"Darkling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... darkness fills The dismal days with darkling ills, Rest in the calm the promise gives, That Christ, thy Light ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... Though the fountain cease to play, Dew must glitter near the brink, Though the weary mind decay, As of old it thought so must it think. Leave alone the darkling eyes Fixed upon the moving skies, Cross the hands upon the bosom, there to rise To the throb of the faith ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... which the late student entered with all his heart and soul; and then last of all he cast the veil of a divine darkness over him, sent him into a chamber far more retired than that in which he laboured at Cambridge, and set him like the nightingale to sing darkling. The blackness about him was just the great canvas which God gave him to cover with forms of light and music. Deep wells of memory burst upwards from below; the windows of heaven were opened from above; from both rushed the deluge of song which flooded his soul, and which he has poured out in a great ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald
... from Amphidamas it pass'd To Molus as a hospitable pledge; He gave it to Meriones his son, And now it guarded shrewd Ulysses' brows. 320 Both clad in arms terrific, forth they sped, Leaving their fellow Chiefs, and as they went A heron, by command of Pallas, flew Close on the right beside them; darkling they Discern'd him not, but heard his clanging plumes.[11] 325 Ulysses in the favorable sign Exulted, and Minerva thus invoked.[12] Oh hear me, daughter of Jove AEgis-arm'd! My present helper in all straits, whose eye Marks all my ways, oh with peculiar ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... his hut; and with his children I Was nurtured, being, as was deem'd, the child Of Hermes, or some mountain deity; For these with the wild nymphs are wont to lie Within the holy caverns, where the bee Can scarcely find a darkling path to fly Through veils ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
... beautiful!—thou shalt feel Their eloquent music from thee steal Those darkling thoughts, that should mournfully twine With the light, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... electric light whose intensity 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 ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... and effort, viz.: the lash, when another, viz.: money, might be added with good effect. Fear, and the other low and bad qualities of the slave, are appealed to, but never the good. The relation, therefore, between capital and labor, which ought to be generous and confiding, is darkling, suspicious, unkindly, full of reproachful threats, and without concord or peace. This condition of things renders the interests of society a prey to politicians. Politics cease ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... other walkers along the same 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 ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... mile behind me. The sun had already sunk over the crest of the cliffs, and I could just see the mounted savages through the darkling gloom—still fallowing as fast as their horses could gallop. In five minutes after, I had entered the gorge. The twilight continued no longer: in the canon it was night. I followed the stream upwards, keeping along near the bank. Thick darkness was ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... far away is gliding The pleasant Oxus's stream, I see the green glades darkling, I see the clear pools gleam. I hear the bulbuls calling From blooming tree to tree. Wave, bird, and tree are singing, 'Away! ah, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... 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, Mr. Nicholas, must ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 lustiness, and trolled forth "Ave Mary" like a garrison catch. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Darkling, he fixed Malua with his eyes, Noting each shadow of his changing thoughts, When the dear dreams centred on Taka, dreams Dimming his sight. Holding his lips apart, He slowly rose, Uhila following, For in the dark the music of her face Smote ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... its full breadth with crystalline distinctness. Between sky and water there stretched across the picture a broad, looming, dimly-defined band of shadow, marked here and there at the top by little slanting patches of an intensely glowing white. He looked at this darkling middle distance for a moment or two without comprehension. Then he turned and hurriedly moved to the door of Julia's room ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... the sun at last Went down to his lodge in the west, and fast The wings of the spirits of night were spread O'er the darkling woods and Wiwaste's head. Then slyly she slipped from her snug retreat, And guiding her course by Waziya's star,[62] That shone through the shadowy forms afar, She northward hurried with silent feet; And long ere the sky was ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... I 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
... dreadful. In front, the towers of Kaloon lurid in a monstrous sunset. Above, a gloom as of an eclipse. Around the darkling, sunburnt plain. On it Atene's advancing army, and our rushing wedge of horsemen destined, it would appear, ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... caring much—for a night in the park was of little consequence to her—the door was immediately opened, but only a little way, by some one without a light, whose face or even person she could not distinguish, for the door was quite in shadow. It closed again, and she was left darkling, to find her way to her room as best she might. She ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... seized 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 character ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... did in its numberless 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, of brooding ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft, Safe from the weather! 30 He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, Singing together, He was a man born with thy face and ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... been adrift, and how feebly I had resisted them. I asked myself if there were not in the moral compass of men, who wander by land, some guiding star, as there is for those who wander over sea. I gazed high above the sloping roofs for some sign of moon, or star. The sky was darkling and overcast; but in lowering my eyes from heaven to earth, I saw what I had missed before—a fair, white face framed in a window above the stoop directly opposite my bench. The face seemed to have a background of gold; for a wonderful mass of wavy hair ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Soars fancy's flight beyond the pole, Or darkling grubs this earthly hole, In low pursuit; Know, prudent, ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... through alders for a mile or two, emerging at length on a vast stretch of rolling country, where rounded hills glimmered golden in the rays of the declining sun. Tall underbrush flanked the slopes; little streams ran darkling through the thickets; the ground was moist, even on the ridges; and she could not hope to cover the deep imprint of her ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... sad heart, auspicious 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 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... work of enchantment, so suddenly and so strangely did the fires shoot forth. As the beacon flame increased, it lighted up the whole of the extensive table-land on the summit of Pendle Hill; and a long lurid streak fell on the darkling moss-pool near which the wizard had stood. But when it attained its utmost height, it revealed the depths of the forest below, and a red reflection, here and there, marked the course of Pendle Water. The excitement of the abbot and his companions momently increased, and the sentinels shouted ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... their sunset home on Libya's heel, Phoenicia's sons unwonted 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 ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... Needy child of holy parents. These treasures are concealed in secret, In corners of the churches; And it is believed the height of piety To strip your sweet children. Bring out your treasures, Which by evil arts of persuasion You have heaped up and hold, Which you shut up in darkling cave. Public utility demands this, The privy purse demands it, the treasury demands it, That the soldiers may be paid for their services, And the commander may benefit thereby. This is your dogma, then: Give every man his own. Now Caesar recognises his ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... "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. Every householder had from five to ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... Rene!" exclaimed the woman, her face darkling with passion, "he is Victor's brother, and he is no good. He drinks and gambles and makes the big noise with his mouth. Bou, wou, wou! I am the big man! I can do this! I can do that! I am the best man in the world! Always he has ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx
... herself in a long cloak and drew its hood over her head. Then she slipped from the house and stole like a ghost through the darkling streets and out of the Maren or Sea Poort, where the guard let her pass thinking that she was a country woman returning to her village. Now the moon was rising, and by the light of it Lysbeth recognised the place. Here was the spot where ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... imperative to send abroad, the messenger must then go openly, advertising himself to the police with a huge brand of cocoa-nut, which flares from house to house like a moving bonfire. Only the police themselves go darkling, and grope in the night for misdemeanants. I used to hate their treacherous presence; their captain in particular, a crafty old man in white, lurked nightly about my premises till I could have found it in my heart to beat him. But the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confidant of his thoughts, was the river that ran through the city—the same mighty fatherly river that washed the walls of his native town up north. In the river Christophe could recover the memory of his childish dreams.... But in his sorrow they took on, like the Rhine itself, a darkling hue. In the dying day he would lean against the parapet of the embankment and look down at the rushing river, the fused and fusing, heavy, opaque, and hurrying mass, which was always like a dream of the past, wherein nothing could be clearly seen ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... the canon is guarded; but like paradise it is wondrous in delight. For when you descend you find that the tape-wide trickle of water seen from above has become a river with profound darkling pools and placid stretches and swift dashing rapids; that the dark green sluggish flow in the canon-bed has disintegrated into a noble forest with great pine-trees, and shaded aisles, and deep dank ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... hearing sleep, and sleeping hear, The while we dare to call thee dear, So may thy dreams be good, altho' The loving power thou dost not know. As music parts the silence,—lo! Through heaven the stars begin to peep, To comfort us that darkling pine Because those fairer lights of thine Have set into the Sea of Sleep. Yet closed still thine eyelids keep; And may our voices through the sphere Of Dreamland all as softly rise As through these shadowy rural dells, Where bashful Echo somewhere dwells, And touch thy spirit to as soft replies. ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... was a crescent with twelve miles between its horns. Never 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
... the worthy progeny Of Dolopion brave; Scamander's priest, And by the people as a God rever'd: Him, as he fled before him, from behind Eurypylus, Euaemon's noble son, Smote with the sword; and from the shoulder-point The brawny arm he sever'd; to the ground Down fell the gory hand; the darkling shades Of death, and rig'rous doom, his ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... stranger, Why this lonely path you seek; Every step is fraught with danger Unto one so fair and meek. Where are they that should protect thee In this darkling hour of doubt? Love could never thus neglect thee!— Does your mother know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the sky; And the dark mountain with its headlong gulfs Had lost all memory of the world below; For all those cloudless throngs of glittering stars And all those glimmerings where the abyss of space Is powdered with a milky dust, each grain A burning sun, and every sun the lord Of its own darkling planets,—all those lights Met, in a darker deep, the lights of earth, Lights on the sea, lights of invisible towns, Trembling and indistinguishable from stars, In those black gulfs around the mountain's feet. ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... 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 ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti
... within half a league of Symonds; and, if he meant fairly by me and mine, he was certain to advise the latter of his return: so I resolved to push straight on for my old quarters. Between me and the wished for gite there lay sixteen miles of hilly road—darkling every ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... raised his 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 ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... 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 ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... and fitted every curving of a healthy girlish form. She paused a moment white-bodied and white-limbed but dark and velvet-armed, her full neck and oval head rising rich and almost black above, with its deep-lighted eyes and crown of silent darkling hair. ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... soft and slow, From darkling earth and darkened sky Wide wings of gloom waved to and fro, And ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... 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 Heaven may hear, nor deem Religion vain. 350 Still raise for good the supplicating voice, But leave to Heaven the measure and the ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... her husband Gustave's address, Madame Rameau hastened to her son's apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in which he lodged was in a different quarter from that in which Isaura had visited him. Then, the street selected was still in the centre of the beau monde—now, it was within the precincts ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... read Michelet's Louis Quatorze et la Revocation de l'Edit de Nantes. I read it out in the garden, and the autumnal trees and weather, and my own autumnal humour, and the pitiable prolonged tragedies of Madame and of Moliere, as they look, darkling and sombre, out of their niches in the great gingerbread facade of the Grand Age, go ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sees, on the horizon, Something darkle in the sunlight, Something blue upon the billows, Speaks these words in wonder guessing: What is this upon the surges, What this blue upon the waters, What this darkling in the sunlight? 'Tis perhaps a flock of wild-geese, Or perchance the blue-duck flying; Then upon thy wings arising, Fly away to highest heaven. "Art thou then a shoal of sea-trout, Or perchance ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... 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 ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... a last retreat Deep in the darkling dell, Where stands, amidst embowering oaks, A hermit's ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... 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 rich endowments ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... the darkling fishes grope. Cautious to stir, staring with jewel eyes; Dogs of the sea, the savage congers mope, ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... of the 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 ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... sun in a fair even-tide; Those ten men's mules in stall he bade them tie. Also a tent in the orchard raise on high, Those messengers had lodging for the night; Dozen serjeants served after them aright. Darkling they lie till comes the clear daylight. That Emperour does with the morning rise; Matins and Mass are said then in his sight. Forth goes that King, and stays beneath a pine; Barons he calls, good counsel to define, For with his Franks he's ever of a ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... of peace, that is the peculiar property of California's foothill valleys in the late afternoon; the world seemed very distant and not at all desirable, and to Kay there came a sudden, keen realization of how this man beside her must love this darkling valley with the hills above presenting their flower-clad breasts to the long spears of light from the ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the rear of his company in his place as file-closer, listened to these words, and saw in the dim distance and on the darkling heights the throngs of fierce enemies and avalanches of impeding dangers as are likely to oppress the imagination of a young soldier at such unfavorable moments. The conflict and carnage seemed so imminent that he half ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... 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 ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... power o'er moving worlds presides, Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides, On darkling man in pure effulgence shine, And cheer his clouded mind ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, And spread the roof above them—ere he framed The lofty vault, to gather and roll back The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood, Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. For his simple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... and splendid, giant-like I stood On a white cliff, topped by a darkling wood. Below me, placid, bright and sparkling, lay The equal waters of a lovely bay. White cliffs surrounded it—and calm and fair It lay asleep, in ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... light through the deep midnight of the sky where the other worlds wandered. Then the yellow moon came from her palace, wrapping herself at first with a mantle of golden mist, as if—Godiva-like—she shrank from loosening her garments; but the need of the darkling earth pressed upon her, and she dropped her covering ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... "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 ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... Listen well! Like a fairy silver bell In the distance ringing, Lightly swinging In the air; 'Tis the water in the dell Where the elfin minstrels dwell, Falling in a rainbow sprinkle, Dropping stars that brightly twinkle, Bright and fair, On the darkling pool below, Making music so; 'Tis the water elves who play On their lutes of spray. Tinkle, tinkle! Like a fairy silver bell; Like a pebble in a ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... who 'mid the leafy bower Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night With her sweet brood; impatient to descry Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, In the fond ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... breathing quickly, gazing earnestly at the Honourable John Ruffin, who folded his arms and wore his best darkling air. ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... pierce through thy own soul also": bow, mother-heart, to the purposes of God's heart of love! "In peace" this servant of the Lord still stands; "in peace" he departs. Blessed are they whom darkling truths may grieve, but not distract; whom stormy revelations beat upon, but cannot shake. They live in the house founded ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... and conforming souls Mrs. Nitschkan cast a darkling eye. It was the recalcitrant, the defiant, the professing sinner upon whom she concentrated ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... visible, all of which has its roots in the unseen, is that world which the mass of men are in a conspiracy to ignore and forget. And just as the sleeper is unconscious of all around him in his chamber, and of all the stir and beauty of the world in which he lives, so the bulk of us go blind and darkling through life, absorbed in the things seen, and never lift even a momentary and lack-lustre glance to the august realities which lie behind these, and give them all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... stretch their udders, and give back A subtle taste of saltness in the milk. Many there be who from their mothers keep The new-born kids, and straightway bind their mouths With iron-tipped muzzles. What they milk at dawn, Or in the daylight hours, at night they press; What darkling or at sunset, this ere morn They bear away in baskets- for to town The shepherd hies him- or with dash of salt Just sprinkle, and lay by for winter use. Nor be thy dogs last cared for; but alike Swift Spartan hounds and fierce Molossian feed On fattening whey. Never, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... waters, low against the stones Where poised gemmed dragon-flies; and sudden moans Shook 'mong blue flags. Waked, vague unrest And tender yearning rose within her breast, And longing love, that she ne'er more might still. When late upon her parting day smiled chill, Pensive she gazed upon the darkling land, With lingering feet o'er-passed the shining strand, And silent sat on an o'erhanging ledge, The sea o'erlooking. Far the horizon's edge Athwart her gaze a rim of blue hills cleft, Whereat she sighed. "So rose, ere I them left, So smiled, the dim hills round my Eden home. ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... 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 freezing ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... tears of satisfaction, and straining the Hungarian to his 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 shaft ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... 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 ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... of poverty which may be nobly accepted and gaily borne; but Vinet, devoured by ambition, and feeling himself guilty towards his wife, was full of darkling rage; his conscience grew elastic; and he finally came to think any means of success permissible. His young face changed. Persons about the courts were sometimes frightened as they looked at his viperish, flat head, his slit mouth, his eyes gleaming through glasses, and heard ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... attitude which becomes her mightily,) and, still sitting on the door-step, gossips away the evening in comfortable idleness, while her father and I indulge in the fragrant pipe, and watch the lights shining out, one by one, in different quarters of the darkling bay: at these moments she is as pretty, as cheerful, as careless as it becomes a sensible woman to be. What a pride the Captain takes in his daughter! And she, in return, how perfect is her devotion to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... 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 my song, my due ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... mocks our 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 ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... purple valley whose sides are terraced and set with houses of pine and ivory, the Gulf of Liguria gleaming sapphire blue, and cloud-like baseless mountains hanging in the sky, and I think of lank and coaly steamships heaving on the grey rollers of the English Channel and darkling streets wet with rain, I recall as if I were back there the busy exit from Charing Cross, the cross and the money-changers' offices, the splendid grime of giant London and the crowds going perpetually to and fro, the lights by ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... admiration. He strode forward to the vessel's side and looked down into the blue sea. Addressing his lyre, he sang, "Companion of my voice, come with me to the realm of shades. Though Cerberus may growl, we know the power of song can tame his rage. Ye heroes of Elysium, who have passed the darkling flood, ye happy souls, soon shall I join your band. Yet can ye relieve my grief? Alas, I leave my friend behind me. Thou, who didst find thy Eurydice, and lose her again as soon as found; when she had vanished ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... thrones of the east [Ep. 9. Set for death's riotous feast Round the bright board where darkling centuries wait, And servile slaughter, mute, Feeds power with fresh red fruit, Glitter and groan with mortal food of fate; And throne and cup and lamp's bright breath Bear witness to their lord of ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies ...
— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... ere summer in autumn sank At stardawn standing on a grey sea-bank He felt the wind fitfully shift and heave As toward a stormier eve; And all the wan wide sea shuddered; and earth Shook underfoot as toward some timeless birth, Intolerable and inevitable; and all Heaven, darkling, trembled like a stricken thrall. And far out of the quivering east, and far From past the moonrise and its guiding star, Began a noise of tempest and a light That was not of the lightning; and a sound Rang with it round and round That was not of the ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 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 sun felt warm ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... darkling pathway o'er the restless waters Of seven seas that circle Death's domain I trod, and followed after earth's sad daughters Torn from their loved ones and ne'er ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... sweet summer dreams— Let speculation pass, nor progress touch Thy silvan homes with hard, unhallowed hand! The light wind whispers, and the air is rich With vapours which exhale into the night; And, round me here, this village in the leaves Darkling doth slumber. How those giant pears Loom with uplifted and high-ancient heads, Like forest trees! A hundred years ago They, like their owner, had their roots in France— In fruitful Normandy—but here refuse Unlike, to multiply, as if ...
— Tecumseh: A Drama • Charles Mair
... "his little cranks and girds The wisdom, and the whim?" Then Patrick spake: "Sirs, till this day ye never saw your king; The man ye doted on was but his mask, His picture—yea, his phantom. Ye have seen At last the man himself." That night nigh sped, While slowly o'er the darkling woods went down, Warned by the cold breath of the up-creeping morn Invisible yet nigh, the August moon, Two vestals, gliding past like moonlight gleams, Conversed: one said, "His daughter's prayer prevailed!" The second, "Who may know ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... 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 that ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... 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 ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... was keeping a watchful eye on him. If Raven went up to the hut, Dick was sure to appear there, in ten minutes at the most. Once, after a heavy snow, Raven had the wood road broken out, and Dick looked on in a darkling conjecture. And when Raven, now even to Jerry's wonder, proceeded to break from the hut to the back road, Dick found it not only impossible to restrain himself but wise to speak. They were standing by the hearth in the hut, after Raven had swept it and laid a careful fire. ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... 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 ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... their fate allows— The sireless offspring and the lonely spouse: She on high Albyn's dusky hills may raise The tearful eye in melancholy gaze, Or view, while shadowy auguries disclose The Highland seer's anticipated woes, The bleeding phantom of each martial form Dim in the cloud, or darkling in the storm; While sad, she chants the solitary song, The soft lament for him who tarries long— For him, whose distant relics vainly crave The coronach's wild ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... with his body. We then asked him why two and two made four: he said he could not tell, and yet acknowledged he was bound to believe it. The countenances of many around beamed with joy at seeing this darkling perplexed; and we did not shrink from exhorting him to repentance and faith in Christ, who died for ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... traders, like the Vikings, were alternately pirates and hucksters, as opportunity served. Every occupation must have its heavenly patron, its departmental deity, and Hermes protects thieves and raiders, "minions of the moon," "clerks of St. Nicholas." His very birth is a stolen thing, the darkling fruit of a divine amour in a dusky cavern. Il chasse ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... not thy thought; nor turn From Sun and Light to gaze At darkling cloisters paved with tombs where rot The ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... sky are visible to us for a moment, when their orbit passes into the lighted heavens, and then they disappear in the shadow of the earth. But astronomers tell us that they are always there though to us they seem to blaze but for a moment. We cannot see them, but they move on their darkling path and have a sun round which they circle. So be sure that in many heathen lands there are believing souls, seen by us but for an instant and then lost, who yet fill their unseen place, and move obedient round the Sun of Righteousness. Their names on earth are dark, but when ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... in Mr. 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
... twigs and lingering blue and scarlet berries stirring, though leaflessly, for the kiss of spring. And we ought to retain the invincible green of cedars, junipers and box, cypress, laurel, hemlock spruce and cloaking ivy, darkling amid and above these, receiving from and giving to them a cheer which neither could have in their frostbound ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... by my accomplices, I found myself, as it were, a shred of flotsam adrift in the darkling streets. Several people thought I was the Marble Arch, and left me on the left. Others, more discerning, conjured me to pull in to the kerb. Removing from my north instep the hoof which, upon examination, I ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... sorrowful, and see The raindrops flaming goldenly On the stream's eddies overhead And dragonflies with drops of red In the crisp surface of each wing Threading slant rains that flash and sing, Or under the water-lily's cup, From darkling depths, roll slowly up The bronze flanks of an ancient bream Into the hot sun's shattered beam, Or over a sunk tree's bubbled hole The perch stream in a golden shoal: Come, ye sorrowful; our deep Holds dreams ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various
... my grave When I am dead. 'Twill softly shed its beaming rays, To guide the soul its darkling ways; And ever, as the day's full light Goes down and leaves the world in night, These kindly gleams, with warmth possest, Shall show my spirit where to rest When ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft |
