"Forked lightning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... watch his restless glance—now grave, now gay— As saddening thought, or merry humour's flash Sweeps o'er the deep-mark'd lines which care hath left; As when the world is steep'd in blackest night, The forked lightning flashes through the sky, And all around leaps into life and light, To sink again in darkness blacker still. Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long, As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms Amid his realm of charr'd and spectral stumps, Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... in long level rays, through their fringes of spear-like pine. Far above, shot up red splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked lightning; and, far beyond, and far above all these, fainter than the morning cloud, but purer and changeless, slept, in the blue sky, the utmost ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... rapid flashes of pale yellow and white lightning, which momentarily obliterated their rich colours. To the south was a great bank of black thunder-cloud crested with crimson, reft to its deepest darkness by successive flashes of forked lightning. Immediately overhead a narrow curtain of leaden clouds was driven hither and thither by uncertain winds; while below, the prairie and all its varied life lay bathed in the warmth and light of the departing sun, throwing into bold relief ...
— A Trip to Manitoba • Mary FitzGibbon
... clouds gathered thickly overhead, obscuring the stars that had hitherto shone down from the heavens. The wind suddenly arose, but in lieu of dispersing the vapours it seemed only to condense them. A flash of forked lightning cut through the air, and a loud peal ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... his gardening, startled by the sudden peal of thunder. Absorbed in his task, he had not noticed the gathering storm. The sky was black with clouds, riven even while he looked with a vivid flash of forked lightning. The ground beneath his feet seemed almost to shake beneath that second peal of thunder. In the stillness that followed he heard the cry of a woman in distress. He threw down his spade and raced to the other side of the garden. About twenty yards from the shore, Jeanne, in a small boat, was rowing ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lithe swift serpent of fire twisting venomously through the dark heavens! Zara raised her arms, looked up, smiled, and fell—senseless! With such appalling suddenness that we had scarcely recovered from the blinding terror of that forked lightning-flash, when we saw her lying prone before us on the balcony where one instant before she had stood erect and smiling! With exclamations of alarm and distress we lifted and bore her within the room and laid ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Almighty will strike every one of you with forked lightning and that I shall meet you all in the lowest pit of ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... whatever he might be, he could have no motive other than that assigned for taking me with him, that he could gain nothing by way-laying or even murdering me, and so I put on my outer garments and got into the carriage beside him. The night was wet and stormy, and, just as we started, forked lightning flashed across the heavens in all directions, causing the horse to dash madly along as if to overturn the vehicle. This of course was a mere coincidence, but, with all my firmness of will and sound logical reasons for not being afraid, I ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... from which large drops of moisture began presently to ooze rather than fall. Gradually the wind increased, and soon with sudden fierce gusts shook the pine- trees into shuddering anxiety,—the red slit in the sky closed, and a gleam of forked lightning leaped athwart the driving darkness. An appalling crash of thunder followed almost instantaneously, its deep boom vibrating in sullenly grand echoes on all sides of the Pass, and then—with a swirling, hissing rush of rain—the unbound hurricane ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Dragon combat is the most obvious of nature myths and is found in most mythologies of Europe and the Near East. The trailing storm-clouds suggest his serpent form, his fiery tongue is seen in the forked lightning, and, though he may darken the world for a time, the Sun-god will always be victorious. In Egypt the myth of "the Overthrowing of Apep, the enemy of Ra" presents a close parallel to that of Tiamat;(3) but of all Eastern mythologies that of the ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King
... the feelings with which the Sun was regarded and the beneficent and splendid qualities attributed to him, we know enough from the beautiful hymns quoted in Chap. III. (see p. 172). As to the god RAMAN, frequently represented on tablets and cylinders by his characteristic sign, the double or triple-forked lightning-bolt—his importance as the dispenser of rain, the lord of the whirlwind and tempest, made him very popular, an object as much of dread as of gratitude; and as the crops depended on the supply of water from the canals, and these again ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... increased rapidly in size, rolling up the sky in dark volumes, and emitting flashes of forked lightning in quick succession. ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... forth, and the ominous cloud lowering more darkly, seemed peopled by those in deadly strife. An English cheer pealed high above all other sounds; a second followed; the mass was rent asunder, and like the forked lightning from a thunder-cloud, Ramsey rode forth at the head of his battery, the horses bounding madly, while the guns sprang behind them like things of no weight; the gunners leaped to their places, and fighting hand to hand with the French cavalry, ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... in the sky was observed by several people between five and six o'clock in the evening of Friday the 12th of this month. It was noticed in the north-west, and appeared as if a ray of forked lightning had been stationary in that quarter of the sky for about fifteen minutes, which was the time it was visible. It was not to be discerned, however, after the sun had quitted ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... the eternal forest closed about us, and the sound of our horses' feet alone broke upon its silence. Towards evening the heat became great, and after sunset the southern sky began to give forth continuous sheets of flame, along whose pale surface would occasionally dart lines of red forked lightning, whilst the breeze gradually died away. My first idea was, that we were about to be favoured with a refreshing storm of rain and thunder; but vain were my hopes: I watched and listened, but no drop fell, ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... that moment, and he fought as they fight who go down to hell. It was frightful. It was terrifying. Heaven alone knows what the eagle thought he had got his claws into. It was like taking hold of a flash of forked lightning by ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars |
