solemn that Signy cried out, "Oh dear, how very eerie this is! How terribly grave Thor and Loki are! They make ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby
... individuals, form garlands of black and white along the cornices of the cupolas and around the terraces of the minarets; sea-gulls dart and play over the water; thousands of turtle-doves coo amorously among the cypresses in the cemeteries; crows croak about the Castle of the Seven Towers halcyons come and go in long files between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora; and storks sit upon the cupolas of the mausoleums. For the Turk, each one of these birds ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... muttered. His vocal chords seemed to have stiffened and dried, and his attempt to call out to reassure the animal resulted only in a hoarse croak. He devoured the meat of the little quail left in the jar and drank the few remaining drops of broth, then crawled out to look after the needs of his horse before making further search for food for ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... philosophy," the croak of ravens, the hoot of owls, anything that has the touch, the charm, and infinite suggestion of Nature and life, will be more than welcome; and in good time we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... for that old maid's croak!" she said, with a bright look; "those who are not happy in married life, would never be happy in any situation. There should be no old maids or old bachelors, Enna; we would all be happier married; we fail in fulfilling our missions when we remain single. Hunt ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... fondly among the mulberries and lotus trees. Beyond it a valley wound its way between the shallow hills, and from a pool fringed with sedges and bullrushes above which a great stork was majestically sailing came the harsh croak ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... this Donko-Tchaya, for it has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. It is well shaded, under a shelter of large trees with dense foliage, and a miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of his thoughts by a 'Couac', uttered in a deep bass croak, infinitely more hollow than that ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... from on high (As sings thy great forefather Ogilby[289]), Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog, And the hoarse nation croak'd, God ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... tide, whence stole a sweet air fraught with spicy odours; and over all a deep and brooding quietude. But little by little upon this silence crept sounds near and far, leafy rustlings, a stirring in the undergrowth, the whimper of some animal, the croak of a bird, and the faint, never-ceasing murmur ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... own mind, but I can't help thinking, when Will's ma was down here keeping house for him—SHE used to run in to SEE me, real OFTEN!—it was good enough furniture for her. But there, there, I mustn't croak, I just wanted to let you know that when you find you can't depend on a lot of these gadding young folks like the Haydocks and the Dyers—and heaven only knows how much money Juanita Haydock blows ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... a malarial pond is expected to croak and make all the protest he can against his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown and sent upon earth to be educated for the court of the King of kings! Placed in an emerald world with a hither edge of opaline shadow and a fine ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... of doors the evening brooded darker and darker over garden and lake. Moths whirred past the open doors through which the fragrance of flower and bush floated in increasingly; up from the water came the croak of the frogs, under the windows a nightingale commenced his song answered by another from within the depths of the garden; the moon appeared over ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... a storm; There he sate on a bough, with his keen glassy eye Most sagaciously blinking and watching the sky, Then he look'd to the east, and thus hoarsely he spoke, "There's a terrible storm coming up, croak! croak! croak!" ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... "Oh, land, don't croak, if you've got a chance to laugh! There's few enough chances in this world," cried Eva, with boisterous good humor. "As for me, I've come out of deep waters, and I'm goin' to take what comfort I can in the feel of the solid ground under my feet." She began to force Amabel into a dance in time ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... (Rana esculenta) "the sacs are peculiar to the males, and become, when filled with air in the act of croaking, large globular bladders, standing out one on each side of the head, near the corners of the mouth." The croak of the male is thus rendered exceedingly powerful; whilst that of the female is only a slight groaning noise. (50. Bell, ibid. pp. 112-114.) In the several genera of the family the vocal organs differ considerably in structure, and their development in ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... sweet to me—you that can play First and second at once. Then I too will essay To croak on the pipes: and yon lad shall salute Our ears with a melody breathed through his flute. In the cave by the green oak our watch we will keep, And goatish old Pan we'll defraud of ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... a smiling face and a deaf ear, as Natalie had done to the voice of the gipsy. A fig for such gloomy prophecy! They were ideally happy in the present, and the future should be equally bright, however ravens might croak. Thus, one October day in 1875, Vienna held high holiday for the nuptials of the handsome Prince and his beautiful bride; and it was through avenues densely packed with cheering onlookers that Natalie made her triumphal progress to the altar, in her ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... round earth must be a piggery copper and that London has lifted the lid off. In the midst of this inferno the cabs crawl and the 'buses creep, and foul fiends, who turn out to be men merely, go flitting about with torches, and you grope and croak and cough, and the most innocent faces come puffing and snorting down on you like the beasts ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, That lute and flute ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... shoe 'fore his right, Had like to have been slain that day By soldiers mutin'ing for pay. Are there not myriads of this sort, 705 Which stories of all times report? Is it not ominous in all countries When crows and ravens croak upon trees? The Roman senate, when within The city walls an owl was seen 710 Did cause their clergy, with lustrations, (Our Synod calls humiliations), The round-fac'd prodigy t'avert From doing town or country hurt And if an owl have so much pow'r, 715 ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... sounded again, and this time he located its source correctly. Seated on the crumbling maintop of the ship was a huge, evil-looking bird of the kind called "Gallinazos" in South America. The carrion creature eyed the newcomer with a red malevolent eye and again gave voice to its harsh croak—the sound that had so startled him at ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... breaking it. The prophets, so far from seeking popularity, are foolhardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops, and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, Woe! against the regular business of the most respectable note-shavers,[142] to croak against the march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity of their great country,[143] to ally themselves with fanatic abolitionists, and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit; crying, Woe to him that useth his neighbor's ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... sit here," he said, and taking Eve's hand, he went to a great baulk of timber lying below the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe the evening air, and hear the frogs croak, and watch the moonlight quivering upon the river; let me take all this world about us into my soul, for it seems to me that my happiness is written large over it all; I am seeing it for the first time in all its splendor, lighted up by love, grown ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... dead when I told 'em. No question about it, that address was a stall. This dame had something up her sleeve, and took care to see that your taxi man was given a long drive so she'd have plenty of time to croak Warren." ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... his mother's warnings, whenever he met Mr. Crow Frisky Squirrel would always stop and ask the old gentleman how his cold was. You see, Mr. Crow's voice was never what you would call clear. You might say that there was a decided croak in it. And very often, even on hot summer days, he would have a muffler wound about ...
— The Tale of Frisky Squirrel • Arthur Scott Bailey
... on he flew until he came to the old man's house, and so to the room where his foster-father himself was sitting. He lit upon the ground at the old man's feet and tried to tell him what had befallen, but all that he could say was "Croak! croak!" ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... outside I kenn'd that the inn was forsaken, That nae tread o' footsteps was heard on the floor; Oh, loud craw'd the cock whare was nane to awaken, And the wild raven croak'd on ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pieces. I persevered therefore, stopping every now and then to amuse myself by looking up at the star-lighted sky and trying to make out the various constellations, conspicuous among which was the brilliant cross of the southern hemisphere. Except the occasional croak of a frog, the cry of a night bird, or the chirp of a cricket, not a sound had reached my ears; when suddenly, as I was watching the moon rising above the rocks on one side of the camp, the most unearthly shrieks and yells rent the air. Guy, awakening, started ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston
... which the lieutenant, but that he was busy, would have slain the gunner for refusing orders in action. Afterwards he wanted him shot by court-martial. But every one was voiceless by then, and could only mouth and croak at each other, till somebody laughed, and the pedantic ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... be as they are represented here (this being a faithful record of what I have been credibly told), in the further hope that the men who have tampered with the honor of Dennie McCafferty and his friend, The Croak, will ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... "Croak"; And they all tumbled down; Bumpety, bumpety, bump! The mare broke her knees, And the farmer his ...
— Pinafore Palace • Various
... with fence of proof. Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife; Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak. But when grasshopper feels the vulture's talons, Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last, Prevail the mules, butts his swift ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... yourself,—it is yours by rights. And, look you, mum's the word in this case, for two reasons: there's danger that the poor little fellow there is going to croak before long, and you'd be sorry to think you'd given trouble to a dead man; and what's more, if the boys get hold of this, there'll be no end of their chaffing. There's not a few of them would like to cook your goose for you,—I ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... and a yellow light hung over the green slopes, the grey walls and the dark tree tops. An echelon of geese passed high overhead in the region of the pale moon. Within the mysterious enclave of the "Son of Heaven" the crows were uttering their harsh sarcastic croak. ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... sonorous, bell-like booming can be heard coming up from the marshes, and when they are unseen, the song of the bull-frogs would suggest creatures full of solemn dignity. The croak of their lesser brethren is less impressive, yet there is no escape from it on those evenings when the dragon-flies' iridescent wings are folded in sleep, and the birds in the branches are still, when the lilies on the pond have closed their golden ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... "Don't croak, J. Elfreda Briggs," admonished Grace lightly, "I don't imagine that everything will be plain sailing this year. That would be asking too much. Still I hope I shall not have any serious misunderstandings with my girls. I'm going to remember ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... then, the fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... sake, Professor, come at once. Two of us were killed. Come—" The voice ended in a croak and there was ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... him with his endless illusions. He was in the vortex of a vast whirlpool, not of water or of wind, but of life. Alas! he seemed indeed the very current of that whirlpool, a monstrous force, around which evil circled and lurked and conquered. Wade—who had the ill-omened croak of the raven—Wade—who bent ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... Martha had come with her early morning croak to call Miss Juliana; she had dumped down the hot-water can in the basin with a clash, pulled up the blind with a jerk, and drawn back the curtains with a clatter, before she noticed that Miss Juliana was up all the time. Up and dressed, and sitting in her chair by the ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... whether it was Soane or Callan who was poor old Grogram's "quite irresponsible person," when I caught the sound of Gurnard's name. I turned irritably away. I didn't want to hear that fool read out the words of that.... It was like the warning croak of a raven in ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... anybody else to get pummelled to powder; I'll find it out for myself, I say. Won't my old aunt be in a way though, when she sees the surplice, and finds she has another to make! I say, Hurst, didn't you croak out that solo! Their lordships in the wigs will be soliciting your ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... colony of French possess the Court, Pimps, priests, buffoons, i' the privy-chamber sport. Such slimy monsters ne'er approached the throne Since Pharaoh's reign, nor so defiled a crown. I' the sacred ear tyrannic arts they croak, Pervert his mind, his good intentions choke; Tell him of golden Indies, fairy lands, Leviathan, and absolute commands. Thus, fairy-like, the King they steal away, And in his room a Lewis changeling lay. How oft have ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... allow her victim to pine in wonder why he felt so incomplete. With ointments compounded of dead men's flesh she could transform a lover into a beaver, or an innkeeper into a frog swimming in his own vat of wine and with doleful croak inviting his former customers to drink; or herself, with the aid of a little shaking, she could convert into a feathered owl uttering a queasy note as it flitted out of the window. Indeed, the whole of nature was uncertain, especially if disaster ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... king's sharp sword lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight: Our ravens croak to have their fill, The wolf howls from the distant hill. Our brave king is to Russia gone,— Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many feast To wolf and raven in ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... geraniums, where the great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and purring, insists on caresses; in the large clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, and strut about Kitty's feet. It was Kitty; yes, it was Kitty everywhere; even the blackbird darting through the laurels seemed ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... your mouth And don't grumble nor croak; Go put your poor head And your poor heart in soak; Lay all of your sorrows And sins on the shelf, For the world is all right If ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... we are told that a 'procession of nuns, dressed in white, sing a lay at midnight. In the intervals, a chorus of frogs in the neighboring swamp croak the refrain in unison. Sax, the great brass-founder, who made the Last Trumpets for the 'Wandering Jew,' and the instruments for the Band of the Guides, is engaged upon the frogpipes required. The illusion ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... native woodnotes as any signor or signora for an Italian air; that the boars of Westphalia gruntle as expressively through the nose as the inhabitants in High German; and that the frogs in the dykes of Holland croak as intelligibly as the natives jabber their Low Dutch. However this may be, we may consider those whose tongues hardly seem to be under the influence of reason, and do not keep up the proper conversation of human creatures, as imitating the language of different animals. Thus, for ...
— Talks on Talking • Grenville Kleiser
... nor did she allude to her former opinion when Eleanor called her late friend Charlotte a base, designing woman. She re-echoed all the abuse that was heaped on Mr. Slope's head and never hinted that she had said as much before. "I told you so, I told you so!" is the croak of a true Job's comforter. But Mary, when she found her friend lying in her sorrow and scraping herself with potsherds, forbore to argue and to exult. Eleanor acknowledged the merit of the forbearance, and at length ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... will acquire a fresh and more genuine significance, which, however, will not in any way inconvenience those who have never let go of the older significance. No tradition will be overthrown, no shock administered, and nobody will be able to croak about iconoclasm and new-fangled notions and the sudden end of the world, ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... keys and making a pleasant accompaniment to the simple songs they sang. Meg had a voice like a flute, and she and her mother led the little choir. Amy chirped like a cricket, and Jo wandered through the airs at her own sweet will, always coming out at the wrong place with a croak or a quaver that spoiled the most pensive tune. They had always done this from the ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... mother. "I will teach you to fly, and when you have learnt, we will fly into the meadows, and pay a visit to the frogs, who will bow themselves to us in the water, and cry 'Croak, croak,' and then we shall eat them ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... charming host, by my incessant questions about the names of the trees and shrubs, and of the habits and ways of the thousands of birds. It was all so new and so delightful to me,—the green gloom, the hoarse croak of the ka-ka, as it alighted almost at our feet and prepared, quite careless of our vicinity, to tear up the loose soil at the root of a tall tree, in search of grubs. It is a species of parrot, but with very dingy reddish-brown plumage, only slightly enlivened ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... He is of nature cold, his mouth is wide To prate, and at true goodness to deride. He mounts his head as if he was above The world, when yet 'tis that which has his love. And though he seeks in churches for to croak, He neither loveth ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... they lay scratched and panting, there was a darkening of the air, the soft whishing of wings, and the raven dropped on the big pinnacle close at hand, to utter its hoarse, barking croak as it gazed wickedly at them with first one and ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... English. Every man about his king Fought like a king; the king like his own man, No better; one for all, and all for one, One soul! and therefore have we shatter'd back The hugest wave from Norseland ever yet Surged on us, and our battle-axes broken The Raven's wing, and dumb'd his carrion croak From the gray sea for ever. Many are gone— Drink to the dead who died for us, the living Who fought and would have died, but happier lived, If happier be to live; they both have life In the large mouth of England, till her voice Die ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... some fine night, In a friendly throng, From the swampy places where They have slept so long Hop the frogs, and all Loudly croak together, Then there will be, we are sure, ...
— Harper's Young People, March 23, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... the water. She would have flung herself full length upon the edge, but the man stepped forward and stayed her, then placed a tin cup in her hand. She mumbled something in answer to his greeting and the hoarse, raven-like croak in her voice startled her; then she drank, with trembling eagerness, drenching the front of her dress. The water was warm, but ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... more reasons than one; if there is a bad reason, Elder Semple will be sure to croak about it. I could wish that just now ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... what it means as well as you do," said Lise, sullenly. "We've all got to croak sometime, and I'd rather croak this way than be smothered up in Hampton. I'll get a run for ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... know his ugly croak, the parleyvooin' scoundrel! That thee have, Will'm! Let's hope we are both mistaken: for if we're to come across them ruffins on the big raft, we needn't expect mercy at their hands. By this time they'll be all as hungry as the sharks and ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... tinge upon the shell washed in the surf, and planted a paradise of bloom in a child's cheek, let us leave it to the owl to hoot, and the frog to croak, and the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... sat down abruptly in one of the veranda chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly did it croak a protest and a warning that ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... raven's croak, the low wind choked and drear, The baffled stream, the grey wolf's doleful cry, Were all the sounds that mariner could hear, As through the wood he wandered painfully; But as unto the house he drew anigh, The pillars ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... heave you out of here in a minute. Listen, popper, mommer's done the best she could. It ain't easy to nurse a dying child who is liable to croak at any moment. But she's done that, popper, she's often went without her dill pickle so I could have my spavin cure. She thought I might get well and strong and maybe get a job as a safe mover. But I've been so busy dying I couldn't go to work. (Shakes fist at ALGERNON.) Don't believe that man, popper; ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... returned to the creek, in order to find another water-hole with water; but did not succeed, and had to encamp without it. During the night we heard the noise of a frog, "brrr, brrr;" probably a new species, for we had never heard that croak before. It seemed, however, to frighten Brown, who, like all blackfellows, is very timid after night-fall. Yesterday we met with a new leguminous shrub. It belongs to the section Cassia, and has a long pinnate leaf, the leaflets an inch long, and half ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... As he ceased, a curiously wild, mournful strain struck his ear, ascending from below him on the west, and forming a strange contrast to the merry notes he had been singing. It was like the noonday song of the joyous lark, as he soars into the blue sky, answered by the midnight croak of the raven as he sits on the old abbey's ivy-covered wall. He listened. It seemed rather like a continued shriek than a song, or the fearful cry of the fabled Banshee as she flits by the family mansion in Ireland, to warn the inmates, as is ignorantly supposed, that one of their number must ...
— Mountain Moggy - The Stoning of the Witch • William H. G. Kingston
... had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... caused frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. Moses, whose life had been preserved by the water, was kept from poisoning his savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of the Egyptian nobles afforded no protection ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... go on," said the page, "for you will be presently interrupted; the two good dames have been soaring yonder on the balcony, like two old hooded crows, and their croak grows hoarser as night comes on; they will wing to roost presently.—This mistress of yours, fair gentlewoman, who was ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... down below us, all with their bells tinkling, made a fine picture of a peaceful evening scene. As we sat and smoked beside a towering pinnacle of volcanic rock a raven went sailing past us, with his croak, croak. I remember Professor McGillivray, in his "Natural History of Deeside," describes what was perhaps a not altogether dissimilar scene among the Cairngorms, and addressing a raven on a rock beside him calls ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... brooklime in the clear pool below the spring, moorhens occasionally awakening the echoes by running down a weird chromatic scale or calling with their loud and mellow note to their friends and relations over at the brook; here, too, the softer croak of the mallard and the wild duck is also heard. A hawk, chasing some smaller bird, is darting and hovering over the tops of the firs, but, catching a glimpse of me, disappears from sight. Presently ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... immensely active and alert on the one side, almost morbidly lethargic so far as the stooping figure in front of the looking-glass was concerned. At last the last haunting question came in a kind of croak, as if only by a supreme effort could it be compelled to ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping hags; and the "Thou shalt be King" could be quite as mournfully hurled at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of Armuyr. The croak ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... lake the wild swan flaps her wing. Out in the lignum swamps once more frogs croak and crickets sing. Once more the wild fowl, sporting midst the crab-holes, may be seen, For prosperity is hovering o’er the plains ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... merit for all my kingdom." Then the old woman got very angry and cursed the queen, saying, "You will become half a frog and half a human being, and you will stand outside your co-wife's bath-room and croak like a frog." But the queen did not mind her the least little bit, and she laughed so loud at the old woman that the noise was like two chains rattling together. Mahalaxmi went off in a great rage and entered Queen Chimadevrani's part of the palace. There she saw all the accessories of worship ready, ...
— Deccan Nursery Tales - or, Fairy Tales from the South • Charles Augustus Kincaid
... me to croak as the "laudator temporis acti." Past, present, and future—all are divine—all are parts of a celestial scheme—none to be scorned, all to be loved and improved. But the past is under the sod; the future is behind the clouds; the present alone has its foot upon the green ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the cool morning, with the hoe fresh in her hand, she thought of fatigue as something very far away. Stan was always a little inclined to croak. The thing ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill. They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes, And they stunned his ears with the scallop stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh! but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree; —Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblin's spite, For he saw around in the ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... Vigour, he gave her 10000l. and his Blessing, which was a double Portion, on their Wedding-Day, which he celebrated with all the Cost and Mirth that his Estate and Sorrow would permit: Sorrow for the Loss of his Son, I mean, which still hung upon him, and still hover'd and croak'd over and about him, as Ravens, and other Birds of Prey, about Camps and dying People. His Melancholy, in few Months, increas'd to that Degree, that all Company and Conversation was odious to him, but that of Bats, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... doubled till she seemed a crone, old and withered and jocose; a sneering laugh came from her drawn lips; her hands, trembling together, hookedly reached towards Kate; the eyes were sunk lidless and gleaming with malice; a voice that was like the croak of a raven sounded forth: "You got my money, Kit—but you didn't get it all." And from the young, distorted lips a disgusting laugh issued, a laugh that froze Kate's blood and stiffened her tongue so that she could not cry out. She gasped and sank back into her chair, while ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... therefore, believed that they would not venture to follow them. My companions' plans were soon formed. It was arranged that the whole party should creep forward as we had done, and that each man should single out one of the enemy according to his position, and that at a signal from Sigenok, the low croak of a frog, all should fire at the same moment. With the sound of the first shot the men with the horses were to come galloping on, as if a fresh party were approaching the scene of conflict. As, undoubtedly, all the Sioux would not be killed, some might, otherwise, attempt to rush on ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... bonny thing As ever wakened in the Spring, And blythe she to herself could sing At milking o' the kye. She loved to hear the old crows croak Upon the ash tree and the oak, And noisy pies that almost spoke At milking o' ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... was soon able to distinguish general characteristics. Von Brning's voice—the only one I had ever heard before—I recognized at once: he was on the left of the table, and Dollmann's I knew from his position. The third was a harsh croak, belonging to the old gentleman whom, for convenience, I shall prematurely begin to call Herr Bhme. It was too old a voice to be Grimm's; besides, it had the ring of authority, and was dealing at the moment in sharp interrogations. Three of its sentences I caught in their entirety. 'When ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... began. But she was so nervous that she felt as though her throat had suddenly closed up, and only a faint, quavering note issued from her lips, breaking off abruptly in a hoarse croak. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... And now I'll change my note. Vain, foolish, cheated Glow, Lend your attention now, A truth or two I'll tell you! For, since I've fill'd my belly, Of course my flattry's done: Think you I took such pains, And spoke so well only to hear you croak? No, 'twas the luscious bait, And a keen appetite to eat, That first inspir'd, and carried on the cheat 'Twas hunger furnish'd hands and matter, Flatterers must live by those they flatter; But weep not, Crow, a tongue like mine Might turn an abler head ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... fainter, the drone of bees had gone, even the midges seemed to have forgotten their calling. No place on earth can be so deathly still as a deer-forest early in the season before the stags have begun roaring, for there are no sheep with their homely noises, and only the rare croak of a raven breaks the silence. The hillside was far from sheer-one could have walked down with a little care-but something in the shape of the hollow and the remote gleam of white water gave it an extraordinary depth and space. There was a shimmer left from the day's heat, which invested bracken ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... in the U.S.A., And first the Indians, the red sort, owned it, But later to Uncle Sam they loaned it, Who afterwards made no bones, but boned it In the fine Autolycus way; And though life wasn't a matter vital He kept with the lake its rasping title, Which recalls the croak of an amorous frog Or a siren heard in an ocean ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... of the hut was so dark that at first they could see nothing at all; but presently they heard a feeble croak from one corner. But sisters turned to look, and there, tied by wings and feet, and their eyes sunken, were the husbands that they sought. Quick as lightning the wives cut the deer-thongs which bound them; but the poor birds were too weak from pain and starvation to do more ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... full size and of first-rate importance, in less than four years, besides a good deal of other miscellaneous work—certainly that was "good going." The pace was decidedly fast. Small wonder that The Quarterly Review, even so early as October, 1837, was tempted to croak about "Mr. Dickens" as writing "too often and too fast, and putting forth in their crude, unfinished, undigested state, thoughts, feelings, observations, and plans which it required time and study to mature," ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... little affair. It gave me something to think of besides my own scrapes. So don't you go to work and destroy the good effect that you've produced. For that matter, I won't let you. I'm off, old chap. It's fifteen minutes to three. You'd better seek your balmy couch. No—don't stop me. You'll croak me into ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... The Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou wert catechizing, Tuning their voices, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... line Richard Yorke had read, perhaps, but certainly had not understood. He heard the bare branch creak and sway above his head as the wind slowly took it; he heard the night-jar croak, as it flew by on silent wing; and now and then he heard, or thought he heard, the sound of the voices of his fellow-watchers a great way off, which was his only touch of fancy. They were all silent, and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... "Don't croak," said Captain Dinks, who seemed to have quite recovered his spirits as the others around him became despondent. "Look, the snowstorm has ceased already and the sea-fog is rising and drifting away. Why, we'll have a fine bright ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... with never a thought or a look for the men in field-grey, moving, many of them for the last time, through the streets of the capital. The old man who angered the war-mad throng before the Schloss on August 1st, 1914, with his discordant croak of "War is a serious business, young man," lives in the spirit of to-day. And he did not have ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... pealing, The hum from the bushes Slieve Cua below, The voice of the gull o'er the breakers wheeling, The vulture's scream, over the sea flying slow; The mariners' song from the distant haven, The strain from the hill of the pack so free, From Cnuic Nan Gall the croak of the raven, The voice from Slieve Mis of the streamlets three; Young Oscar's voice, to the chase proceeding, The howl of the dogs, of the deer in quest; But to recline where the cattle were feeding That was the delight which pleas'd him best. Delighted was Oscar, ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... man,—"lanky," as she has herself expressed him,—with thick brown hair, closely cropped. He has handsome dark eyes, with a rather mocking expression in them, and has a trick of shutting them slightly if puzzled or annoyed. His voice is extremely charming, though it has a distinct croak (that can hardly be called husky or hoarse) that is rather fascinating. His short upper lip is covered by a heavy brown moustache that hides a laughing mouth. He is aristocratic and good-looking, without being able to lay claim ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... Aoife'll know and all her people know To have been my gifts. Mananan son of the sea Gave me this heavy purple cloak. Nine Queens Of the Land-under-Wave had woven it Out of the fleeces of the sea. O! tell her I was afraid, or tell her what you will. No! tell her that I heard a raven croak On the north side of the house ...
— In The Seven Woods - Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish Heroic Age • William Butler (W.B.) Yeats
... the dance were just ended, when in rushed Guiomar in wild affright, gesticulating as if she was in a fit, and in a voice between a croak and a whisper, she stammered out, "Master wake, senora; senora, master wake: him getting up, and coming." Whoever has seen a flock of pigeons feeding tranquilly in the field, and has marked the fear ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... be, boys,' says he, in a fainty kind of a voice. 'He only done what he ought.' And he goes off in a sort of a croak, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (3/4 acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed all in ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... not one note of complaint in her words. It was plain that this person, in the course of her reflections on life, was regarding her own case, and had arrived at the conviction that in order to preserve herself from the mockeries of life, she was not in a position to do anything else but simply "croak"—to use her ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... of domesticity. The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in comforting the condemned. Had it only been his fate to die on the gallows, how unctuous had been his croak! ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... our caravan the red antelope bounded away to our right and the left, and frogs hushed their croak. The sun shone hot, and while traversing the valley we experienced a little of its real African fervour. About half way across we came to a sluice of stagnant water which, directly in the road of the caravan, had settled down into an oozy pond. The pagazis crossed a ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... head up, and worked as if he meant to kill himself. The second week he spent his nights forming desperate plans. The young men followed him as they always did, and they held their meeting down the rigole, clustered together on the bank. They could hear the frogs croak in the marais; it was dry, and the water was getting low. Gabriel used to say he never heard a frog croak afterwards without a sinking of the heart. It was the voice of misery. But Gabriel had strong ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... this kind. In the inside of the box under the dog is a little cogged wheel, which, when the handle is turned, rubs against pieces of metal and produces the musical sounds. The bird's song, or rather, croak, is caused by air rushing through a sort of parchment tissue when the floor of the cage is compressed. The train, carman, cart, and trailer are made almost entirely by means of moulds, though some parts have to be fitted together by hand. First of all, a model ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... beak and talons and Maheegun gave up her grip on Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that drove ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... cottons, it is true, are not all for the home market. They do not distinctly prove, what is my present point, our own wealth by our own expense. I admit it: we export them in great and growing quantities: and they who croak themselves hoarse about the decay of our trade may put as much of this account as they choose to the creditor side of money received from other countries in payment for British skill and labor. They may settle the items to their own liking, where all goes to demonstrate our riches. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... have clean forgot us and gone back to the ship alone," moaned the old woman, rubbing her sleepy eyes and beginning at once to croak misfortune, after ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... sitting up. "If I were a bird, riding in yon nest would be easier." The last of his sentence ended in a hoarse croak. Sir Hokus vanished, and a great raven flopped down in the center ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... moment his eyes wandered to the Colonel's face. The laughter stopped with a dry croak. He saw that his old master and friend was serious, and reaching for one of the ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... skin,—for the fur is worth a trifle,—I was strolling along the shore, when upon coming under a drooping cedar, some six or seven rods from the scene of the fight, another large heron sprang out of a clump of brambles, and stalked off with a croak of distrust. It at once occurred to me that there might be a nest here; and opening the brambles, lo, there it was, a broad, clumsy structure of coarse sticks, some two or three feet from the ground, ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... I'm glad you came down this morning. I've been carrying a lot of those ideas around in my head until they had become nightmarish. But I'm through now. You won't hear me croak again. I staked what I had on you, months ago; I'd do it again this minute. What's the odds, after all, who it is that's playing us to lose. It's only the fact that somebody may be fighting us that needs to occupy our attention. I'm done worrying, do you hear? ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... lived in the apple-tree beneath his window, (the tree of the inquisitive turn of mind), this Black-bird fellow, opening a drowsy eye, must needs give vent to a croak, very hoarse and feeble; then, (apparently having yawned prodigiously and stretched himself, wing, and leg), he tried a couple of notes,—in a hesitating, tentative sort of fashion, shook himself,—repeated the two ...
— The Money Moon - A Romance • Jeffery Farnol
... one of them mischievous bantams, ma'am," said the cook, a countrywoman who had made a study of cocks and hens. "They always give that sort of catchy croak at the end of their crows. But, to be sure, what a fright it's gave us all! And where ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... I never larf, and I never smile, And I never lark nor play; But I sit and croak, and a single joke ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... merry croak From river, pond, and stream; O, now I know that Spring has come, And ...
— The Tiny Picture Book. • Anonymous
... 'Cream,' he said mournfully, 'doesna agree wi' me. The last time I had cream—ma aunt had got it in for her cat that had the staggers—I lay in agony for three days an' three nichts an' several 'oors into the bargain. Ma aunt feared I was gaun to croak ma last.' ...
— Wee Macgreegor Enlists • J. J. Bell
... objection; and he sings his song, in spite of them all, to the very end. "From the dark thorn-hedge rustles forth the owl, and by his hooting rouses the hoarse choir of the ravens; in night-black swarm they gather, and croak aloud with their hollow voices, magpies, crows, and daws! But thereupon soars upward on a pair of golden wings, wonderful, a Bird: his clearly-shining plumage gleams bright aloft in the air, rapturously he soars hither and thither, inviting me to join him in flight. My heart expands ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... been de remise, was two sous more, and as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a pourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first "Vous n'etes pas Francais!" and then "Vous etes Prussien!" No sooner had he said it than all the ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... spoke:— 'Ha! how do you do, Sir Raven? Well, your coat, sir, is a brave one! So black and glossy, on my word, sir, With voice to match, you were a bird, sir, Well fit to be the Phoenix of these days.' Sir Raven, overset with praise, Must show how musical his croak. Down fell the luncheon from the oak; Which snatching up, Sir Fox thus spoke:— 'The flatterer, my good sir, Aye liveth on his listener; Which lesson, if you please, Is doubtless worth the cheese.' A bit too late, Sir Raven swore The rogue should ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... in the woods! Silence! Deep silence! Save for the chortle of the night-jar, the tap of the snipe's beak against the tree-trunks, the snores of a weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. The crescent moon stole silently above the horizon. Wonderful, significant is that silent, stealthy approach of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... If I hung on in Sydney it meant a quick finish. They packed me on board in another ambulance. And that's all I saw of Australia for my holiday. I don't want to stay in the Solomons. It's plain hell. But I got to, or croak." ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London
... without any reference to the meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; and wherever it occurs, ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ceased to croak, for one of our men, standing on the edge of the pond, was throwing pellets of mud at them. All at once he dropped like some inanimate object and lay on his side. At the same time a motor-ambulance came rushing up and stopped at the cross-roads. Two soldiers issued from ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... especially when their melodies are mingled with the discordant cries of herons, and bitterns, and cranes, and the ceaseless buzz and hum of insects, like the bagpipe's drone, and the dismal croaking of boat-bills and frogs,—one kind of which latter, by the way, doesn't croak at all, but whistles, ay, better than many a bird! The universal hubbub is tremendous! I tell you, reader, that you don't understand it, and you can't understand it; and if, after I had used the utmost excess of exaggerated language ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... is!" Kelson whispered—and whilst he was speaking there came a dismal croak, croak, and the swaying and ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... have said that never had been found the arm of a champion who could wound a hero's flesh like the arm of Ferdia; he whose colour matched the tints of the clouds: none who like thee could excite the croak of the bloody-mouthed vulture, as she calls her friends to the feast of the many-coloured flocks; none who shall fight for Croghan or be the equal of thee to the end of life and time, O thou ruddy-cheeked ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Again he smiled slightly and wearily. "And I can't say I care a damn. I feel like those fellows over in Russia, the revolutionist chaps I met, who didn't know if they'd croak in a month and didn't care one way or the other. But as a matter of fact," he added, "I think this time it's mainly bluff. They wanted to get us away from the crowd and keep us away while they broke the strike. Now that it's over you'll probably find they'll let us all ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... complacent she looks! And yet she has dust as much sympathy for Benson as for Cupid. She would smile on if both were being birched. Was that a raven or Benson? He howls no more. It sounds guttural: frog-like —something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven's croak. The fellow'll be killing him. It's time to go to the rescue. A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he forestalled catastrophe.—Ho, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl in ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... see the joke, Forgot that his voice was just a croak. He opened his beak, in his foolish pride— And down fell the ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... of spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony, wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet sent ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland |
