"Darkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... withdraws what He once gives. The fountain sinks not a hairs-breadth, though nineteen centuries have drawn from it. Modern astronomy begins to believe that the sun itself by long expense of light will be shorn of its beams and wander darkling in space, circled no more by its daughter planets. But this Sun of our souls rays out for ever the energies of life and light and love, and after all communication possesses the infinite fulness of them all. 'His name shall be continued ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... The darkling day that gave its bloodred birth To Milton's white republic undefiled That might endure so few fleet years on earth Bore in him likewise as divine a child; But born not less for crowns of love and mirth, Of palm and myrtle passionate and mild, The leaf that girds about with ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Marsk Stig, With a darkling brow and kindling eye: “’Tis a saying true and an old one too That insult ...
— Marsk Stig - a ballad - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... her, before may again return;—no, I will not, to save being thought a fool, neglect the course she points out. Many of her class set out by being impostors, and end by becoming enthusiasts, or hold a kind of darkling conduct between both lines, unconscious almost when they are cheating themselves, or when imposing on others.—Well, my course is a plain one at any rate; and if my efforts are fruitless, it shall not be owing to over-jealousy of my own ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... in nearly the whole of the growing season dodging one another through the close twigged manzanita, lilac, laurel and mahogany that broke upward along the shining bouldered coasts of San Jacinto. the chaparral at this season took all the changes of the incoming surf, blue in the shadows, darkling green about the heads of the gulches, or riffling with the white under side of wind-lifted leaves. Once its murmurous swell had closed over them, the mule-deer would have his own way with the Pot ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... welcome, the auspicious day, When from the mountain where he darkling lay, The Polish sun into the firmament Sprung all the brighter for his late ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... forward and commanded the whole band to march to the amphitheatre. Accordingly, two by two, the bishop leading the way with the sainted woman Anna, they walked to the gates. Here a guard of soldiers was waiting to receive them, and under their escort they threaded the narrow, darkling streets till they came to that door of the amphitheatre which was used by those who were to take part in the games. Now, at a word from the bishop, they began to chant a solemn hymn, and singing thus, were thrust along the passages to the place prepared ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... not very easy under this hint,'Ha!—aye,' he said; 'it is time to be going, neighbour. I have a many miles to ride, and I care not to ride darkling in these parts. You and I, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... darkling sweep of desert had been transformed. It was now a world of red earth and gold rocks and purple sage, with everywhere the endless straggling green cedars. A breeze whipped in, making the fire roar softly. The ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Darkling{7} I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... under foot, full of fresh, uncrumpling leaves. He sat down beside the pool; the silence of the wide fields was broken only by the faint rustling of sedge and tree, and the piping of a bird, hid in some darkling bush hard by. Never had Hugh been more conscious of the genial outburst of life all about him, yet never more aware of his isolation from it all. His body seemed to belong to it all, swayed and governed by the same laws that prompted ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... drew her heed to the east; where, down the darkling, lamp-studded canyon of a cross-town street, stark against a sky pulsing with the faintest foreboding of daybreak, the gaunt, steel-girdered framework of the new Grand Central Station stood—in its harshly angular immensity as majestic as the blackened ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... studded with grey warships, surrounding, had before them a wonderful spectacle as the morning sun, rising from the Pacific, slowly dispersed the darkness. The thunder of the great guns broke suddenly upon that stillness which only dawn knows, and their discharges flashed redly on the darkling slopes. The Japanese shooting, it is related, displayed remarkable accuracy, some of the first projectiles bursting upon the enormous oil-tanks of the Standard Oil Company and the Asiatic Petroleum Company. A blaze ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... Whoever would with success try this spell must strictly observe these directions. Steal out all alone to the kiln, and darkling, throw into the pot, a clue of blue yarn: wind it in a new clue off the old one; and towards the latter end, something will hold the thread: demand, wha hauds? i.e., who holds? and answer will be returned ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... not tell him all The evil that my boding heart predicts! Who's there? The door ne'er opens, but I look For tidings of mishap. Suspicion lurks With darkling treachery in every nook. Even to our inmost rooms they force their way, These myrmidons of power; and soon we'll need To fasten bolts and bars ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... an entry. It was David who thought of this. It reminded him of Jack and the Beanstalk, where Jack, reaching the top of the vine, found himself in a strange country. Susan did not remember much about Jack. She was engrossed in recognizing the ravine, scanning the darkling hollows for the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... sea, white with the sails of four thousand ships; the green fields of the Chersonese smiled invitingly a little further on; while, between him and the opposite shore, the long lines of his bridges lay darkling upon the sea, like a yoke placed upon the neck of a captive. Having seen all, the king gave his special attention to the fleet, which he now perhaps beheld in all its magnitude for the first time. Desirous of knowing which of his subjects were the best sailors, he gave orders ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... with a hundred thousand flowers; of the bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music;—always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard:—it is to think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens shuddering—after midnight—when he is sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the density Of darkling woods, do I behold The intervening flecks of gold Reveal ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... tribute, the abuse to praise, And took both with the same unwavering mood: Till, as he came on light, from darkling days, And seem to touch the goal from where ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... what is more, I do not want to,' Andrea retorted stubbornly, enveloping her in a darkling look in which burned the fever of his desire. 'All I know is that you were mine once—wholly and without reserve, and I know that body and soul ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... Thou lovest most to be softly gleaming? Is it on some rich bank of flowers Where 'neath each blossom a fay lies dreaming? Or is it on yonder silver lake Where the fish in green and gold are sparkling? Or is it among those ancient trees Where the tremulous shadows move soft and darkling? Oh, no! said the moon, with a playful smile, The best of my beams are for ever dwelling In the exquisite eyes, so deeply blue, And the eloquent glance of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... safety hath announced it; The very demons shriek it from their caves; The scroll[151] of Enoch prophesied it long In silent books, which, in their silence, say More to the mind than thunder to the ear: And yet men listened not, nor listen; but Walk darkling to their doom: which, though so nigh, Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief, 280 Than their last cries shall shake the Almighty purpose, Or deaf obedient Ocean, which fulfils it. No sign yet hangs its banner in the air; The clouds are few, and of their wonted ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... and classes went, grilling him with eyes. Newcomers received the story of the crime in darkling whispers; and the outcast sat and sat and sat, and squirmed and squirmed and squirmed. (He did one or two things with his spine which a professional contortionist would have observed with real interest.) And all this while of ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... on the darkling street. He fell again into reverie, gigantically brooded over by shapes only imagination dimly conceived of: the remote alleys of his mind astir with a shadowy and ceaseless traffic which it wasn't at least THIS life's business to hearken after, or regard. And as he stood there in a mysteriously ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... chillness feel: Now, with his targe of willow at his breast, The Syracusan bears his spear in rest, Amongst these Hiero arms him for the war, Eager to fight as warriors fought of yore; The plumes float darkling o'er his helmed brow. O Zeus, the sire most glorious; and O thou, Empress Athene; and thou, damsel fair, Who with thy mother wast decreed to bear Rule o'er rich Corinth, o'er that city of pride Beside whose walls Anapus' waters glide:— May ill ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... darkling fishes grope. Cautious to stir, staring with jewel eyes; Dogs of the sea, the savage congers mope, Winding their sulky ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... Darkling I listen; and for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... and conforming souls Mrs. Nitschkan cast a darkling eye. It was the recalcitrant, the defiant, the professing sinner upon ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... turns he knitted himself to his foe. The wind now acting on the sails of the Serapis forced her, heel and point, her entire length, cheek by jowl, alongside the Richard. The projecting cannon scraped; the yards interlocked; but the hulls did not touch. A long lane of darkling water lay wedged between, like that narrow canal in Venice which dozes between two shadowy piles, and high in air is secretly crossed by the Bridge of Sighs. But where the six yard-arms reciprocally arched overhead, three bridges of sighs were both seen ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... companionship as their fate afforded; it became, without marriage, that affectionate comradery which wedded love passes into with the lapse of as many years as they had been plighted. "What," I once suggested to my wife, in a very darkling mood—"what if they should gradually grow apart, and end in rejoicing that they had never been allowed to join their lives? Wouldn't ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... become in verity a sad task, and I eke it out with anything. If I could slip out of it I should be happy; but our chief-reputed assistants have forsaken us. The Opium-Eater crossed us once with a dazzling path, and hath as suddenly left us darkling; and, in short, I shall go on from dull to worse, because I cannot resist the booksellers' importunity,—the old plea, you know, of authors; but I believe on my part sincere. Hartley I do not so often see, but I never see him in unwelcome ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... drove, away from crowded pavements, towards the Man Sagar Lake, where ruined temples and palaces dreamed and gleamed, knee deep in the darkling water; where jackals prowled and cranes nested and muggers dozed unheeding. At a point of vantage above the Lake, they halted and sat there awhile in darkness—a group of silent shadows. Words did not meet the case. Even Vernon ceased his jigging and baby Phyllis uttered ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... Hardy's reverie, that God Himself has forgotten the existence of earth, this "tiny sphere," this "tainted ball," "so poor a thing," and has left all human life to be the plaything of blind chance. This sad conviction is hardly ruffled by "The Darkling Thrush," which goes as far towards optimism as Mr. Hardy can let himself be drawn, or by such reflections as those in "On a ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... the majority of us could not see the singer, which enhanced the mystery of her melody and the charm of her young voice. Presently other voices joined in, all in the same meditative, somewhat doleful rhythm. Gayer strains would have sounded sacrilegiously out of tune with the darkling glint of the river, with the mysterious splash of its waves against the bobbing bulkheads of the pier, with the starry enchantment of the passing ferry-boats, with the love-enraptured solemnity ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... toward our myth's oblivion, Darkling, and languid-lipped, we creep and grope Sadlier than those who wept in Babylon, Whose Zion was ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... apace. The silver of the eastern sky changed to gold, deeper and deeper, till the yellow merged into a roseate sheen which shone down upon the cloud mists, and tinged them with the hue of blood. Light was over the darkling forests, and as it brightened the voice of the forest legions died away in the distance, and the battleground was deserted of all but the author of ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Now smoking and frothing Its tumult and wrath in, Till, in this rapid race On which it is bent, It reaches the place Of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... looked up again the woman was old. And the woman was old and hoary with years, and her body had shrunk with age, and she had very little life left. But when I looked up the sky was darkling toward night, yes dark like night, and the woman was without hair. I looked to her and knew her not and knew not the sky, and when I looked toward the ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... channels past our telling, Gentle, resistless, welling, welling, welling; Through what blind ways, we know not whence You darkling come to dance and dimple— Strange little spring! Nature hath no such innocence, And no more secret thing— So mysterious and so simple; Earth hath no such fairy daughter Of all her witchcraft shapes ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... thwart and resumed his task of baling with renewed zest. "Nevertheless," he continued, "it will be well to keep her afloat as long as we may, since she affords a bigger mark to steer for than would the heads of us two afloat upon the darkling water." ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Mount Alban is the first to say, They should not combat darkling, on the plain; But should their duel till such time delay As slow Arcturus should have turned his wain. (And adds,) as safely as himself might stay The foe in his pavilion, of his train As duly tended, honoured, and well seen, As he in ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... snatched her from my sight, And I was darkling left, All in the cold and gloomy night, Of light and ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... know, nuncle, The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long That it had it head bit off by it young. So out went the candle, and we were left darkling. ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... sword; And he drank and smiled on Grimhild above the beaker's rim, And she looked and laughed at his laughter; and the soul was changed in him. Men gazed and their hearts sank in them, and they knew not why it was, Why the fair-lit hall was darkling, nor what had come to pass: For they saw the sorrow of Sigurd, who had seen but his deeds erewhile, And the face of the mighty darkened, who had known but the light of ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... Smile! As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam: What time, in sickly mood, at parting day 5 I lay me down and think of happier years; Of joys, that glimmer'd in Hope's twilight ray, Then left me darkling in a vale of tears. O pleasant days of Hope—for ever gone! Could I recall you!—But that thought is vain. 10 Availeth not Persuasion's sweetest tone To lure the fleet-wing'd Travellers back again: Yet fair, though faint, their images shall gleam Like the bright Rainbow ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... arrived at a hillside, at the foot of which lay the lake, whose darkling waters were just distinguishable through an opening in the trees. As the duke was debating with himself whether to go on or retrace his course, the trampling of a horse was heard behind them, and looking in the direction ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... dance and flurry of leafy shadows on the sward; for stilly wayside pools whose waters, deep and dark in the shade of overhanging boughs, are yet dappled here and there with glory; for merry brooks leaping and laughing along their stony beds; for darkling copse and sunny upland,—oho! for youth and life and the ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... "Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... fed without a twitch of the lips. She was in a great mood, a rapt and pillared saint; but when mass was over and his thanksgiving to make, she got up and hid herself away from him in the shades. There she lurked darkling, and he, lunging out, swept with his sword's point the very edge of her gown. She did not hear him go, for he trod like a cat; but she felt him touch her with the sword, and shuddered once or twice. He went out of the courtyard at ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... sturdy spear too, tipp'd with brass, he took: Without the tent he stood; and there his eyes A woful sight beheld; the Greeks in flight, The haughty Trojans pressing on their rout Confus'd; the Greeks' protecting wall o'erthrown. As heaves the darkling sea with silent swell, Expectant of the boist'rous gale's approach; Nor onward either way is pour'd its flood, Until it feel th' impelling blast from Heav'n; So stood th' old man, his mind perplex'd with ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... the shy dawn unfoldeth The enchanted radiance of the morning sun— Recall our love when darkling night beholdeth Veiled trains of silvery stars pass one by one, When wild thy bosom palpitates with pleasure, Or when the shades of night lull thee in dreamy measure; Then lend a willing ear To murmurings far and near: ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... of the ship made an opaque belt of shadow on the darkling glassy shimmer of the sea. But I saw at once something elongated and pale floating very close to the ladder. Before I could form a guess a faint flash of phosphorescent light, which seemed to issue suddenly from the ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... bound No other tree could live. But gallantly The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung In crimson clusters all the boughs among, Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee; And oft at nights the garden overflows With one sweet song that seems to have no close, Sung darkling from our ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... I caught a darkling glimpse of a large room, apparently quite furnished; but how, except from the general feeling of antiquity and mustiness, I could not tell. Little did I think then what memories—old, now, like the ghosts that with them haunt the ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... thou heardest her, but nigh; Nigh, 'twixt the waste's edge and the darkling sky. Turn back again, too soon it ...
— Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough • William Morris
... With harmonies of wind and wave and wood —Of winds which tell of waters, and of waters Betraying the close kisses of the wind— And win him unto me: and few there be So gross of heart who have not felt and known A higher than they see: They with dim eyes Behold me darkling. Lo! I have given thee To understand my presence, and to feel My fullness; I have fill'd thy lips with power. I have rais'd thee higher to the Spheres of Heaven, Man's first, last home: and thou with ravish'd sense Listenest the lordly music flowing from Th' illimitable ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... sheltering wing is bent, Till manhood rudely throws it by. Oh, then with mad disdain we spurn A mother's gentle teaching; throw Her bosom from us, and we burn, To rush in freedom, where the glow Of pleasure lights the dancing wave: We launch the bark, we woo the gale, And reckless of the darkling grave That yawns below, we ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... as the world I should foreknow Up into which I was about to rise— Its rains, its radiance, airs, and warmth, and skies, How it would greet me, how its wind would blow— As little, it may be, I do know the good Which I for years half darkling have pursued— The second birth for which ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... Arthur knew the voice; the face Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind. And Arthur deign'd not use of word or sword, But let the drunkard, as he stretch'd from horse To strike him, overbalancing his bulk, Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... mountain where I stood, Homesick for happiness, Only a narrow valley and a darkling wood To cross, and then the long distress Of solitude would be forever past,— I should be home at last. But not too soon! oh, let me linger here And feed my eyes, hungry with sorrow, On all this loveliness, so ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... that most weirdly wonderful of all Mr. Kipling's inventions—the one that carries us back, not as his other stories do, to the India of the cities and the bazaars, of the supercilious tourist and the sleek Babu, but to the older India of unbroken jungle, darkling at noonday through its green mist of tangled leaves, and haunted by memories of the world's long infancy when man and brute crouched close together on the earthy breast ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... Castlewood slopes down towards the river, which is spanned by an old bridge of a single broad arch, and from this the ground rises gradually towards the house, grey with many gables and buttresses, and backed by a darkling wood. An old man sate at the wicket on a stone bench in front of the great arched entrance to the house, over which the earl's hatchment was hanging. An old dog was crouched at the man's feet. Immediately above the ancient sentry at the gate was an open ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... began to look out for land. The weather had greatly improved during the night; and, for the first time since leaving the Hebrides, the sun had got the better of the clouds, and driven them in confusion before his face. The sea, losing its dead leaden colour, had become quite crisp and burnished, darkling into a deep sapphire blue against the horizon; beyond which, at about nine o'clock, there suddenly shot up towards the zenith, a pale, gold aureole, such as precedes the appearance of the good fairy at a pantomime farce; then, gradually lifting its huge back above the water, rose a silver ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... white and crimson between the gleaming surfaces of dark wood; and the whole room had an air of splendour with marble consoles, gilt carvings, long mirrors and a sumptuous Venetian lustre depending from the ceiling: a darkling mass of icy pendants catching a spark here and there from the candles of an eight-branched candelabra standing on a little table near the head of a sofa which had been dragged round to face the fireplace. The faintest ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... came down a long reach of the Shenandoah crossed the road. The ford was waist-deep, but the tall Virginians, plunging without hesitation into the strong current, gained the opposite shore with little loss of time. The guns and waggons followed in long succession through the darkling waters, and still the heavy tramp of the toiling column passed eastward through the quiet fields. The Blue Ridge was crossed at Ashby's Gap; and at two o'clock in the morning, near the little village ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... and gave the fatal wound." The warriors scoured the country miles around, Seeking for sign or trail, but naught they found: The murderer left behind no clue or trace More than a vampire's flight through darkling space. ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... half bird And all a wonder and a wild desire,— Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun, Took sanctuary within the holier blue, And sang a kindred soul out to his face,— Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart— When the first summons from the darkling earth Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue, And bared them of the glory—to drop down, To toil for man, to suffer or to die,— This is the same voice: can thy soul know change? Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help! Never may I commence ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... soul Soars fancy's flight beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, In low pursuit; Know, prudent, cautious self-control ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... was one pretty girl who had "large, languishing eyes, and sleek black hair like the ears of a King Charles Spaniel." The Indians followed Burton's waggon for miles, now and then peering into it and crying "How! How!" the normal salutation. His way then lay by darkling canons, rushing streams and stupendous beetling cliffs fringed with pines. Arrived at his destination, he had no difficulty, thanks to the good offices of a fellow traveller, in mixing in the best Mormon Society. He found himself in a Garden City. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... scimitars. The overthrown table was in front of them, and one leapt upon its edge, but as he leapt, the old knight, all his years and sickness forgotten now, sprang forward and struck downwards, so heavy a blow that in the darkling mouth of the passage the sparks streamed out, and where the Saracen's head had been, appeared his heels. Back Sir Andrew stepped again to win space for his sword-play, while round the ends of the table broke two fierce-faced men. At one of them Rosamund shot with her bow, ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... breast, "O my son," said he, "you see what recompense Heaven hath in store for those who pursue the paths of real virtue; those paths from which I myself have been fatally misled by a faithless vapour, which hath seduced my steps, and left me darkling in the abyss of wretchedness. Such as you describe this happy fair, was once my Serafina, rich in every grace of mind and body which nature could bestow. Had it pleased Heaven to bless her with a lover like Renaldo! but no more, the irrevocable ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... as soft as farthest skies That hold horizon rain; Or when, steel-darkling, stoic-wise, They bring the ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... obstructer were not called into play. The professor was free to dig as he chose for the antique bones he sought, and many a long day did he and Birt spend in this sequestered spot, with the great crags towering above and the darkling vistas of the ravine on either hand. There was a long stretch of sunny weather, and somehow that shifting purple haze accented all its languorous lustres. It seemed a vague sort of poetry a-loose in the air, and color had license. The law which decreed that a leaf should be green was a ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... family was ever disappointed by that circumstance on account of having looked forward to the return of the auspicious day with sanguine anticipations of enjoyment. It was kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling Mrs Wilfer to hold a sombre darkling state, which exhibited that impressive woman in her ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... several adjectives that are not used in prose, or are used but seldom; as, azure, blithe, boon, dank, darkling, darksome, doughty, dun, fell, rife, rapt, rueful, sear, sylvan, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Hail, thou Mother of our God; Hail, thou Ever-sinless Virgin, Gateway of the blest abode. Ave; 'tis an angel's greeting— Thou didst hear his music sound, Changing thus the name of Eva— Shed the gifts of peace around. Burst the sinner's bonds in sunder; Pour the day on darkling eyes; Chase our ills; invoke upon us All the blessings of the skies. Show thyself a watchful Mother; And may He our pleadings hear, Who for us a helpless Infant Owned thee for His mother dear. Maid, above all maids excelling, Maid, above all ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... say. The halo with which the Byzantine mosaicists surrounded the faces of their saints, the glory of golden light that gleams about the figure of Christ in heaven in Tintoretto's decorations, the blank bright walls of the Doge's palace undermined by darkling and shadowy arcades, the refrain of a Provencal song, the sharp shadow under the visor of Verrocchio's equestrian statue, the thought-provoking chiaroscuro of Rembrandt's figure paintings—these expedients are all designed ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... me the scenes that followed. Darkling, I passed again through the station called Sybaris, and on and on by the sea-shore, the sound of breakers often audible. From time to time I discerned black mountain masses against a patch of grey ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... off into corners of the darkling hut with their lovers, but this prudent lad never took his lips ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... dust! Erelong unholy fugitives roam 'Mid imbosk caves and moaning dales To piercing screes of purple gloom, Where gurgling sighs and rasping moans,— Each bloody vampyre's home of loam As life-tides drip to scarlet vales,— Unshadowed haunts of darkling Doom! Add terror to the rasping groans That roaring surfs of rubic blood Fling to each afrite's acrid crypt. And mildewed skulls and ashen bones That lie before each pillared mount, Speak tidings of a leprous ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... mean to betray me?" cried Bartolomeo, with a darkling look at Bonaparte. "Do you know that there are still four Piombos ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... faked nature place, In Wonderland, in Nonsense Land, Two darkling shapes met face to face, And bade ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... waited, darkling, till the dawn Should touch me into bloom, While all my being panted To outpour its first perfume, When, lo! a paler flower than mine Had blossomed in ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various
... deathless name. Through these dread jaws of rock he presses on Another ocean's breast, immense, unknown, Beneath the south's cold wings, unmeasur'd, wide, Received his vessels, through the dreary tide, In darkling shades, where never man before Heard the waves howl, he dares the ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... Darkling, deliberate, what sings This wonderful one, alone, at peace? What wilder things than song, what things Sweeter than youth, clearer than Greece, Dearer than Italy, untold Delight, and ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... lightly down-stairs, a sarcastic smile still on her lips. In the lower hall stood Mr. Edwards, the valet, disconsolately gazing at the threatening prospect. He turned around, and his dull eyes lighted up at sight of this darkling vision of beauty—for Mr. Parmalee was by no means the only gentleman with the good taste to ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... me as if there never had been such a day. I look at the sky as we drive along to the station. Call it sapphire, turquoise—indeed! What dull stone that ever lived darkling in a mine is fit to be named even in metaphor with this pale yet brilliant arch that so softly leans above us? It seems to me as if all the people we meet were handsome and well-featured—as if the Elbe were the noblest river that ever ran, carrying the sunlight ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... hundred feet, on the vast Caribbean dotted with islands, and, nearer by, on breakers curling in noble bays or foaming under rocky cliffs. Northward, the wilderness; eastward, green fields of sugar-cane paling and darkling in the breeze; southward, the wide harbor of Fredericksted, the town, and the black, red-shirted boatmen pushing about the harbor; westward, the setting sun; and presently, everywhere, the swift ...
— The Flower of the Chapdelaines • George W. Cable
... picks his teeth at morning prayers; Unmark'd, unfear'd, on dogs he vents his hate, And spurns the terrier from his guarded gate. But now to listless indolence a prey, Stretch'd on his couch, he sad and darkling lay; As not unlike in venom and in size, Close in his hole the hungry spider lies. "And oh!" he cries, "am I so powerless grown, That I am fear'd by cooks and scouts alone? Oh! for some nobler strife, some senior foe, To swell by his defeat the name of Toe!" ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... proceed no farther, being himself unfortunately blinded by a stroke of the impatient youth's switch across his eyes. Enraged at once by the smart and the indignity, the falconer started up, and darkling as he was, for his eyes watered too fast to permit his seeing any thing, he would soon have been at close grips with his insolent adversary, had not Roland Graeme, contrary to his nature, played for ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Jan could imagine the flat land around them as his native Holland, with the Zuider Zee sparkling to the west where here the desert stretched under darkling clouds. ...
— Wind • Charles Louis Fontenay
... changing moods. What unutterable loneliness spoke to the soul in those unknown leagues of tossing sea! how far the eye wandered unchecked, searching vainly for aught to rest upon other than glistening surge or darkling hollow! The mystery of the ages lay unexpressed in those tossing billows, sweeping in out of the black east, making low moan to the unsympathetic and unheeding sky. Deeper and deeper the spirit of unrest, of doubt, ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... come down at Lodore? Here it comes sparkling, And there it lies darkling; Here smoking and frothing, Its tumult and wrath in, 5 It hastens along, conflicting and strong; Now striking and raging, As if a war waging, Its caverns and rocks among. Rising and leaping, 10 Sinking and creeping, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... sought hers beside it and gripped it and pressed it. "My dear!" he whispered, tritest and most unavoidable of expressions. It was not very like Man and Woman loving upon their Planet; it was much more like the shy endearments of the shop boys and work girls who made the darkling populous about ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... wedding festivities, as you may remember, for you were our honoured guest at the time, and greatly displeased at his absence," he resumed, after a few seconds of darkling reflection. "None of us knew where he had flown to, for he did not evidently consider his owl's nest sufficiently remote; but we had his fraternal blessing to sustain us. And after that he continued to make periodical ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... and his journal apparently ceased during the whole bucolic experience. How joyously his mind begins to disport itself again with fancies, the moment he leaves the association, even temporarily! And in 1842, as soon as he is fairly quit of it, the old darkling or waywardly gleaming stream of thought and imagination flows freshly, untamably forward. Hawthorne remained with the Brook Farm community nearly a twelvemonth, a small part of which time was spent in Boston. Some of the letters which his sisters wrote him show ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... can be gradually lessened by means of a sliding resistance. Here, as much as in the natural phenomenon, our reason finds it difficult to acknowledge that the surface gleaming in a whitish sheen should be the one which ordinarily appears as darkling blue, and that the one disappearing into darkness should be the surface which normally presents itself as ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... Pride. Here Beauty falls betray'd, despis'd, distress'd, And hissing Infamy proclaims the rest. Where then shall Hope and Fear their objects find? Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind? Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate? Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, No cries invoke the mercies of the skies? Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. Still raise for good ...
— English Satires • Various
... path. The sun shone brightly at intervals. A fresh breeze swept the wide expanse streaked with purple and green and turned an occasional broken wave-crest toward the western light. Some large cumuli were abroad—white, or less white, or even darkling,—the first windy sky ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... seasons come and go, The tided oceans ebb and flow; The tokens of a central force, Whose circles, in their widening course, O'erlap and move the universe; The workings of the law whence springs The rhythmic harmony of things, Which shapes in earth the darkling spar, And orbs in heaven the morning star. Of all I see, in earth and sky,— Star, flower, beast, bird,—what part have I? This conscious life,—is it the same Which thrills the universal frame, Whereby the caverned crystal shoots, And mounts ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a fountain, Twinkling up in sharp starlight, When the moon behind the mountain Dims the low East with faintest white, Ever darkling, 80 Ever sparkling, We know not if 'tis dark or bright; But, when the great moon hath rolled round, And, sudden-slow, its solemn power Grows from behind its black, clear-edged bound, No spot of dark the fountain keepeth, But, swift as opening eyelids, leapeth ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... seen her so. He could not understand what it was that made a darkling mist of her eyes and gave her parted lips such ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... eyes to those of Megabyzus, he saw them filled with a strange fire—eyes like those of an evil spirit, gleaming behind the living windows of darkling hue. It was but for a moment, and the priest turned ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... were now on me thou shouldst indeed see wondrous things * That would efface all sorrows and disperse all sores of sprite:' Then deigned our Caliph's Bride to cry, 'Where is that dress of thine?' * And I replied, 'In house of him kept darkling as the night.' So down upon it pounced Masrr and brought it unto her, * And when 'twas there each feather cast a ray of beaming light: Therewith I took it from his hand and opened it straightway * And saw its plumd bosom and its buttons ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... on my Love's endangered state, Wrought by keen anguish mad, I struck at fate, Prostrating mockingly in sport or hate The aspirations, darkling, we Cherish and ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... so the moon now peers Out of darkling clouds. The sad, Sleepless waterfalls forever ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... the Cemetery at Gueldersdorp, upon a night that no one will forget who stood in the packed throng of shadowy mourners about each of those open graves. The wind blew soft from the west, and the vault of heaven might have been hollowed out of the darkling depths of an amethyst of inconceivable splendour and planetary size. Myriads of stars, dazzlingly white, swung under this, the Mother's fitting canopy, shared with another, not like her holy, not noble or unselfish ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... reserves in regard to them, but simply they did not take my fancy. Still, we had great fun with Japhet in 'Search of a Father', and with 'Midshipman Easy', and we felt a fine physical shiver in the darkling moods of 'Snarle-yow the Dog-Fiend.' I do not remember even the names of the other novels, except 'Jacob Faithful,' which I chanced upon a few years ago and found ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... weeping voice of tender tone * And whispered I, 'Fair fall thy foot and welcome and well come!' His cheek I kissed a thousand times, and yet a thousand more; * Then clipt and clung about his breast enveiled in darkling room. And cried, 'Now verily I've won the aim of every wish * So praise and prayers to Allah for this grace now best become.' Then slept we even as we would the goodliest of nights * Till morning came to end our night and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... night's deck-watch ye show, Why, lads, so silent here to me, Your watchmate of times long ago? Once, for all the darkling sea, You your voices raised how clearly, Striking in when tempest sung; Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly, Life is storm—let storm! you rung. Taking things as fated merely, Childlike though the world ye spanned; ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... was clear, colourless, grey overhead; the dock like a sheet of darkling glass crowded with upside-down reflections of warehouses, of hulls and masts of silent ships. Rare figures moved here and there on the distant quays. A knot of men stood alongside with clothes-bags and wooden chests at their feet. Others were coming down the ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... he cried triumphantly. "Ye have e'en the secret of it. We're good in emairgencies, the now; when the time comes when we get a glimmer that all life is emairgency and tremblin' peril, that every turn may be the wrong turn—when we can see that our petty system of suns and all is nobbut a wee darkling cockle-boat, driftin' and tossed abune the waves in the outmost seas of an onrushing universe—hap-chance we'll no loom so grandlike in our own een; and we'll tak' hands for comfort in the dark. 'Tis good theology, yon wise saying of the ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... when desire, long darkling, dawns, and first The mother looks upon the new-born child, Even so my Lady stood at gaze and smiled When her soul knew at length the Love it nursed. Born with her life, creature of poignant thirst And exquisite hunger, at her heart Love lay ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence. He who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow-beings, and sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... they went. In this order they made the circuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed of most consequence was a strange, down-looking old man. He kept mumbling prayers with his lips; but as he looked upon me darkling, it did not seem as if prayer were uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore the burthen of the chant, were stout, brutal, military-looking men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes; they sang with some ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... north, with raucous cry, Through tracts and provinces of sky, Every night alighting down In new landscapes of romance, Where darkling feed the clamorous clans By lonely ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Luna, straining very hard, Doubled her light to serve a darkling world, He called her 'scab,' and meanly would retard Her rising: and at last the villain hurled A heavy beam which knocked her o'er the Lion Into ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... yet without The pang, the agony, the doubt, Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh, While day and night roll darkling by. ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... had discovered lately that they were not so dark as he had thought them at first, but that the length and thickness of lash, by which they were shaded, made them appear darker than they really were. They were forever changing. Now sparkling and darkling with wit, now humid with sympathy, now burning with the fire of courage, now taking on strength of color with ambition, now flashing indignantly at ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... smoke—mist —a mere shadow on the breast of the night. Stars began to sparkle, moths and humming cockchafers sailed by him, a chase of bats overhead endlessly fell down airy precipices and rose in long loops of darkling flight: honeysuckle and night-scented stock tinged with their sweet garden perfume the cool airs from ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse That veils the noonday,—you whose finger-tips A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind. This wreath of verse how dare I offer you To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due? The hues of all its glowing beds are ours, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... since the devising of gunpowder was the beginning of a battle so still. To us and to an observer about Ripley it would have had precisely the same effect—the Martians seemed in solitary possession of the darkling night, lit only as it was by the slender moon, the stars, the afterglow of the daylight, and the ruddy glare from St. George's Hill and the ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... been precipitated into the Seine so unexpectedly and with such violence he kept control of his wits: he did not utter a cry as he fell head foremost into the darkling river. He was an excellent swimmer: all aching as he was, he let himself go with the current and presently reached the sheltering arch of the Pont Neuf. There he took breath for ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... therefore can be expected, for offering to the public a short sketch of the life of John Hodgkinson—a man, who, though dropped, at his birth, a darkling, into the world, contrived by the exercise of his personal endowments, without aid, friend, influence, or advantage, save those which nature in her bounty vouchsafed him, to mount to the highest rank in his profession—a profession to excel in which, requires more ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... my brother died, 'Twas but a fatal chance; For darkling was the battle tried, And ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... pain with foolish, unfounded hopes and he never permits mad despair to paralyse him. He takes life as it is, and, as we all have to do, makes the best of its confusions. If we are here "as on a darkling plain, swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night," we can at least be ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys |
