"Swart" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man of thews and goodly frame Made swart in battle. Under Indian suns Our foes had often there been taught to know That weight of arm, resistless when he closed Charging upon them with his sword and eye. But when his father died, he left the East For England; here to rule his own estate, And reign among the county gentlemen, Who duly came ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... So spindle-shanked, so wry-faced, so infirm, Who looks at me, and smiles not on himself. And I have friends to pity me—great Heaven! One has a favourite leg that he bewails,— Another sees my hip with doleful plaints,— A third is sorry o'er my huge swart arms,— A fourth aspires to mount my very hump, And thence harangue his weeping brotherhood! Pah! it is nauseous! Must I further bear The sidelong shuddering glances of a wife? The degradation of a showy love, That over-acts, and proves the mummer's craft Untouched by nature? And a fair ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... the rescue, for God's dear Son; And soon, for thy Raymond, the conqu'ror's meed,— By the skill of this arm, and the strength of my steed,— From the Paynim swart shall be nobly won. ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... accursed fields, they forbid us to approach the country beyond. A scowling horde of ghosts draws near, and scurries furiously through the wind, bellowing drearily to the stars. Fauns join Satyrs, and the throng of Pans mingles with the Spectres and battles with fierce visage. The Swart ones meet the Woodland Spirits, and the pestilent phantoms strive to share the path with the Witches. Furies poise themselves on the leap, and on them huddle the Phantoms, whom Foreboder (Fantua) joined to the Flatnoses (Satyrs), jostles. The path that ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the play began, but in the hurry of dressing had forgotten all about it; and upon inspecting my visage in a glass, after I had donned Lady Macbeth's night-gear, the lower part of it appeared so swart in contrast with the white dress, that I found it would be absolutely necessary to pass a razor over it before ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... thirty-nine and forty years of age, of medium height but a very well proportioned figure; with an intellectual and animated physiognomy; his beard black, and his hair turning gray, as often happens when people have found life either too gay or too sad, more especially when they happen to be of swart complexion. ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... sweet a dream, he began fancying to himself which of all those gay maidens she might be who had become in one moment more dear, more great to him, than all things else in heaven or earth. That fair-haired, rounded Italian? That fierce, luscious, aquiline-faced Jewess? That delicate, swart, sidelong-eyed Copt? No. She was Athenian, like himself. That tall, lazy Greek girl, then, from beneath whose sleepy lids flashed, once an hour, sudden lightnings, revealing depths of thought and feeling uncultivated, perhaps even unsuspected, by their possessor. ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... his pipe than De Leviston rose, shoving back his chair noisily. A cold, sneering contempt marked his swart face. ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... -black &c. adj. blacken, infuscate[obs3], denigrate; blot, blotch; smutch[obs3]; smirch; darken &c. 421. black, sable, swarthy, somber, dark, inky, ebony, ebon, atramentous[obs3], jetty; coal-black, jet-black; fuliginous[obs3], pitchy, sooty, swart, dusky, dingy, murky, Ethiopic; low-toned, low in tone; of the deepest dye. black as jet &c. n., black as my hat, black as a shoe, black as a tinker's pot, black as November, black as thunder, black as midnight; nocturnal &c. (dark) 421; nigrescent[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... When, in 1556, in Christ Church Hall, Palamon and Arcite was finished, outspoken Queen Bess, with her frank eyes full of pleasure, declared "that Palamon must have been in love indeed. Arcite was a right martial knight, having a swart and manly countenance, yet like a Venus clad in armour." To the son of the dean of Christ Church, the boy of fourteen, who played Emilie in the dress of a princess, her compliment was still higher. It was a present of eight guineas,—for the penurious sovereign, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... and he was breaking them delightedly. Not only was the hair upon his head at least twice as long as that of the average year-old child of today, but there were downy indications upon his arms and legs, and his general aspect was a swart and rugged one. He was about as far from a weakly child in appearance as could be well imagined and he was about as jolly a looking baby, too, as one could wish to see. He was laughing and cooing ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... tall, strong, clever Irishman of fifty, swart and black-mustached, a man of untiring business energy, well known in the world, which he understood very thoroughly, and played upon with the half-cynical competence of his race. Yet was he without a touch of the charlatan: he made no mysteries, ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... rest, both bound in the same direction: dock laborers going to their day's work. Men of every nationality known to the world (he thought) passed him in his short five-minute wait by the horse's head; Britons, brown East Indians, blacks from Jamaica, swart Italians, Polaks, Russian Jews, wire-drawn Yankees, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, even a Nubian or two: uniform in these things only, that their backs were bent with toil, bowed beyond mending, and their faces stamped with the blurred type-stamp of the dumb laboring brute. A strangely ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... horribly Charybdis's black throat drew into her all the whirling deep, which she disgorged again, that all about her boiled like a kettle, and the rock roared with troubled waters; which when she supped in again, all the bottom turned up, and disclosed far under shore the swart sands naked, whose whole stern sight frayed the startled blood from their faces, and made Ulysses turn his to view the wonder of whirlpools. Which when Scylla saw, from out her black den, she darted out her six long necks, and swoopt up as many of ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... was at the time when I received the details of this story from his lips a stalwart man of thirty-eight, swart of hue, of pleasing address, and altogether the last person one would take for a convict serving a term for sneak-thieving. The only outer symptoms of his actual condition were the striped suit he wore, ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... two hours, three hours, four hours—and still the wild night went on, and still the Fledgling held to her work. Crampton, the chief engineer, struggled up from the engine-room at nine o'clock, his swart ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... or the humble accommodation for foot-passengers, admitted into a narrow and short passage running between two rows of lime-trees, whose green foliage during the spring contrasted strangely with the swart complexion of the two walls by the side of which they grew. This access led to the front of the house, which was formed by two gable ends, notched, and having their windows adorned with heavy architectural ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent his lean frame over the counter and, despite his swart coloring, seemed to glitter upon her—his eyes, his teeth, his ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... beckoned instantly to him from the far side of the room. The beauty of the family had descended upon Sally alone. Jerry was a swart-skinned, squat, bow-legged, efficient cowpuncher. He now ambled ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... his wife and children to the citadel of Saegor. When the sun rose, [when] the peaceful luminary of the nations went forth, then, I have heard, the Master of Glory sent 2540 sulphur out of heaven, and swart flame for the punish- ment of men, swelling fire, since they had offended the Lord for a long period in former days: thus the Ruler of spirits gave them retribution. Utmost terror seized upon 2545 the heathen race: tumult arose in the ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... by what he called a smile, but any illuminated sign of milder or warmer feelings struck me as wholly new in his visage. It changed it as from a mask to a face: the deep lines left his features; the very complexion seemed clearer and fresher; that swart, sallow, southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood, became displaced by a lighter hue. I know not that I have ever seen in any other human face an equal metamorphosis from a similar cause. He now took me to the carriage: at the same moment M. de ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... had warped in the drying was unbeautiful in body and swart to look upon, as though blackened by the forge-fires of Hephaistos, but he dealt uprightly and hated evil, and on his lips there was no ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... offspring save one simple girl. See, glorious youth, who dost renew the days Of David and of Samuel, early graced With God's anointing oil, how Israel Delights to honor who hath honored him." Then Raschi, though he felt a ball of fire Globe itself in his throat, maintained his calm, His cheek's opaque, swart pallor while he kissed Silent the Rabbi's withered hand, and bowed Divinely humble, his exalted head Craving the benison. For each who asked He had the word of counsel, comfort, help; For all, rich eloquence of thanks. ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... beaten flat by the gale, But more as the smoke to behold, A chariot burst. Then a wail Quivered high of the love that would fold Bliss immeasurable, bigger than heart, Though a God's: and the wheels were stayed, And the team of the chariot swart Reared in marble, the six, dismayed, Like hoofs that by night plashing sea Curve and ramp from the vast swan-wave: For, lo, the Great Mother, She! And Callistes gazed, he gave His eyeballs up to the sight: The ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you fought, And afar from the battles lingered. And again in "Raven Days" and "Tyranny": — Oh, Raven days, dark Raven days of sorrow, Will ever any warm light come again? Will ever the lit mountains of To-morrow Begin to gleam athwart the mournful plain? Young Trade is dead, And swart Work sullen sits in the hillside fern And folds his arms that find no bread to ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... loud and fearful shriek was there, As though a thousand souls one death-groan pour'd! Ah me! they saw beneath a Hireling's sword Their KOSKIUSKO fall! Through the swart air (As pauses the tir'd Cossac's barbarous yell 5 Of Triumph) on the chill and midnight gale Rises with frantic burst or sadder swell The dirge of murder'd Hope! while Freedom pale Bends in such anguish o'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... by these he judges,—right or wrong. But of the individual at the bar, of the world—the tremendous world—within that individual heart, I repeat, he knows nothing. Did he know, law and circumstances might vanish, human justice would be paralyzed. Ho, there! place that swart-visaged, ill-looking foreigner in the dock, and let counsel open the case; hear the witnesses depose! Oh, horrible wretch! a murderer! unmanly murderer!—a defenceless woman smothered by caitiff hands! Hang him up! hang him up! 'Softly,' whispers the POET, and lifts the veil from the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fierce dog-star, that lays bare the fields, Shifting from brake to brake, the lizard seems A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road, So toward th' entrails of the other two Approaching seem'd, an adder all on fire, As the dark pepper-grain, livid and swart. In that part, whence our life is nourish'd first, One he transpierc'd; then down before him fell Stretch'd out. The pierced spirit look'd on him But spake not; yea stood motionless and yawn'd, As if by sleep or fev'rous fit assail'd. He ey'd ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... do?" said Yourii, speaking in a low voice that yet was not low enough. He was not sure if he ought to shake hands in a church. Several members of the congregation looked round, and their swart, parchment-like faces made him feel more uncomfortable. He actually blushed, but Sina, seeing his confusion, smiled at him, as a mother might, with love in her eyes, and Yourii ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... it in a moment as the swart vitpense, or lion-killer, as it was called by the Boers; and sure enough it was there at bay before a large tawny lion, crouched ready to spring, but hesitating to bound and impale itself upon those two finely ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... a magnificent bass, full toned as an organ, issuing, likewise as out of a reed, from a swart dwarf scarcely higher than my waist. The word "bath," with the promise of "individual towels," won me over. Something must be done, anyway, to get rid of these importunate runners. Thereupon I acquiesced, "All right, my man. The Queen," and surrendering ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... the cabin, swung around the end and turned under a live oak whose branches scraped the car's top, while four dogs circled the machine, barking and growling. Still no kiddies appeared, but their father came out of a back door and drove the dogs back. He was low-browed, swart and silent, with a heavy black mustache and a mop of hair to match. Cliff left the car and walked away with him, speaking in an undertone what Johnny knew to be Spanish. The low-browed one interpolated an occasional "Si, si, ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... Maids heard the goblins cry: "Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpecked cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheeked peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born cranberries, Crab-apples, dewberries, Pine-apples, blackberries, Apricots, strawberries;— All ripe together In summer weather,— Morns that pass by, Fair eves that fly; Come buy, come buy: Our grapes fresh from ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... four Swart Ruiters, very well mounted, and appointed to attend on me at Staden, from Breme, being honourably and very carefully sent unto me by the noble consuls and senators of Breme, and that with a friendly farewell (delivered unto me by the speech of one of their secretaries at my lodgings) need not be ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... hee," referring to a white man, "Contrary to his Masters Consent hath ... got wth child a certaine molato wooman Called Swart anna." "David Lewis Constable of Haverford Returned a Negro man of his And a white woman for having a Bastard Childe ... the Negroe said she Intised him and promised him to marry him: she being examined, Confest the same: the Court ordered ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... The swart-skinned Nubian's reed-pipe hath an ear-piercing note, And you may hear mad music from 'ARRY in a boat; But safest of all sounds to give the tympanum a twist, Is the tow-row, tow-row, tow-row of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 12, 1890 • Various
... playing a bluff game, and I knew it, for as yet I had not secured my credentials; but when I saw the swart face of the sham agent change to a sickly yellow, and Smug begin to draw back and look anxiously from left to right, I was inwardly triumphant; but, alack! it is only in fiction that the clever detective always has the best of it, and at this moment ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... hopeless deliberations upon the repairing of the half-submerged Flat-iron—her flimsily hung planks had been started even by her gentle journey on the river—there was a hail from down-stream. Looking, they saw four swart figures bending one after another in a tracking-harness, crawling around the edge of the cut-bank below. Presently a sharp prow nosed around the bend; and a long, low, double-ended galley swung into view, floating lazily on the ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... defeat and flight, the slaughter that ensues, and with cries of joy calls upon the flocks of wild birds, the "swart raven with horned neb," and "him of goodly coat, the eagle," and the "greedy war hawk," to come and share the carcases. Never was so splendid a slaughter seen, "from what books tell us, old chroniclers, since hither from the east Angles ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... the spade. Any one witnessing the scene thus strangely lighted up by fire, lanthorn, and the reflection of Wolfert's red mantle, might have mistaken the little doctor for some foul magician, busied in his incantations, and the grizzled-headed Sam as some swart goblin, obedient to ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... And in a vision full of majesty Will'd me to leave my base vocation, And free my country from calamity: Her aid she promised and assured success: In complete glory she reveal'd herself; And, whereas I was black and swart before, With those clear rays which she infused on me That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see. Ask me what question thou canst possible, And I will answer unpremeditated: My courage try by combat, ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... swarmed and towered and leapt in haste A brawny band of three score Englishmen, Gigantic as they loomed against the sky And risen, it seemed, by miracle from the sea. So small were those five ships below the walls Of that huge floating mountain. Royally Drake, from the swart commander's trembling hands Took the surrendered sword, and bade his men Gather the fallen weapons on an heap, And placed a guard about them, while the moon Silvering the rolling seas for many a mile Glanced on the huddled Spaniards' rich attire, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... sunk, and small, that gleam'd Strangely in wrath, as though some spirit unclean Within that corporal tenement installed Look'd from its windows, but with temper'd fire Beam'd mildly on the unresisting. Thin His beard and hoary; his flat nostrils crown'd A cicatrised, swart visage,—but withal That questionable shape such glory wore That mortals ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... cooed from every well, far off The village drums beat for some marriage feast; All things spoke peace and plenty, and the Prince Saw and rejoiced. But, looking deep, he saw The thorns which grow upon this rose of life: How the swart peasant sweated for his wage, Toiling for leave to live; and how he urged The great-eyed oxen through the flaming hours, Goading their velvet flanks: then marked he, too, How lizard fed on ant, and snake on him, And kite on both; and how the fish-hawk robbed The fish-tiger of that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the 'Swart Hundt' was by the Queen's command appointed and fitted to carry Whitelocke's copper and other goods from hence to England. By advice of friends, Whitelocke under his hand and seal desired Sir George Fleetwood to consign the copper to ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... comely and tall of stature, of whom (when I came to ask) the people could tell me only that his name was Luke, and that as a child he had been cast ashore from a foreign ship; they said, a Portugal ship. [But the Portugals have swart complexions and are less than ordinary tall, whereas this youth was light-coloured and only brown by sunburn.] Nor could he tell me anything when I questioned him concerning his haveage; which I did upon report that he was courting my housemaiden Grace Pascoe, an honest good girl, ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... from the eye of some beauty of the royal harem, looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry. Louder and louder clashed the cymbals, wilder and wilder grew the strain, till the blood of the desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium, and the swart nobles leaped to their feet; a thousand scimitars were bared, and the cry, "Allah il Allah!" shook the hall and awoke me, to find it broad daylight, and the room tingling with the electric music of the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Minister of War proposed the creation of a navy. He argued its need and the glories it might achieve with such gay and witty zeal that the travesty overcame with its humour even the swart dignity ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... stood ready for it. The polishing and grinding rooms afterward—the great glass slabs, hundreds of them, on their flat beds, and the see-saw music of the steam machinery constantly at work polishing them—the myriads of human figures (the works employ'd 400 men) moving about, with swart arms and necks, and no superfluous clothing—the vast, rude halls, with immense play of shifting shade, and slow-moving currents of smoke and steam, and shafts of light, sometimes sun, striking ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... The hunter's swart countenance grew darker as he spoke, for he well knew the extremity of danger into which the reckless youth was compelling him to run, but he did not hesitate. Instead, however, of following in the steps of one who was fleeter of foot than himself, he made a detour to the right. In an hour he ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... an ende, & e{n}ne schal Niniue be nomen & to no[gh]t wore; 360 Truly is ilk tou{n} schal tylte to grou{n}de, [Sidenote: It shall be turned upside down, and swallowed quickly by the black earth."] Vp-so-dou{n} schal [gh]e du{m}pe depe to e abyme, To be swol[gh]ed swyftly wyth e swart ere, & alle at lyuyes here-i{n}ne lose e swete." 364 [Sidenote: This speech spreads throughout the city.] is speche sprang i{n} at space & spradde alle aboute, To borges & to bacheleres, at i{n} at bur[gh] lenged; [Sidenote: Great fear ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... of the fettered condition from which he had escaped, the name of Ephraim Swart, "a gambler and spree'r" was mentioned as the individual who had wronged him of his ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... (Idle it were of Whitby's dame, To say of that same blood I came;) And once, when jealous rage was high, Lord Marmion said despiteously, Wilton was traitor in his heart, And had made league with Martin Swart, When he came here on Simnel's part; And only cowardice did restrain His rebel aid on Stokefield's plain,— And down he threw his glove:—the thing Was tried, as wont, before the king; Where frankly did De Wilton own, That Swart in Guelders he had known; ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... As the swart Hillman crossed the springy floor and rapped gently upon a closed door, the Major saw that every black eye focussed upon it with eager expectancy. For a moment the room was palpitant with suspense. He looked to Terry ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... her seat, amid the palms embowered That shade the Lion-land, Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect towered— The fetters on her hand! Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, The mighty Theban years, And the deep anguish of her mournful lips ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... was at the sign of the Stuffed Owl, down in a basement bat cave of a place and in the dusk of the evening, that they found their man. To Ginsburg's curious eyes he revealed himself as a short, swart person with enormously broad shoulders and with a chimpanzee's arm reach. Look at those arms of his and one knew why he was called Stretchy. How he had acquired his last name of Gorman was only to be guessed at. It was fair to assume, though, he had got it by processes of self-adoption—no ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... garlanded with mirth, It hath the kingliest smile on earth— The swart brow, diamonded with sweat, Hath never need ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Colebrooke, faithless to his charge, Amid thy woods and vales, thy rocks and streams, Form'd for the Train that haunt poetic dreams, Naiads, and Nymphs,—now hears the toiling Barge And the swart Cyclops ever-clanging forge Din in thy dells;—permits the dark-red gleams, From umber'd fires on all thy hills, the beams, Solar and pure, to shroud with columns large Of black sulphureous smoke, that spread their veils Like funeral crape upon the sylvan robe Of thy romantic rocks, pollute thy ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... established himself firmly upon the left of the Boer position, Pole-Carew had moved forward to the north of the railway line, and French had advanced as far as Swart Kopjes upon the Boer right. These operations on August 26th and 27th were met with some resistance, and entailed a loss of forty or fifty killed and wounded; but it soon became evident that the punishment which they had received at Bergendal had taken the fight out ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... said Ranald, "whose throat never boded good to a Child of the Mist, ill fortune to her who littered thee! hast thou already found our trace? But thou art too late, swart hound of darkness, and the deer ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... with the last breath of dying men; the god's seat he with red gore defiles: swart is the sunshine then for summers after; all weather turns to storm. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... by any but an American? It takes a strong Bible faith, allied to a simple but strong self-confidence, to start a man on such an adventure. The curious transforming magic of the sea had its effect on the Arab dragoman he had engaged to assist him. Having settled on the exact spot, the swart Arabian descended, but signaled to return almost immediately, and was brought to the surface in open-eyed wonder. With all the hyperbole of Oriental imagination he swore positively to the finding of the chariot-wheels, and added the jewelry of Pharaoh's household. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... being held as a reserve, and lining the whole ridge above the Bayswater Road. Their camp and their main force is under the great Waterworks Tower on Campden Hill. I forgot to say that the Waterworks Tower looked swart. ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... of dogs. Three men with clubs were helping him to scatter them. It did not take long. Two minutes from the time Curly went down, the last of her assailants were clubbed off. But she lay there limp and lifeless in the bloody, trampled snow, almost literally torn to pieces, the swart half-breed standing over her and cursing horribly. The scene often came back to Buck to trouble him in his sleep. So that was the way. No fair play. Once down, that was the end of you. Well, he would see to it that he never went down. Spitz ran out his tongue and laughed again, and from ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... eyes protruding somewhat, and rolling in their grief. Those eyes had seen the Orient sun, and his beak was the eagle's. His lips were full. The beard, curling round them, was unkempt and tawny. The locks were of a deep, deep coppery red. The hands, swart and powerful, accustomed to the rough grasp of the wares in which he dealt, seemed unused to the flimsy artifices of the bath. He came from the Wilderness, and its sands were on his robe, his cheek, his tattered sandal, and the hardy foot ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bed-clothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor, and thickly shaded with a swart growth of hair. It was the hand of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a girl's, set off with silver spurs; a very short coat faced with galloons of gold, and a very broad-brimmed and very high-crowned sombrero, on which the silver braid alone was worth the price of a good horse. Even for a Spanish Mexican his face was dark. Swart it was, the cheeks hollow; a tiny, tight mustache with ends truculently pointed and erect helped out the belligerency of the tight-shut lips. The eyes were black as bitumen, and flashed continually under ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... These swart loiterers by the happy nests of the young were like spirits of fate who might not destroy, who had no power to harm the living, yet who could not be driven forth: the ever-present death-heads at the feast, the impressive acolytes by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... great, even in face of these memories, and a tall, powerful Spaniard, heavily earringed, handsome, with a swart, brutal beauty, delivered a scorching oath to the heavy air and ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... thickened about him the foe before him changed to his eyes, and seemed no longer the stern brown-skinned smooth-faced men under their crested iron helms with their iron-covered shields before them, but rather, big-headed men, small of stature, long-bearded, swart, crooked of body, exceeding foul of aspect. And he looked on and did nothing for a while, and his head whirled as though he had ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... laughter. Other strange and unearthly noises were heard, and amidst the din a blue phosphoric light issued from the yawning crevice in the tree, while a tall, gaunt figure, crested with an antlered helm, sprang from it. At the same moment a swarm of horribly grotesque, swart objects, looking like imps, appeared amid the branches of the tree, and grinned and gesticulated at Wyat, whose courage remained unshaken during the fearful ordeal. Not so his steed. After rearing ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... bristling with cartridges and ugly beards, burned and blistered and parched with scorching sun and winds tempered only with alkali dust, ride our Arizona friends,—many of them at least. Old Bucketts with his green goggles; Turner with his melancholy face and placid ways; Raymond, stern and swart; Canker, querulous and "nagging" with his men, but eager for any service; Stafford, who won his troop vice the noble-hearted Tanner whom we lost among the Apaches; Wayne, who is loquacity itself whenever he can find a listener, and who talks his patient subaltern ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... ferocious-looking men, but the Ahmednuggar Irregulars were more dreadful to the view than any set of ruffians on which I ever set eyes. I would to heaven that the Czar of Muscovy had passed through Cabool and Lahore, and that I with my old Ahmednuggars stood on a fair field to meet him! Bless you, bless you, my swart companions in victory! through the mist of twenty years I hear the booming of your war-cry, and mark the glitter of your scimitars as ye rage in ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of his kind, was comely to see. With the lion's heart, he had the lion's tawny hue. A swart grace beamed beneath his curling brows. He had the small, firm hand to throttle or caress, and eyes full of fire for hate or love; and love's flame now lit the face of the hero of the bloody leap, and to his great chief he said, "O King of all the isles, let this sweet flower be ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... that bid'st me be content, wert grim, Ugly, and slanderous to thy mother's womb, Full of unpleasing blots and sightless stains, Lame, foolish, crooked, swart, prodigious. Patched with foul moles and eye-offending marks, I would not care—I then would be content; For then I should not love thee; no, nor thou Become thy great birth, nor deserve a crown. But thou art fair, and at thy birth, dear boy! Nature and Fortune join'd ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... congress of peoples—a comprehensive collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... he to pass effectively into the golden silences? How is he to relapse into the still-world of observation? Would four thousand five hundred a month and Simla do it, with nothing to do and allowances, and a seat beside those littered under the swart Dog-Star of India? Or is it to be the mandragora of pension, that he may sleep out the great gap of ennui between this life and something better? How lonely the Government of India would feel! How the world would forget the Government of India! ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... over my head. This was no mean den of cut-throats into which I had been carried, but it must be the hall of some Venetian palace. Then, without movement, very slowly and stealthily I had a peep at the men who surrounded me. There was the gondolier, a swart, hard-faced, murderous ruffian, and beside him were three other men, one of them a little, twisted fellow with an air of authority and several keys in his hand, the other two tall young servants in a smart livery. As I listened to their talk I saw that the small man was the steward ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was kept neat; they were neatly built of stone and stood round the sides of a quadrangle; while on each side and below the wooded slopes of ground closed in the picture. Sunlight was streaming through and brightening up the cottages, and resting on Uncle Darry's swart face. Down through the sunlight I went to the cottages. The first door stood open, and I looked in. At the next I was about to knock, but Preston pushed open the door for me; and so he did for a third and a fourth. ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The shape—the divine idea of that shape—the swelling muscle or the dreamy limb, strong sinew or curve of bust, Aphrodite or Hercules, it is the same. That I may have the soul-life, the soul-nature, let divine beauty bring to me divine soul. Swart Nubian, white Greek, delicate Italian, massive Scandinavian, in all the exquisite pleasure the form gave, and gives, to me ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... said I to the warrior of the Thirty Mountains, 'swart Slavata has gone up yonder with a plump of lances, intending to cross the morass, and assail us on the rear. Be it thine to ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Cincirillo follow thee about? Inverting one swart foot suspensively, And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp Of bird above him on the olive-branch? Frighten him then away! 'twas he who slew Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, That fear'd not you and me ... alas, nor him! I flattened his striped sides along my knee, And reasoned ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... bless it! should always have a little sunshine in its glance; but these are mere staring faces, without expression, that make you shudder and feel sad. Miners by birth; human moles fitted to burrow in darkness for a life-time. Is it worth living for? No wonder those swart laborers underground are so grim and taciturn: no wonder there was not a face lighted up by those smoky lamps in the pit, that had one line of human sympathy left ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... With a kiss upon lips that are fading Takes he the soul and departs, and rocked in arms of affection, Places the ransomed child, new born, 'fore the face of its father. Sounds of his coming already I hear,—see dimly his pinions, Swart as the night, but with stars strewn upon them! I fear not before him. Death is only release, and in mercy is mute. On his bosom Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast; and face to face standing Look I on God as he is, a sun unpolluted by vapors; Look on the light ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... he would have protested against the tame elegancies of the Roman Bucolics; and the sospiri ardenti and miserelli aman of Guarini would have driven him mad. He is as brisk as the wind upon a breezy down. His cow-tenders are swart and bare-legged, and love with a vengeance. There is no miserable tooting upon flutes, but an uproarious song that shakes the woods; and if it comes to a matter of kissing, there are no "reluctant lips," but a smack that makes the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... man shorter but much broader and stouter than Denton, came forward to him. Denton turned to him as unconcernedly as possible. "Here!" said the delegate—as Denton judged him to be—extending a cube of bread in a not too clean hand. He had a swart, broad-nosed face, and his mouth hung ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... the silver shafts of morn, He bore the White Christ over alien seas— The swart Columbus—into "lands forlorn," That lay beyond the dim Hesperides. Humbly he gathered up the broken chain Of human knowledge, and, with sails unfurled, He drew it westward from the coast of Spain, And linked ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... fisheries, factories, wheat fields, pine forests; on meadows wealthy with grains or grass, and orchards bending beneath their burdens, this enlarging prosperity must be maintained; and on the steamships, and the telegraph lines, which interweave us with all the world. The swart miner must do his part for it; the ingenious workman, in whatever department; the ploughman in the field, and the fisherman on the banks; the man of science, putting Nature to the question; the laborer, with no other capital than his muscle; ...
— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley
... come! I see the groaning lands White with the turbans of each Arab horde; Swart Zaarah joins her misbelieving bands, Alla and Mahomet their battle-word, The choice they yield, the Koran or the Sword - See how the Christians rush to arms amain! - In yonder shout the voice of conflict roared, The shadowy hosts are closing ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... That shrunk thy streams; Return Sicilian Muse, And call the Vales, and bid them hither cast Their Bels, and Flourets of a thousand hues. Ye valleys low where the milde whispers use, Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks, On whose fresh lap the swart Star sparely looks, Throw hither all your quaint enameld eyes, That on the green terf suck the honied showres, 140 And purple all the ground with vernal flowres. Bring the rathe Primrose that forsaken dies. The tufted Crow-toe, and pale Gessamine, The white Pink, and the Pansie freakt with ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... oft at the nunnery gate, As the darkness fell over the village, Would a swart savage crouch and await, With the patience of devilish hate, A chance to ...
— Fleurs de lys and other poems • Arthur Weir
... rides southward down the valley, he and the two others, An the Swart and Thorarinn. At Hafratindr in Svinadal lived a man called Thorkell. There is no house there now. He had gone to look after his horses that day, and his shepherd along with him. They had a view of both ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... a morphine addict, and a thorough-going scoundrel. Beyond him stood the burly ruffian of the big, awkward, bony frame, who had brought the "judge" to the log house the other night at Gratton's bidding, Steve Jarrold. Through the trees, coming up now, were two more of the ill-featured party, a swart, squat Italian, and just at his heels a ragged scarecrow of a man named Brail. It was Brail who came close enough to stoop ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... his long robe of spotless white, in ample folds. The eight-pointed cross of his order was cut on the shoulder of his mantle in black velvet. The high cap no longer invested his brows, which were only shaded by short and thick curled hair of a raven blackness, corresponding to his unusually swart complexion. Nothing could be more gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had they not been marked by a predominant air of haughtiness, easily acquired by the exercise ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... for a moment left the side of Ajax, son of Telamon, but as two swart oxen both strain their utmost at the plough which they are drawing in a fallow field, and the sweat steams upwards from about the roots of their horns—nothing but the yoke divides them as they break ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... but a few moments, from the firing of the first shot, until things took this turn. Swart boy was hardly clear of the bushes before the elephant emerged also; and as the former struck out for the mokhala trees, he was scarce six steps ahead of ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... hour the swart Savoyard (filius nullius) issues forth on his diurnal pilgrimage, "remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," to excruciate on his superannuated hurdy-gurdy that sublime melody, "the hundred and seventh psalm," or the plaintive sweetness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... of God is done, Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none: Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme Is seen his worker in his own ...
— English Poems • Richard Le Gallienne
... that the girl is riding on a man's saddle?" he asked. "Why, I know that saddle; let me look at the other side. Yes, there is a bullet-hole through the flap. That is Swart Dirk's saddle. How ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... the kelpie haunted the shadowed flood, and the dryad dwelt in the tree; But merrier far is the trolley-car as it routs the witch from the wold, And the din of the hammer and the cartridges' clamor as they banish the swart kobold! O, a sovran cure for psychic dizziness Is a breath of the air of the world of business! —Idyls ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... Trotty were fearsome bogies, corresponding to the swart-faced, white-eyed chimney-sweeps of the English nursery. She hid behind her aunt, holding fast to the latter's skirts, and only stealing an occasional peep ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... that lies hidden in the earth folds in its unlovely bosom such fate and fortune as the haughtier sheen of silver, gleam of gold, and sparkle of diamond may illustrate, but are wholly impotent to create. Rising from his undisturbed repose of ages, the giant, unwieldy, swart, and huge of limb, bends slowly his brawny neck to the yoke of man, and at his bidding becomes a nimble servitor to do his will. Subtile as thought, rejoicing in power, no touch is too delicate for his perception, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... Climes, where fierce suns in cloudless ardours shine, And pour the dazzling deluge round the Line; The realms of frost, where icy mountains rise, 'Mid the pale summer of the polar skies?— It was Humanity!—on coasts unknown, The shiv'ring natives of the frozen zone, And the swart Indian, as he faintly strays 'Where Cancer reddens in the solar blaze,' She bade him seek;—on each inclement shore Plant the rich seeds of her exhaustless store; Unite the savage hearts, and hostile hands, In the firm compact of her gentle bands; Strew her soft comforts o'er the barren plain, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... a clearing, With its farm-house rude and new, And tree-stumps, swart as Indians, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... for many a year, was mine, A grove of sacrifice, on Ida's height, Darksome with maple and the swart pitch-pine. This wood, these trees, my ever-dear delight, Gladly I gave to speed the Dardan's flight. But doubts and fears my troubled mind assail. O calm them; may a parent's prayer have might, And this their birth upon our hills avail ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Struggling, and blood, and shrieks—all dimly fades 10 Into some backward corner of the brain; Yet, in our very souls, we feel amain The close of Troilus and Cressid sweet. Hence, pageant history! hence, gilded cheat! Swart planet in the universe of deeds! Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds Along the pebbled shore of memory! Many old rotten-timber'd boats there be Upon thy vaporous bosom, magnified To goodly vessels; many a sail of pride, 20 And golden keel'd, ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... great deal that I hope to live long enough never to repay. A debt of honour is one of the finest things in the world. The very name recalls a speech out of 'Guy Livingstone.' By the way, I sometimes wish that I had been born swart as he was. I should have pleased Miss Rhoda Broughton, and she is so deliciously prosaic. Is she not the woman who said that she was always inspired to a pun by the sight of a cancer hospital? or ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... 430 Be it not done in pride, or in presumption. Some say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost, That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin or swart faery of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er true virginity. Do ye believe me yet, or shall I call Antiquity from the old schools of Greece To testify the arms of chastity? 440 Hence had the huntress Dian her dread bow Fair silver-shafted queen for ever chaste, Wherewith she tamed the ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... complexion is she of? Dro. Swart like my shoo, but her face nothing like so cleane kept: for why? she sweats a man may goe ouer-shooes in the grime ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... as the billows snort In darkness of the night, Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart, He glowered ...
— Songs of Childhood • Walter de la Mare
... they say, for every day of the calendar year; and its shores the delight of artists in search of the picturesque, as well as of the sojourner after pleasure. Its waters smile eternally pleasant, and the visitor will not find the fountain of perpetual youth of the swart old navigator a fable; for here he will regain lost youth and strength in the contemplation of scenes as beautiful as poets' dreams. O! Lake Winnipiseogee, we recall the sails across thy bright waters with delight, and long to see thy rippling tide once ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... among all the bright array of ladies at that feast I could not spy her. And perhaps that is not to be wondered at, for long ere we came up all the baggage had been lost. By this time her court dress was being worn by swart women of the flint folk, far on the wild heaths. I dare say ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... was to the hills she lifted up her eyes, to the hills and the swart goatherds free of their mystery. That riviera across the canal, where the budding planes made a mist of brown and rose, was a favourite haunt of theirs. There they assembled and milked their goats, thence set out homewards at night. Sitting in the pleached arbours, with ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... in June. London, swart and grim, semi-shrouded in a warm close mist of mingled human breath and acrid vapour steaming up from the clammy crowded streets,—London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli |
