"Raven" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... use it subserves among the birds, we all admit the effect and pleasure it produces in ourselves. A world without the song of birds is greatly lacking—such is a desert, where even the harsh croak of a raven is melody. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... or delusions, appear in Poe's most widely known work, "The Raven," which has given pleasure to a multitude of readers. It is a unique poem, and its popularity is due partly to the fact that nobody can tell what it means. To analyze it is to discover that it is extremely melodious; that it reflects a gloomy mood; that at ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... said, "you do not generally croak, but you are earning the character of the raven for yourself to-night. The thing is growing on you. What IS the use of bringing up unpleasant subjects? You are an old woman." I fear there was the slightest irritation in my voice; but, truth is, the last few days' experiences had left their mark on me, and Hungerford's speech and manner ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... "Remember Poe's Raven who still is sitting, never flitting, on the pallid bust of Pallas, just ...
— The Silver Butterfly • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought me to you I should have been changed into a hooting owl; if you had not done so the second night, I should have been changed into a croaking raven. But, thanks to you, Enda, I am now a snow-white swan, and for one hour on the first night of every full moon the power of speech is and will be given to me as long as I remain a swan. And a swan I must always remain, unless you are willing ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... raven, disturbed into night omen-croaking, he sent forth his news from utter blackness into nerve-strung tension. No one member of the thirty but was on the alert for friction or sudden treachery; the were all eyes for each other, and the croaking fell on ears strained to the aching ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... make her eyes red. She takes a consoler, for the loss of whom another consoles her; thus up to the age of thirty or more. Then, blase and corrupted, with no human sentiment, not even disgust, she meets a fine youth with raven locks, ardent eye and hopeful heart; she recalls her own youth, she remembers what she has suffered, and telling him the story of her life, she teaches him ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... reproach gets home. The American bird, who is bigger and stands on a bigger rock, is sleek enough except about the head which is a bit ruffled. But he is more of a raven than an eagle in his sable plumes of professional cut, and he is obviously not at ease. He does not look the other in the face. He stares straight in front of him at nothing with a forced, hard and fixed smile, obviously assumed because he has no ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... the chief's wife, kissed each other on both cheeks in the French way. The Princesse de Joinville was tottering, but with something in her face, a disdain, a trace of power, that attracted me before I knew her rank or history. Her once raven hair was streaked with gray, she trembled, and her step was feeble; but all her weaknesses and blemishes impressed me as the disfigurement by age and abrasion of a beautiful and noble statue. She was more savage-looking than any modern Tahitian ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... and the pain Of the burning eyeballs went to my brain. Seven blackened corpses before me lie, In the blaze of the sun and the winds of the sky. I have watched them through the burning day, And driven the vulture and raven away; And the cormorant wheeled in circles round, Yet feared to alight on the guarded ground. And when the shadows of twilight came, I have seen the hyena's eyes of flame, And heard at my side his stealthy tread, But aye at my shout the savage ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of "corbyn" (a raven) is cor, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is pennac. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and "betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... I may say that many of the mysterious archaic markings on rocks, and decorations of implements, in other countries, are certainly known to be a kind of shorthand design of the totem animal. Thus a circle, whence proceeds a line ending in a triple fork, represents the raven totem in North America: another design, to our eyes meaningless, stands for the wolf totem; a third design, a set of bands on a spear shaft, does duty for the gerfalcon totem, and so on. {64a} Equivalent marks, such as spirals, and tracks of emu's feet, occur on sacred ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... Thermodon that shall be, Fail not, black raven, to attend and see; The flesh of men shall there abound ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... Blackness. — N. blackness &c. adj.; darkness &c. (want of light). 421; swartliness[obs3], lividity, dark color, tone, color; chiaroscuro &c. 420. nigrification[obs3], infuscation[obs3]. jet, ink, ebony, coal pitch, soot, charcoal, sloe, smut, raven, crow. [derogatory terms for black-skinned people] Negro, blackamoor, man of color, nigger, darkie, Ethiop, black; buck, nigger [U. S.]; coon [U. S.], sambo. [Pigments] lampblack, ivory black, blueblack; writing ink, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... dress from London expressly for the occasion. A duchess might have worn it at a drawing-room. The dress of Maria was simplicity typified, and consisted of a frock of the finest and the whitest muslin; while her slender waist was girdled with a lavender ribbon, her raven hair descended down her snowy neck in ringlets, and around her head she wore a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... Melancholy, Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night-raven sings; There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks As ragged as thy locks, In ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... enough to study the characteristic differences between the sources out of which it is composed. The Jehovist is terse, graphic, and poetic; it is this source in which occurs the fine description of the sending forth of the raven and the dove, viii. 6-12. It knows how to make a singularly effective use of concrete details: witness Noah putting out his hand and pulling the dove into the ark, and her final return with an olive leaf in her mouth. ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... remarked on entering, some wolftraps were suspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf's paw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened chimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall, their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each; a fox's skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larder hook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose body swayed about ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... sea-king's wrist alighting, As the north sea-wind caught and strained and curled The raven-figured flag that led men fighting From field to green field of the water-world, Might find such brief high favour at his hand For wings imbrued with brine, with foam impearled, As these my songs require at yours on land, That durst not save for love's free ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... is symbolized by the figure of a raven in a circle, and the moon by a hare on its hind-legs pounding rice in a mortar, or by a three-legged toad. The last refers to the legend of Ch'ang O, detailed later. The moon is a special object of worship in autumn, and moon-cakes dedicated to it are sold at ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... didn't you say so?" she asked sharply. She let out a cry and a raven came flying in. She whispered something to it, frowned, and then ordered it off. "There's no surface transportation available, and all the local rocs are in use. Well, we'll have to make do with what ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... Hunter. Black as a raven; but the white foam lay in thick flakes on his neck and breast, for his rider at every few paces stuck the sharp rowels of his Spanish spurs into his sides. He had a long flowing mane and tail, and his full and fiery eyes seemed ready to start out of his head. The whole Camanchee band was ready to ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... spoke French with a perfect Benicia accent. Peerlessly beautiful, she was dressed in a white moire antique robe trimmed with tulle. That simple rosebud, with which most heroines exclusively decorate their hair, was all she wore in her raven locks. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... ago had been hers, her husband sat silent and moody beside her. A pang went through his heart as he gazed upon her bright countenance, and remembered her youth, whose sunshine was extinguished by her marriage with him. He looked at the smooth, full cheek of her companion, the purple gloss of his raven locks, the fire of his eye, and listening to his gay tones, his brilliant repartees, and enthusiastic expressions, pictured him with a shudder the husband of Pauline. What would have been her life compared to the one she led with him. How different would have been the bridal! ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... says a great many other things to which you do not pay great heed—else you would not be sitting here looking as gloomy as the raven that croaked when the old cow wouldn't die. No, sir, you would be sitting up on the stile yonder, cursing the Ferrises with bell, book and candle—and the old man helping you out ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... baby's was wax, you see." "I see!" said I. "The brass pot and the earthen one!" "If you had ever seen Vashti Ann, Mr. Moonman," said Fluff through her tears, "you would not call her such names as a brass pot. Her hair was gossy as the raven's wing, like the lady in the ballad that Uncle Jack read to us last night; and I never wanted to call her Vashti Ann, but I wanted to call her Isidora Vienna, but Uncle Jack said her name was Vashti Ann when he buyed her, so I couldn't ...
— Five Mice in a Mouse-trap - by the Man in the Moon. • Laura E. Richards
... floor, and there came forward to meet him a man rather below the middle height, but of a symmetrical and imposing mien. His face was grave, not to say sad; thought, not time, had partially silvered the clustering of his raven hair; but intellectual power reigned in his wide brow, while determination was the character of the rest of his countenance, under great control, yet apparently, from the dark flashing of his ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... usurer being in bed, Robin in the shape of a night-raven[7] came to the window, and there did beat with his wings, and croaked in such manner that this old usurer thought he should have presently died for fear. This was but a preparation to what he did intend; for presently ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... strenuous in opposing the immortality of the soul: for he has written three books, which are entitled Lesbiacs, because the discourse was held at Mitylene, in which he seeks to prove that souls are mortal. The Stoics, on the other hand, allow us as long a time for enjoyment as the life of a raven; they allow the soul to exist a great while, but are against ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... passed lightly enough over the glossy raven locks of Mr. Philip Sheldon. There are some men with whom Time deals gently, and he was one of them. The hard black eyes had lost none of their fierce brightness; the white teeth flashed with all their old brilliancy; ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... my slumber, Let no weed nor worm molest me, Let not Kahgahgee, the raven, Come to haunt me and molest me, Only come yourself to watch me, Till I wake, and start, and quicken, Till I leap into ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... awoke, my eyes were delighted with the sight of the charming creature who brought me my coffee. She was a very young girl, but as well formed as a young person of seventeen; yet she had scarcely completed her fourteenth year. The snow of her complexion, her hair as dark as the raven's wing, her black eyes beaming with fire and innocence, her dress composed only of a chemise and a short petticoat which exposed a well-turned leg and the prettiest tiny foot, every detail I gathered in one instant ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... more beautiful than in Europe.} Birds of Carolina. Eagle bald. Eagle gray. Fishing Hawk. Turkey Buzzard, or Vulture. Herring-tail'd Hawk. Goshawk. Falcon. Merlin. Sparrow-hawk. Hobby. Ring-tail. Raven. Crow. Black Birds, two sorts. Buntings two sorts. Pheasant. Woodcock. Snipe. Partridge. Moorhen. Jay. Green Plover. Plover gray or whistling. Pigeon. Turtle Dove. Parrakeeto. Thrush. Wood-Peckers, five sorts. Mocking-birds, ...
— A New Voyage to Carolina • John Lawson
... turned their steps to the forest depths, where the Tinker was to live henceforth. For many a day he sang ballads to the band, until the famous Allan a Dale joined them, before whose sweet voice all others seemed as harsh as a raven's; but of ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... the trail," said Yahn and laughed. "The priest of the men of iron say that Tahn-te is a sorcerer,—who knows that he did not bury owl-feathers or raven-feathers on the way to hide her trail? If the witch maid was a maid of beauty, is he ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... conclude my sketch of his character, feeling it indelicate to continue further. Oh, I don't want to draw any further conclusions and croak like a raven over the young man's future. We've seen to-day in this court that there are still good impulses in his young heart, that family feeling has not been destroyed in him by lack of faith and cynicism, which have come to him rather ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... similibus curantur seems to have entered into mediaeval medicine, and especially into the manufacture of charms. The following prescriptions are examples: "The skin of a Raven's heel is good against gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon the left.... If you would have man become bold or impudent let him carry about with him the skin or eyes of a Lion or Cock, and he will be fearless ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... her hand fell away from the paling. The two little boys ran off, intent on a fresh game. I scanned her face furtively, appreciative of the regular and potent modelling, the pure olive tints, the pose and poise of the head. Indubitably her face was dark; the raven hair that swept across her brow accentuated the gloom slumbering in her eyes. One unconsciously surmised that somewhere within her life lay a region of unrest, a period of passion not to be confused with the quiet courtship described ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... willows grow green, and the meadow brighten up with flowers, and as often she sees their yellow leaves driven before the strong south wind, and the meadow grow dark and hoar before the breath of autumn. Her father was long since dead, and she was bringing up her brother's children. Her raven hair was streaked with grey, and her step was not so light, nor her laugh so loud, yet still she waited and hoped, long ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... far the Gratitude of Priest-craft goes? And what if now like old Elisha fed, To praise the Sooty Bird that brought 'em Bread, In pure acknowledgment, though in despight Of their own sense, they paint the Raven White. ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... proportion, magnified beyond nature. Sam Weller never speaks without his anecdote, Uriah is always "'umble," Barkis is always "willin'," Mark Tapley is always "jolly," Dombey is always solemn, and Toots is invariably idiotic. It is no doubt natural that Barnaby's Raven should always want tea, whatever happens, for the poor bird has but a limited vocabulary. But one does not see why articulate and sane persons like Captain Cuttle, Pecksniff, and Micawber should repeat the same phrases under every condition and to all persons. This, ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... bone with such persistence that the superstitious huntsmen swore it was none other than the witch, an opinion confirmed by Scathlock's having since beheld old Maudlin in the chimney corner, broiling the very piece that had been thrown to the raven. Marian now proposes to the shepherdesses to go and view the deer, whereupon Amie complains that she is not well, 'sick,' as her brother Lionel jestingly explains, 'of the young shepherd that bekiss'd her.' They go off the stage, and the huntsmen and shepherds still argue for a while of the strange ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... sound of the wind and the sleet, (Flotsam and jetsam from over the sea. The dead—do they walk again?) Wilder the roar of the surf that beat; Whose was the form that it bore to her feet Swayed with the swell of the unquiet sea, While the raven croaked in the rowan tree. (Hark to the ...
— The Coming of the Princess and Other Poems • Kate Seymour Maclean
... Composition"[6] by Edgar Allen Poe, and those who by some mischance have missed it, can spend a delightful hour in the perusal of what, beyond the least doubt, is the most skillful analysis of poetic composition ever written, even though it fails to carry conviction that "The Raven" was ever produced by the formula ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... much more," was the reply. "You are looking at the colour of my hair. There are ravens who have seen a hundred seasons of rain without having a feather whitened. Ah! what matters the course of years to me? A raven croaked upon the roof of my father's cabin when I was born, at the same instant that my father had traced upon the floor the figure of one of these birds. Well, then! of course I shall live as long as that raven lives. What use then to keep a reckoning of years that ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... lacking in military mien, speedily began to make its appearance in the best drawing-rooms of Moscow. His bald nape, with tufts of dyed hair, and the dirty ribbon of the order of St. Anna on a neckcloth the hue of the raven's wing, began to be well known to all the easily bored and pallid young men who morosely hovered around the gambling-tables while dancing was in progress. Pavel Petrovitch understood how to place himself in society; he ...
— A Nobleman's Nest • Ivan Turgenieff
... with hair as black as a raven's wing, walked through the depot, where a dozen or more bodies were awaiting burial. Passing from one to another, she finally lifted the paper covering from the face of a woman, young and with traces of ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,—now a black raven, then a broom,—to-day St. Andrew's Cross, to-morrow St George's, perhaps the next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... impartially; her arms dependent on the heads of two leopards, which emblematically intimate courage and constancy. This chariot is drawn by two golden unicorns, in excellent carving work, with equal magnitude, to the left; on whose backs are mounted two raven-black negroes, attired according to the dress of India; on their heads, wreaths of divers coloured feathers; in their right hands they hold golden cups; in their left hands, two displayed banners, the one of the king's, the other of the ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... England, hear my prayer, As thou didst touch the heart and light the flame Of wonder in those eyes which first awoke To beauty and the sea's adventurous dream Three hundred years ago, three hundred years, And five long decades, in the leafy lanes Of Devon, where the tallest trees that bore The raven's matted nest had yielded up Their booty, while the perilous branches swayed Beneath the boyish privateer, the king Of many young companions, Francis Drake; So hear me, and so help, for more than his My need is, even than when he first set sail Upon that wild adventure ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... of the cloths that seemed almost as good now as on the day when they were woven, and lifted them, revealing beneath the figures of a man and woman. The features were unrecognizable, although the hair, white in the man's case and raven black in that of the woman, remained perfect. They had been great people, for orders glittered upon the man's breast, and his sword was gold hilted, whilst the woman's bones were adorned with costly necklaces and jewels, and in her hand was still ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... food for the raven, When his young ones cry unto God? It hovereth around nor groweth weary, Seeking food for ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the lodges pour a motley throng, Slow measures chanting of a dirge-like song. In one great circle dizzily they swing, A squaw and chief alternate in the ring. Coarse raven locks stream over robes of white, Their deep set orbs emit a lurid light, And as through pine trees moan the winds refrains, So swells and dies ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... hour during the long winter afternoons in each other's company. But Edith had a very keen sense of humor, and could hardly restrain her secret amusement when she heard him reading Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" and Poe's "Raven" (which had been familiar to her from her babyhood), often with false accent, but always with intense enthusiasm. The reflection that he had had no part of his life in common with her,—that he did not love the ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... the fray, and indeed I was afterwards given to understand the contrary; but the specks of blood on her brow, her hands and naked arms, as well as on the blade of her sword which she continued to hold in her hand—her flushed countenance, and the disordered state of the raven locks which escaped from under the red bonnet and plume that formed her head-dress, seemed all to intimate that she had taken an immediate share in the conflict. Her keen black eyes and features expressed an imagination inflamed by the pride of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... hands clasped as age swept over their raven locks and stalwart shoulders. Bishop Pierce never hesitated to go to Robert Toombs when his churches or his schools needed money. Toombs would give to the Methodist itinerant as quickly as he would to the local priest. Whether he ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... thought it not unlikely that a raven, or a crow, or a jackdaw, or a magpie, had found his bell, and from its thievish disposition, which attracts it to anything bright and shining, had carried it into its nest. With this thought he turned himself into a beautiful little bird, and searched all the nests in the island, ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends; Scandinavian • Various
... King Athelstan with Anlaf the Dane. It tells how five young kings and seven earls of Anlaf's host fell on the field of battle, and lay there "quieted by swords," while their fellow-Northmen fled, and left their friends and comrades to "the screamers of war— the black raven, the eagle, the greedy battle-hawk, and the grey wolf in the wood." The Song of the Fight at Maldon tells us of the heroic deeds and death of Byrhtnoth, an ealdorman of Northumbria, in battle against the Danes ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... Beaurepaire, climbing for a raven's nest to the top of this tree, lost his footing and fell, and died at its foot: and his mother in her anguish bade them cut down the tree that had killed her boy. But the baron her husband refused, and spake in this wise: "ytte ys eneugh that I lose mine sonne, I will ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... a kind of sea-fish, according to some the sea-swallow. Platina describes it as a black fish of the color of the raven (hence the name), and ranks it among the best of fish, ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... country, and wrote many poems on birds and flowers. In his first volume there are "The Doves," "The Raven's Nest," "The Lily and the Rose," "The Nightingale and the Glowworm," "The Pine-Apple and the Bee," "The Goldfinch starved to death in a Cage," and some others. They are pretty conceits, but at the present day remind us a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... one who is as tiny as you are!" said the raven. "I have a friend in these parts who will be glad to know that this snake has been killed, and I should like to render ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... John a fierce resolution, and to James a lurking distrustfulness of look. These years made less change in Mrs. Blount than in her sons; she was the same active, black-eyed woman, only that her sternness and reserve seemed to increase with her age, and a few silver threads appeared in her raven hair. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... The Honorable Bertie Raven, second son of the Earl of Runnymede, might have stepped out of one of Poole's fashion-plates, so far as dress was concerned. But there was a strained look on his handsome, patrician face, and in his blue eyes, that told of a gnawing mental anxiety. He linked arms with ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... event. Coleridge in his person was rather above the common size, inclining to the corpulent, or like Lord Hamlet, "somewhat fat and pursy." His hair (now, alas! grey) was then black and glossy as the raven's, and fell in smooth masses over his forehead. This long pendulous hair is peculiar to enthusiasts, to those whose minds tend heavenward; and is traditionally inseparable (though of a different colour) from the pictures of Christ. It ought to belong, as a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Their raven hair was loosely twisted and threaded with pearls, while pendants of the latter hung from their ears. The garb which covered their forms was made of similar skins to those which the men wore, but more elaborately wrought, in addition to being gathered at the waist ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... St. Mary's County, Maryland. She was a brunette, about twenty years of age, and one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw. She was nearly as tall as myself, but considerably stouter, and her body was molded in a most exquisite manner. Although her eyes were very black and her hair like the raven's plume, her skin was as white as alabaster. Her teeth were as regular as if they had been cut of a solid piece of ivory, and her hands and feet were fairylike in their proportions. I was the eldest girl in the ...
— The Life and Amours of the Beautiful, Gay and Dashing Kate Percival - The Belle of the Delaware • Kate Percival
... of John Fitch is, we are confident, the saddest chapter in human biography. The soul of the man seems from the first to have gone forth darkly voyaging, like Poe's raven, ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... do," replied the other, promptly; "I've never forgotten how Black Joe looked, blinking his eyes at us when we stood there talking to your aunt. But you're wrong in one thing, Bristles; it isn't just a plain, everyday crow at all. She said it was a raven, one of the wise old kind you read about; and that she brought it across the water. They're more cunning than our crows; and goodness knows I've always found them smart enough, when you had ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... them bound hand and foot, for it is safe to say that in the latter case they would never have had an opportunity of being surprised again. They would have dangled by their heels from the bough of some tree while a slow fire underneath saved them the necessity of ever after requiring to braid their raven locks. ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... miniature model of Aphrodite surely, arose from the blue sea and climbed nimbly into the main channels and thence to the deck, where little pools of water dripped from the radiant figure. She shook her small head saucily, and heavy masses of raven-wing hair tumbled about her, provokingly cloaking the charms so boldly outlined by her single saturated tunic of ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... passed, and Time has strown My raven locks with flakes of gray, Fond Memory brings the hours Of buds and blossom-showers When in girlhood I was crowned ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... wind like raven's wings. A sudden jealousy gripped him; Mr. Tiralla had spoken of a nice young fellow. And Mikolai was also a young fellow. Two young fellows, and with her day and night under the same roof. Stepmother? Pooh! She was still young ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... he blenches not!" cried Rebecca. "I see him now; he heads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers with axes. His high black plume floats over the throng, like a raven over the field of the slain. They have made a breach in the barriers—they rush in—they are thrust back! Front-de-Boeuf heads the defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to the breach, and the pass is disputed hand to ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... has so far studied the sounds produced by domestic fowls as to announce a Goose-Lexicon. Dupont de Nemours asserted that he understood eleven words of the Pigeon language, the same number of that of Fowls, fourteen of the Cat tongue, twenty-two of that of Cattle, thirty of that of Dogs, and the Raven language he understood completely. But the ordinary observer seldom attains farther than to comprehend some of the cries of anxiety and fear around him, often so unlike the accustomed carol of the bird,—as the mew of the Cat-Bird, the lamb-like bleating of the Veery and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the valley, and gazed at the vast slope of Helvellyn, and at Thirlmere beneath it, and at Eagle's Crag and Raven's Crag, which beheld themselves in it, and we cast many a look behind at Blencathra, and that noble brotherhood of mountains out of the midst of which we came. But, to say the truth, I was weary of fine ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 'Abase Dhryfuss!' an' 'Abase Fr-rance!' an' thin come th' man on whom th' lies iv all th' wurruld is cinthred. Captain Dhryfuss plainly shows his throubles, which have made him look tin years younger. His raven hair is intirely white; an' his stalwart frame, with th' shoulders thrown back, is stooped an' weary. His haggard face was flushed with insolent confidence, an' th' cowa'dice in his face showed in his fearless eye. As he passed, a young ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... closely built with pretty houses, all of them surrounded by gardens and many by handsome grounds. Equidistant from the end of Main street and from each other, stood, in these cradle days, the two hotels of which the Capital could boast. Montgomery Hall, of bitter memory—like the much-sung "Raven of Zurich," for uncleanliness of nest and length of bill—had been the resort of country merchants, horse and cattle-men; but now the Solon of the hour dwelt therein, with the possible hero of many a field. The Exchange—of rather more pretensions and vastly more comfort—was at that ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... was dressed in the Phrygian cap, and simple garb of a Sicilian mariner. His appearance, as far as it could be judged of by the dim light of the lantern, was anything but prepossessing. A profusion of long, straggling, grizzly locks, once probably of raven hue, which evidently had not felt the barber's scissors for many a year, concealed the greater part of his face which was still further hidden by a patch over one eye, and a handkerchief bound round his head, while his mouth was surrounded ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... position on the platform added height to her goddess-like tallness, giving her the appearance of towering above every other person in the room, man or woman. The excessive pallor of her complexion was emphasised by the raven blackness of her wealth of hair, and the sombre midnight of her eyes; eyes with slumbering fire in them, qualified by a haunted look which veiled their burning intensity. Her brow was too broad and her chin too firm ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... from the opposite side. She was tall, finely formed, with features of remarkable beauty, though of a masculine and somewhat savage character, and with magnificent but fierce black eyes. Her skin was dark, and her hair raven black, contrasting strongly with the red band wound around it. Her kirtle was of murrey-coloured serge; simply, but becomingly fashioned. A glance sufficed to show her how matters stood with poor Ashbead, and, uttering a sharp angry cry, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... raven hair, Spreading is the parting straight, Mottled the complexion fair, Halting is the youthful gait. Hollow is the laughter free, Spectacled the limpid eye, Little will be left of me, In the ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... "Oh, cease such raven's croaking," says Molly, laying her hand upon his lips. "I will not listen to it. Whatever the Fates may be, Love, I ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... had risen some three or four feet, and the large and rapid steamers had commenced running. The "Raven," to the clerk of which he had intrusted the letter for Cottage Island, was a remarkably fast boat, and he had every reason to hope that his ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... been depopulated by the plague—all was silent, and the streets were matted with thick grass. In passing through an open space, which reminded me of a market-place, I heard the cuckoo with an indescribable sensation of pleasure mingled with solemnity. The sudden presence of a raven at a bridal banquet could scarcely have ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... sixteen or eighteen species, among which is the Raven, which here takes the place of the Crow, the two species not being able to live together, as the stronger robber drives away the weaker. Of the insectivorous birds, some sixty or seventy species are found here, among which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... knee, quickly recovers himself, rises as if nothing had happen'd, (he really sprains his ankle, but unfelt then)—and so the figure, Booth, the murderer, dress'd in plain black broadcloth, bare-headed, with full, glossy, raven hair, and his eyes like some mad animal's flashing with light and resolution, yet with a certain strange calmness, holds aloft in one hand a large knife—walks along not much back from the footlights—turns fully toward ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the garden of Paris' house. But Odysseus dissuaded him, and so did the King his brother; for they knew very well that Troy must be sacked, and the Achaeans satisfied with plunder, and death, and women. For after ten years of strife men raven for such things, and will not give over until they have them. Also it was written in the heart of Hera that the walls of Troy must be cast down, and the pride thereof made a byword. So it was that the counsel of King Menelaus was overpassed, and that of Odysseus ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door— Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... smile of rare tenderness lighting up her face as she saw Liban. The dim glow of a single lamp but half revealed the youthful figure, the pale, beautiful face, out of which the sun-colours had faded. Her hair of raven hue was gathered in massy coils over her head and fastened there by a spiral torque of gleaming gold. Her mantle, entirely black, which fell to her feet, made her features seem more strangely young, more startlingly in contrast ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... fresh complication. Nancy, who had chosen the good name of Lillian May, wanted to go with him. She, too, it appeared, was fresh from a Sunday-school book—one in which a girl of her own age was so proud of her long raven curls that she was brought to an illness and all her hair came out. There was a distressing picture of this little girl after a just Providence had done its work as a depilatory. And after she recovered from the fever, ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... and Henry Shelly discovered two bays abounding in excellent fish; these bays are still called by their names. Gates and Somers caused the long boat to be decked over, and sent Raven, the mate, with eight men, to Virginia to bring assistance to them, but nothing was ever heard of them afterwards, and after waiting six months all hopes were then given up. The chiefs of the expedition then determined to build two vessels of cedar, one of eighty tons and one of thirty. Their ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... monotony of stony fell and inhospitable hill, a forest of firs would creep, sloping, to their very summits. Far above our heads, only the fleecy clouds breaking into a variety of forms as they moved slowly along the mountain sides, and the raven's hoarse cry, or the shrill scream of the eagle, broke the prevailing solitude of ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... thy voice rend the air with such agitation? I bid thee live, once more remembering these tears of mine are shed alone for thee, in this dark and gloomy vault, and should I perish under this load of trouble, join the song of thrilling accents with the raven above my grave, and lay this tattered frame beside the banks of the Chattahoochee or the stream of Sawney's brook; sweet will be the song of death to your Ambulinia. My ghost shall visit you in the smiles of Paradise, and tell your high fame to the minds of that region, which ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the Manhattanese pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny the existence of the Molly, Captain Spike, and even of Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what they say, and shall go on and finish our narrative in our own way, just as if there were no such raven-throated ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... their sorciers and sorciares victches that they have their assembles and dances wt the Dewill, especially the evening of Marde gras. They look on the corbique or raven as a bad prognostick of death; the pie tells that ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... much wonder, that the Germanpoet Schiller loved to write by candle-light with a bottle of Rhine-wine upon the table. Nor do I wonder at the worthy schoolmaster Roger Ascham, when he says, in one of his letters from Germany to Mr. John Raven, of John's College; 'Tell Mr. Maden I will drink with him now a carouse of wine; and would to God he had a vessel of Rhenish wine; and perchance, when I come to Cambridge, I will so provide here, that every year I will have a little piece of Rhenish wine.' Nor, in fine, do I wonder at ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... have more interesting characteristics than the Common Crow, being, in many of his actions, very like the Raven, especially in his love for carrion. Like the Raven, he has been known to attack game, although his inferior size forces him to call to his assistance the aid of his fellows to cope with larger creatures. Rabbits ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... let you do that—bring me food, Phyllis," said Roxanne gently; and her little head with its raven black, heavy curls again rose to the stately pose of ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... you grip hold of my arm again like that, and stare across yonder over my shoulder as if you could see a raven hiding in one of ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... occurrence of certain contingent circumstances soon creates the easiest of theories. Should a bird of good omen, in ancient times, perch on the standard, or hover about an army, the omen was of good import, and favourable to conquest. Should a raven or crow accidentally fly over the field of action, the spirits of the combatants would be proportionably depressed. Should a planet be shining in its brilliancy at the birth of any one whose fortunes rose to pre-eminence, it was always thought to exert ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... church one day, and sat on the organ enjoying the music; for every one was singing, and I joined in, though I didn't know the air. Opposite me were two great tablets with golden letters on them. I can read a little, thanks to my friend, the learned raven; and so I spelt out some of the words. One was, 'Love thy neighbor;' and as I sat there, looking down on the people, I wondered how they could see those words week after week, and yet pay so little heed to them. Goodness knows, I don't consider myself a perfect bird; far from ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... hazel-thicket here but now She dropped her new-yeaned twins on the bare flint, Hope of the flock- an ill, I mind me well, Which many a time, but for my blinded sense, The thunder-stricken oak foretold, oft too From hollow trunk the raven's ominous cry. But who this god of yours? Come, ...
— The Bucolics and Eclogues • Virgil
... how Raven first came to be, and we have many different beginnings to start from, but in Sitka we know that Raven never had beginning nor will he have ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... cannot check the gleeful mirth, or hush the clear ringing laughter of one at least of the fair maidens, who, since last we looked upon them, have grown up to womanhood. Wondrously beautiful is Maggie Miller now, with her bright sunny face, her soft dark eyes and raven hair, so glossy and smooth that her sister, the pale-faced, blue-eyed Theo, likens it to a piece of shining satin. Now, as ever, the pet and darling of the household, she moves among them like a ray of sunshine; and ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... tarried a little while at Abouthis, and, having been commanded to do so, let my hair, that had been shorn, grow again long and black as the raven's wing, instructing myself meanwhile in all manly exercises and feats of arms. Also, for a purpose which shall be seen, I perfected myself in the magic art of the Egyptians, and in the reading of the stars, in which things, indeed, I already have ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... raven spires of hair, that fair, That turret-bosom's shine! False friends! from me that banish'd thee, Who fain would call ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... that, lassie; but ye see I canna luik for muckle help frae you for some time: ye'll hae eneuch to dee wi' that bairn o' yours; and we hae him to fen for noo as weel's oorsels! No 'at I hae the least concern aboot the bonny white raven, only we maun consider him like the lave!" "It's little he'll want for a whilie, father!" answered Maggie. "—But noo," she went on, in a tone of seriousness that was almost awe, "lat me hear what ye're thinkin:—what ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... tree is one of them. It has altogether a most goblin-like, bewitched air, with its dusky black leaves and ragged branches, throwing themselves straight out with odd twists and angular lines, and might put one in mind of an old raven with some of his feathers pulled out, or a black cat with her hair stroked the wrong way, or any other strange, uncanny thing. Besides this they live almost forever; for when they have grown so old that any respectable tree ought to be thinking of dying, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... you, even at noon-day, in lonely places, on vacant hillside, beneath the dark boughs of great trees, in the presence of the grim and silent rocks, and by the solitary margin of the sea. The feeling was that of Goethe's own weird and suggestive scene of the Open Field, the black horses, and the raven-stone; or that of the ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... Raven cycle of American Indian mythology indicated that these stories originated in the northern part of British Columbia and traveled southward along the coast. One of the evidences of the direction of this progress is the gradual diminution of ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... from the position occupied by the Mackenzies, the opposing forces being only separated from each other by a peat moss, full of deep pits and deceitful bogs. Kenneth, fearing a siege, had shortly before this prevailed upon his aged father to retire to the Raven's Rock, above Strathpeffer, to which place, strong and easily defended, he resolved to follow him in case he were compelled to retreat before the numerically superior force of his enemy. This the venerable Alexander ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... strange-looking man crept out of the ball, which was made of his own hair. He was no higher than my shoulders. One of his feet made a strange track, the like of which the Indians had never seen before. His face was as black as the shell of the butter-nut, or the feathers of the raven, and his eyes as green as grass. And stranger yet was his hair, for it was of the colour of moss, and so long that, as the wind blew it out, it seemed the tail of a fiery star. There he stood, grinning and laughing very loud. "What ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... "Hello, Raven, that you?" said Cameron indifferently. "Hope you are fit?" But he made no motion to offer his hand nor did he introduce him to the company. At the sound of his name Dr. Martin started and swept his keen eyes over the stranger's face. He ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... snow on one side of our valley, and early in the morning came upon a two-year-old bear, not far from camp. The bear was grubbing about on the hillside, and we took our position so that he crossed us under a hundred yards. Unbeknown to me, and just as I was about to fire, my native gave the caw of a raven to hold the bear up. He whipped around and faced us, my bullet entering the brush on one side of him. Off he rushed into the woods with the dog after him. I followed, and on coming out into a clearing saw the dog being left far behind on the mountain side. Old Tchort ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven Tree. Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... him, and the old lust of vengeance flamed from his eyes. Hat and disguising coat were cast aside. For a moment his form, rigid and erect, gleamed like a statue of copper cut in stern relentless lines, and the single crimson feather in his raven locks matched, in gold, the silver brightness of his ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... himself, his appearance and character, gave us a second and greater surprise. He was a well-shaped man of medium height; although past middle life he looked young, and had no white thread in his raven-black hair and beard. His teeth were white and even, and his features as perfect as I have seen in any man. His eyes were pure dark blue, contrasting rather strangely with his pale olive skin and intense black hair. Only a woodman, but he might have come of one of the oldest and best families in ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... is easily done,' said the eldest brother, jumping into the basket, which at once began to move—up, and up, and up—till he had gone about half-way, when a fat black raven flew at him and pecked him till he was nearly blind, so that he was forced to go back the way ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... of fashion, I am only a homely old woman; no prestige comes in to garnish the unvarnished fact—a plain old maid, my dear—with not even the remembrance of beauty as a consolation, nor its remnant as a sign of past triumphs, 'only this and nothing more,' as that wonderful man Poe makes his raven say. We never find our level until we go among people who know and care nothing about us, who have never 'heard of us'—that exordium of most greetings from folks of our own class. It is absolutely refreshing to be so unaffectedly despised and slighted—it does ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... feet. Cheer up!" said Balbus, mocking, "Thou wilt have a still better reception from Caiaphas," and the soldiers shouted as they marched, "There will be the raven's croak about thine ears!" ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... Melancholy Of Cerberus, and blackest midnight born, In Stygian Cave forlorn 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shreiks, and sights unholy, Find out som uncouth cell, Where brooding darknes spreads his jealous wings, And the night-Raven sings; There under Ebon shades and low-brow'd Rocks, As ragged as thy Locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. 10 But com thou Goddes fair and free, In Heav'n ycleap'd Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more To ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... leave your logic-straws, Your former-friends with face averted, Your petty ways and narrow laws, Your Grundy and your God, deserted. From your frail ark of lies, I flee I know not where, like Noah's raven. Full to the broad, unsounded sea I swim from ...
— New Poems • Robert Louis Stevenson
... raven croaks as Torksey's lord Attends that bannered host; But the lover is deaf to the omen-bird— The fatal moat ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Raven." A poor weaver in Edinburgh lost his situation one winter, on account of business being so dull. He begged earnestly of his employer to let him have work; but he said it was impossible. Well said he, "I'm sure the Lord will help." When he ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... white face made a striking contrast with his raven hair. His heavy head was thrust forward, his big hands clenched. He spoke in an oddly, curt, dry voice, which, however did not hide the feeling ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... 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, and their notes revising, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Paul wandered a changeling about the Bludston streets. In the rows of urchins in the crowded Board School classroom he sat as conspicuous as any little Martian who might have been bundled down to earth. He had wavy black hair, of raven black, a dark olive complexion, flushed, in spite of haphazard nourishment and nights spent on the stone floor of the reeking scullery, with the warm blood of health, great liquid black eyes, and the exquisitely delicate features of a young Praxitelean god. It was this preposterous ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... shots." The common lark is drawn down from the sky, and is caught in large numbers, by a small mirror made to move and glitter in the sun. Is it admiration or curiosity which leads the magpie, raven, and some other birds to steal and secrete bright objects, such as silver ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... exclaimed Diliana in horror, "where has the wolf gone? we were pursuing a wolf." Upon which the horrible and accursed night-raven recovered herself quickly, and pointing with her finger to the crucifix which lay upon the ground, said with a tone of mingled scorn and anger, "There, thou stupid fool! he sank ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... the raven's feathers were white as snow. He was a beautiful bird, but the other birds did not like him because he was a thief. When they saw him coming, they would hide away the things that they cared for most, ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... philologist, and we may be permitted in charity to suppose that he derived "raven" and "ravenous" ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... he know the wily witch, With sweet white face and raven hair? Who by her art bewitched his ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... fair, They called her the beautiful Star. No one else can be taken for her, With her beauty no girl can compare. Both the sun and the moon seem to shine, Resplendent they shine from a height, Their rays to her beauty resign Their brilliant light with delight. Her hair is a soft raven black, Her tresses are bound with gold thread, They fall in long folds down her back, And add charm to her beautiful head. Her eyelashes brighten her face, Two rainbows less brilliant and fair, Her eyes full of mercy and grace, With nought but two, suns can compare. The eyelids ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... at her gown. "Go not without my thanks, though I must reject thy counsel. To-morrow I am admitted into the Brotherhood of Righteousness." In the fading light his face shone weird and unearthly amid the raven hair. "But why didst thou risk thy good name to tell me ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... me give you a piece of advice, old man; fill your mouth full of tow, light it, and blow at everybody. Or, better still, take your hat and go home. This is a wedding, we all want to enjoy ourselves and you are croaking like a raven. Yes, really. ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov
... when the merriment was at its height, something happened! There was a sudden cry, and a harsh voice, like the croaking of a raven, sounded through ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... might have been incorporated with higher forms of life than that into which it eventually fell. Another artist was also on the wing early, and in pursuit of a tin pan in which to hide her precious compound, she unwittingly seized this one, and the rich white soup rolled down her raven locks like the oil on Aaron's beard, and enveloped her in a veil of filmy whiteness. I heard the splash and the exclamation of surprise and entered the butler's pantry just in time to see the heiress of the Smith estate standing like a statue, tin pan in hand, soup in her curls, her eyebrows ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... She wore on her raven-black tresses a golden diadem set with jewels. Her hair flowed down upon a robe of rosy satin and creamy velvet. She stretched out two small, white hands to the count and addressed him ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... woman were pushed into the arena by a couple of Sagoth guardsmen. I leaned forward in my seat to scrutinize the female—hoping against hope that she might prove to be another than Dian the Beautiful. Her back was toward me for a while, and the sight of the great mass of raven hair piled high upon her ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... fair virgin, a nose among the larger, Feet not dainty, nor eyes to match a raven, Mouth scarce tenible, hands not wholly faultless, Tongue most surely not absolute refinement, Bankrupt Formian, your declar'd devotion. 5 Thou the beauty, the talk of all the province? Thou my Lesbia tamely think to rival? O preposterous, ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... suppose tender. She would have been meanwhile a wonderful lioness for a show, an extraordinary figure in a cage or anywhere; majestic, magnificent, high-coloured, all brilliant gloss, perpetual satin, twinkling bugles and flashing gems, with a lustre of agate eyes, a sheen of raven hair, a polish of complexion that was like that of well-kept china and that—as if the skin were too tight—told especially at curves and corners. Her niece had a quiet name for her—she kept it quiet; thinking of her, ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... room in which I was standing, Stately and swift, came a woman and entered. Tall as the tallest. Made firmly, knit firmly Both in form and in limb, but full and well rounded; Dark of eye, dark of face, with hair like a raven, Like the girls of Nevada, where live the old races, Whose blood is as fire, and whose skin is of olive, Whose mouths are as sweet as a fig when it ripens. Arms bare to the shoulders. Neck and bosom uncovered. Her gown of white satin gleamed and flowed downward ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... something; it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt, and in Airlie Square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are Nanny's raven locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving for his life, and here is Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. That is all the story save that when Nanny heard ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... of thy spring was withered. Stricken by thy fell malady, and vanquished, Did'st perish, O my darling! and the blossom Of thy years sawest; Thy heart was never melted At the sweet praise, now of thy raven tresses, Now of thy glances amorous and bashful; Never with thee the holiday-free maidens ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... had their type in the world of souls, a manitu, which kept guard over them. Ralston, in his "Songs of the Russian People," tells us that Buyan, the island paradise of Russian mythology, contains a serpent older than all others, a larger raven, a finer queen bee, and so of all other animals. Morgan, in his work upon the Iroquois, observes that they believe in a spirit or god of every species of ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... how it was. You know the waterfall at the head of Raven's Nook? Well, I have long wanted to take that, so I went up with father and Mr Mabberly. We found the captain and McGregor sitting there smoking their pipes, and when I was arranging the camera, the captain said ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... the basic theme, else it will be too abstract and general. It is so closely allied to the plot that they should be born synchronously—or if anything the title should precede the plot; for the story is built up around the central thought that the title expresses, much as Poe said he wrote "The Raven" about the word "nevermore." At least, the title should be definitely fixed long before the story is completed, and often before it has taken definite form in the writer's mind. That this is the practice of professional writers may be proved by a glance at the literary column of any periodical, ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... not care a fig about melody of voice, or science in quavering; I am not talking about sweetness of tone; what I mean to say is, that I do not believe there is a man living, even though he have no more voice than a raven, who is human, and yet never sang to the baby, always assuming that ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... conversation after meals. In addition to its use as a dining-room, the Hall also served as a lecture-room, and for the production of stage plays. On these latter occasions it seems to have been specially decorated, for Roger Ascham, writing 1st October 1550, from Antwerp, to his brother Fellow, Edward Raven, tried to picture to him the magnificence of the city by saying that it surpassed all others which he had visited, as much as the Hall at St. John's, when decorated for a play at Christmas, surpassed its appearance at ...
— St. John's College, Cambridge • Robert Forsyth Scott
... mangroves, and here and there an isolated group of large and small, parents and children, breeding and spreading, as if in hideous haste to choke out air and sky. Wailing sadly, sad-colored mangrove-hens ran off across the mud into the dreary dark. The hoarse night-raven, hid among the roots, startled the voyagers with a sudden shout, and then all was again silent as a grave. The loathly alligators, lounging in the slime, lifted their horny eyelids lazily, and leered upon him as he passed with ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... vera dear bargain at half the price to any woman, Colin. And you never saw Isabel. She was here when you were in Glasgow. She has the bonniest black e'en in Scotland, and hair like a raven's wing." ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... around. He was a man whose years would have been pronounced as five-and-forty by the friendly, fifty by the candid, fifty-two or three by the grim. He was as handsome a study in grey as could be seen in town, there being far more of the raven's plumage than of the gull's in the mixture as yet; and he had a glance of that practised sort which can measure people, weigh them, repress them, encourage them to sprout and blossom as a March sun encourages crocuses, ask them questions, give them answers—in short, a glance that could ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... reverence she slipped that on and kissed it bitterly. She lifted out also her mother's locket containing a miniature daguerreotype of her father and dutifully fed her eyes on that. Her father was not silver-haired then, but raven-locked; with eyes that men feared at times but no ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... blades, and the straw, innumerable autumn cobwebs flashed and trembled. I stopped. I began to feel sad; it seemed a dismal fear of approaching winter was stealing through the gay, though fresh, smile of fading nature. High above me, a cautious raven flew by, heavily and sharply cutting the air with his wings; then he turned his head, looked at me sidewise, and, croaking abruptly, disappeared beyond the forest; a large flock of pigeons rushed past me from a barn, and, suddenly whirling about in a column, they came ...
— The Rendezvous - 1907 • Ivan Turgenev |
