"Poor-will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stooping down to half his height to creep under a formidable bramble, countless voices from animal land fell on his ears. From a glimmering patch of water, away on his left, came the trump of a bull-frog and the wail of the whip-poor-will; a monkey chattered, a parrot screeched, whilst a shrill cry of terror, accompanied by a savage growl, plainly told of the surprise and slaughter of some defenceless animal by one of the many big beasts of prey that made every ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... night ..... The martins chattered under the eaves, scolding some belated member of the clan who pushed noisily for a lodging-place for the night. The black bat and the darting nighthawk were a-wing, grim spectres of the dusk. The whip-poor-will was crying along the river, and far up-stream the loon called weirdly ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright
... is not easily understood is a spirit. Among the Creek Indians the Whip-poor-will is a spirit; the Jack o' Lantern is the same: and, with regard to the latter, they agree with the remnant of the Massachusett Indians, who believe it is the shape which the Evil Spirit takes in his visits to the sons of men. An old Indian woman, who lived some ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... quails innumerable broke upon us in the twilight, succeeding to the calls of rose-breasted grosbeaks and a goodly company of daylight followers; in this darkening hour, the low, plaintive note of the whip-poor-will is heard on every hand, now and then interrupted by the hoarse bark of owls. There is a gentle tinkling of cowbells on the Ohio shore, and on both are human voices confused by distance. All pervading is the ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... schoolmates on account of my superior erudition, and soon imparted to them the contagion of my infected fancy. Often in the evening, after school hours, we would sit on the trunk of some fallen tree in the woods, and vie with each other in telling extravagant stories, until the whip-poor-will began his nightly moaning, and the fireflies sparkled in the gloom. Then came the perilous journey homeward. What delight we would take in getting up wanton panics in some dusky part of the wood; ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... heard the whip-poor-will, nor sat under the shade of the wide spreading oaks, nor listened to the soft Southern talk of his and her people, not since he had come to Kansas with those other foolish folk to brave the dangers of the strange new country in ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... neighbors is most interesting, but so cautiously carried on that we rarely see it, though we may often hear the robin, oriole, whip-poor-will, and many others receive instruction in singing. I have once or twice surprised young birds at their lessons, as for instance, a pewee family learning to hover over the daisies, a beautiful operation of their parents which I never tired ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... path of gold and white The moon had cast across the river's breast, The shores in shadows clad, The far-away, half-sad Sweet singing of the whip-poor-will, all soothed ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... Fatty Coon and Dickie Deer Mouse were alike: They were night-prowlers. When they slept it was usually broad daylight outside, and the birds—except for a few odd fellows like Willie Whip-poor-will and Mr. Night Hawk—were abroad, and singing, and twittering. And when most of the birds went to sleep Dickie and Fatty Coon began to feel quite ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... on the hillside look the graves! The summer green no longer o'er them waves; No more, among the frosted boughs, are heard The mournful whip-poor-will ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... whist and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid, And naught is heard on the lonely hill, But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill, Of the gauze-winged katydid, And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will {417} Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings, And earth and sky in ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... on. The birds made no noise; only the whip-poor-will repeated over and over again its melancholy refrain in the marsh beyond the meadow. The brook ran slowly, and its voice was so hushed and tiny that you might have thought that it was saying its prayers ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... good 'un"—a remark which was received by the two others with nods of acquiescence. It was Scepticism apologizing to Truth. Then one of the men took from the floor the sheet of manuscript and stepped to the window, for already the evening shadows were glooming the forest. The song of the whip-poor-will was heard in the distance and a monstrous beetle sped by the window on roaring wings and thundered away out of hearing. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... wound her every touch was a tender caress; she sat by him for hours; her low voice made soft melody as she sang the Huron love songs. The moments were sweet to Isaac when in the gathering twilight she leaned her head on his shoulder while they listened to the evening carol of the whip-poor-will. Days passed and at length Isaac was entirely well. One day when the air was laden with the warm breath of summer Myeerah and Isaac walked by ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... day's employ, ends at dewy eve, Then the happy farmer boy, doth haste his work to leave, Trudging down the quiet lane, climbing o'er the hill, Whistling back the changeless wail, of plaintive whip-poor-will,'— ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... of night, when the air quite still, I hear the strange cry of the lone whippoorwill, Who Chants, without ceasing, that wonderful trill, Of which the sole burden is still, "Whip-poor-Will." ...
— Ballads • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination,—the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary hooting of the screech owl, or the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The fireflies, ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... Our fun was over. We sat in silence, speeding down the long hills in the fading light of the afternoon. Those few solemn hours in which I heard only the wagon's rumble and the sweet calls of the whip-poor-will-waves of music on a sea of silence-started me in a way of thought which has led me high and low these many years and still invites me. The day was near its end when we got to the first big clearing. From the top of a high hill we could ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... distorted and the bushes, even in the flush of a May morning, were black and ugly. At evening it was indescribably desolate, and save when the armies came there was no sound but the lone cry of the whip-poor-will, one of the ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... sounds arose around them, among which were the cries of night birds like the whip-poor-will; owls started to hoot back somewhere on the island; giant frogs boomed forth their calls for "more rum, more rum!" and altogether there was soon quite a noisy chorus under ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... for footprints, but could discover none; a newly-broken twig was all the sign that he could see. He glanced around among the trees, but there was no visible movement, and a whip-poor-will was singing undisturbed from a high bough of a balsam tree ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... leave him in," cried the center fielder to Jack as Hart shook his head at Pete's suggestion that he take Tom out of the box. And Tom began pitching again to the fifth Whip-poor-will who stood at the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... bends of the Red River near St. John's, where groves of majestic trees succeed each other, where the wild flowers flourish in the sheltered nooks and the fire-flies glance among the greenery at the close of day and where for sound we have the whip-poor-will lashing the woods as ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid; And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and woe, Till morning spreads her rosy wings And earth and sky ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... toad in the grass at his feet. An occasional mosquito hummed about his ears. His mind wandered away to that little Indian village he had known. In his imagination he could hear the crooning song of the squaws about the camp-fires, the shrill cries of the whip-poor-will. He thought of the old Indian chief, whose savage hands had so often grasped the rifle the boy now held. Had Ahneota lived he doubtless would be encouraging the red men in aid of the British, and would not hesitate to torture ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... grass greens in the spring runs, and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last snowflake dissolves in midair. It may be the first of May before the first swallow appears, before the whip- poor-will is heard, before the wood thrush sings; but it is April as long as there is snow upon the mountains, no matter what the almanac may say. Our April is, in fact, a kind of Alpine summer, full of such contrasts and touches of wild, delicate beauty as no other season affords. ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... the nighthawk. Both are of about the same size and color. Both sit lengthwise on limbs. Both are weird creatures that sleep by day and hunt by night. But the nighthawk has a V-shaped patch of white on his throat; the large mouth of the whip-poor-will is fringed with bristles. The nighthawk has a patch of white extending through his long wings; the whip-poor-will has none. The nighthawk is not usually heard after the twilight hours; the whip-poor-will ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... the little stars were looking down and twinkling and twinkling. Mother Moon was doing her best to make the Green Meadows as light as Mr. Sun did in the daytime. All the little birds except Hooty the Owl and Boomer the Night Hawk, and noisy Mr. Whip-poor-will were fast asleep in their little nests. Old Mother West Wind's Merry Little Breezes had all gone to sleep, too. It was oh so still! Indeed it was so very still that Bobby Coon, coming down the Lone Little Path through the wood, began to ...
— Old Mother West Wind • Thornton W. Burgess
... bird is known as a set or clutch. The number varies greatly with different species. The Leach's Petrel, Murre, and some other sea birds, have but one egg. The Turkey Vulture, Mourning Dove, Hummingbird, Whip-poor-will, and Nighthawk lay two. Various Thrushes, such as the {24} Robin, Veery, and Wood Thrush, deposit from three to five, four being the most usual number. Wild Ducks, Turkeys, and Grouse range from eight to a dozen or more; while Quails sometimes ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... standpoint of the farmers, the orchardists, and the gardeners is the insect-eating birds. Among these are the Wood Pewee, the Phoebe, the Kingbird, and all of the Flycatchers; the Purple Martin and all of the Swallows; the Nighthawk and Whip-poor-will. The Yellow-billed and Black-billed Cuckoos and the Baltimore Oriole feed largely upon tent caterpillars and others caterpillars which defoliate the fruit and shade trees. The Sparrow Hawk has been wrongly named, for it eats a thousand times as many grasshoppers as it does sparrows. The Chickadees, ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... heard the plaintiff note of the Whip-poor-will from the mountain-side, or was startled now and then by the sudden leap and ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce |
