"Bobolink" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rode slowly, in hopes of seeing a face bend over the flowers; but the person who drew the curtain remained invisible. On the piazza nothing was in motion, except the peacock strutting along, stately as a court beauty, and drawing after him his long train of jewelled plumage. A voice, joyous as a bobolink's, sounded apparently from the garden. He could not hear the words, but the lively tones at once suggested, "Petit blanc, mon bon frere." He recalled the words so carelessly uttered, "Of course not, for she was a quadroon," and they seemed to make harsh discord with the refrain ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... one of the few children who can see the fairies. He knew how to coax the flower fairies to speak to him, and how to find the wood fairies when they hid among the ferns, and how to laugh back when the wymps made fun of him; and, above all, he knew how to find his way to Bobolink, the Purple Enchanter, who knows everything. And he found his way to Bobolink, on the evening of that very ...
— All the Way to Fairyland - Fairy Stories • Evelyn Sharp
... and across the river. He would make it very plain to her and her friends that he had not come, ahead of his business appointment, to thrust himself upon her, but to get a breath of heaven's own air—being very tired of walls and pavements—and to—to discover the bobolink! ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... crawled up to the brush fence, on the very edge of the grove, and peeked through did I see the performer. Out on the end of a long delicate branch, a few feet above the ground, a small crow was clinging, swaying up and down like a bobolink on a cardinal flower, balancing himself gracefully by spreading his wings, and every few minutes giving the strange cracking sound, accompanied by a flirt of his wings and tail as the branch swayed upward. At every repetition the crows hawed in applause. I watched them ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... weeks and three days. In addition to the receipts in specie, Mr. Bamborough had received several nuggets from the gold miners in Colorado, and a bull moose from Mr. KERMIT ROOSEVELT, while Mrs. Bamborough had been the recipient of a highly-trained bobolink, and a charming young alligator from the cedar swamps ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... his performance, but the sentiment expressed is eminently that of cheerfulness. Indeed, the songs of most birds have some human significance, which, I think, is the source of the delight we take in them. The song of the bobolink to me expresses hilarity; the song sparrow's, faith; the bluebird's, love; the catbird's, pride; the white-eyed flycatcher's, self-consciousness; that of the hermit thrush, spiritual serenity: while there is something military in the call of ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... be studied seriously. The naturalists will tell us more about them, and interest us more, than the poets. Mr. Bryant makes fun of the bobolink, and turns into an aimless whistle the solemn oration on domestic matters uttered by that small but energetic American to his mate. The waterfowl he treats more gravely and respectfully, but he still makes it only a part of the landscape and the theme, without ascribing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... quadrupeds, reptiles, or machines, he gives very accurately; but I have heard numbers of Mocking-Birds in confinement attempt to imitate the Canary, and always without success. There is a common saying, that the Mocking-Bird will die of chagrin, if placed in a cage by the side of a caged Bobolink, mortified because he cannot give utterance to his rapid notes. If this were the cause of his death, he would also die when caged in a room with a Canary, a Goldfinch, or any of the rapidly singing Finches. It is also an error to say of his imitations, as the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... spoke eloquently. 2. She chattered incessantly. 3. They searched everywhere. 4. I shall know presently. 5. The bobolink sings joyously. 6. The crowd cheered heartily. 7. A great victory was finally won. 8. Threatening clouds are moving slowly. 9. The deafening waves dash angrily. 10. These questions may be settled peaceably. 11. The wounded soldier fought bravely. 12. The ranks were quickly broken. ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... joints of one's twenty digits. While I was on it, "pinnacled dim in the intense inane," a strong wind was blowing, and I felt sure that the spire was rocking. It swayed back and forward like a stalk of rye or a cat-o'nine-tails (bulrush) with a bobolink on it. I mentioned it to the guide, and he said that the spire did really swing back and forward,—I ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... had become very much alarmed at the prospect of the total extinction of our song-birds. The Bobolink seemed to be disappearing from the field in Massachusetts, the beautiful Summer Red Bird had become extinct, and the Oriole and the Scarlet Tanager had almost disappeared. Many varieties of songbirds which were familiar ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... several people sang, "The Creation." Nilsson was Gabriel. Gabriel has a beautiful voice cut low in the neck, and sings like a joyous bobolink in the dew-saturated mead. How's that? Nilsson is proud and haughty in her demeanor, and I had a good notion to send a note up to her, stating that she needn't feel so lofty, and if she could sit up in the peanut gallery where I was and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye |
