"Couchant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... To mark what of their state he more might learn, By word or action marked. About them round A lion now he stalks with fiery glare; Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play, Straight couches close, then, rising, changes oft His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground, Whence rushing, he might surest seize them both, Griped in each paw: when, Adam first of men To first of women Eve thus moving speech, Turned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow. Sole partner, and sole part, of all these joys, Dearer thyself than all; needs ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... rogues, how they lie couchant, ready to spring upon us harmless fellows the moment we are in their reach!—When the ice is once broken for them, how swiftly can they make to port!—Mean time, the subject they can least speak to, they most think of. Nor can you talk of the ceremony, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... the matter with a man that can't get fun out of anything except a three-ring circus," said his friend, severely. "I'm contented with one elephant these days. It's all the responsibility I want." His eyes dwelt fondly on the placid Imogene, couchant amidships. Then he lighted a cigar, using his plug hat for a wind-break, and resumed his ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... at the bottom of Cudjo's stairs, they came upon another level floor. It was smooth and free from rubbish. A gray vault glimmered above their heads in the torchlight. The walls showed strange and grotesque forms in bas-relief, similar to those of the first gallery: here a couchant lion, so distinctly outlined that it seemed as if it must have been chiselled by human art; an Indian sitting in a posture of woe, with his face buried in his hands; an Arctic hunter wrestling with a polar bear; the head of a turbaned Turk; and, most wonderful ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... sides were long and many-mullioned; the roof lines broken up by dormer lights of the same pattern. The apex stones of these dormers, together with those of the gables, were surmounted by grotesque figures in rampant, passant, and couchant variety. Tall octagonal and twisted chimneys thrust themselves high up into the sky, surpassed in height, however, by some poplars and sycamores at the back, which showed their gently rocking summits over ridge and parapet. In the corners of the court polygonal bays, whose surfaces were ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... scutcheon we'll have a bend OR in the dexter base, a saltire MURREY in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron VERT in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field AZURE, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... edifice, and their presence proves with certainty how predominant was Egyptian influence even at this considerable distance from the banks of the Nile. They are not the ordinary sphinxes, with a human head surmounting the body of a lion couchant on its stone pedestal; but, like the Assyrian bulls, they are standing, and, to judge from the Hathorian locks which fall on each side of their countenances, they must have been intended to represent a protecting goddess rather than a male deity. A remarkable emblem is carved ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... long, long monotonous line of beach, trending northward ten miles from end to end, forming a great curve from the sandspit on the north side of the treacherous bar to the blue loom of a headland in shape like the figure of a couchant lion. Back from the shore-line, a narrow littoral of dense scrub, impervious to the rays of the sun, and unbroken in its solitude except by the cries of birds, or the heavy footfall of wild cattle upon the thick carpet of fallen leaves; and then, far to the ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... learn 400 By word or action markt: about them round A Lion now he stalkes with fierie glare, Then as a Tiger, who by chance hath spi'd In some Purlieu two gentle Fawnes at play, Strait couches close, then rising changes oft His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground Whence rushing he might surest seise them both Grip't in each paw: when Adam first of men To first of women Eve thus moving speech, Turnd him all eare to heare new utterance flow. 410 Sole partner and sole part of all these joyes, Dearer thy self then all; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... la droite ou au couchant de ces rochers, on voit une montagne calcaire etonnante dans ce genre par la hardiesse avec laquelle elle eleve contre le ciel ses cimes aigues et tranchantes, taillees a angles vifs dans le costume des hautes cimes de granit. Elle est pourtant ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... opposite the house is a rich but rather formal distribution of flower-beds; everything appeared to be in blossom. On an elevation is placed the most ingeniously contrived Grotto; at every turn there is a device of another character to the last, here a lion couchant, there the head of Momus, a wild boar's head, a heron, a skeleton, &c., &c. In one place were two old friars seated, each leaning on his stick, apparently in earnest conversation; all these are roughly, but with great accuracy, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... studded with pale golden stars; the open air was dense with the perfume of the wood, the saline indication of the sea-ware. On the rocky edge of the islet at one part showed the white fringe of the waves now more peaceful; to the north brooded enormous hills, seen dimly by the stars, couchant terrors, vague, vast shapes of dolours and alarms. Doom stood long looking at them with the flame of the candle blowing inward and held above his head—a mysterious man beyond Montaiglon's comprehension. He stood behind him a pace or two, shivering ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... dull, peering eyes, and impotently snarl! But you,"—and here his gazed rested doubtfully, yet questioningly, on his companion's open, serene countenance—'you, if rumor speaks truly, should have been able to tame YOUR bears and turn them into dogs, humble and couchant! Your marvellous achievements ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... a great occasion," he mused. "We have seen what we came out to see, and what more have we a right to demand? The dear people rampant, the respected mayor quiescent, but biding his time, Cobbens couchant but fanged, the President raised to a sublime apotheosis. It is always a pleasure—is it not?—to witness transcendent ability, even if it be in the line of practical politics. The perfection of each thing is worth observing. These ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... others—and makes a handsome addition to the garden, irrespective of its historical associations. The chalet is of dark wood varnished, and has in the centre a large carving of Dickens's crest, which in heraldic terms is described as: "a lion couchant 'or,' holding in the gamb a cross ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... all events, that Sylla formed a right estimate of Caesar's character, and that, from the complexion of his conduct in this one instance, he drew that famous prophecy of his future destiny; bidding his friends beware of that slipshod boy, "for that in him lay couchant many a Marius." A grander testimony to the awe which Caesar inspired, or from one who knew better the qualities of that Cyclopean man by whose scale he measured the patrician boy, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... was gone; and he saw for a moment the umber mystery of Stamboul, lifted under tinted clouds of the evening beyond the waters of the Golden Horn; the great rounded domes and tapering speary minarets of the mosques, couchant amid the shadows and the trailing and gauzy smoke-wreaths, a suggestion of dense masses of cypresses, those trees of the night which only in the night can be truly themselves, guarding the innumerable graves of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... groaning 'neath rich meats, With all the dainties palate ever dreamed In lavishness to waste—for dwellers in the streets Of cities, whether Troy, or Tyre, or Ispahan, Consume, in point of cost, food at a single meal Much less than what is spread before this crowned man—- Who rules his couchant nation with a rod of steel, And whose servitors' chiefest arts it was to squeeze The world's full teats into his royal helpless mouth. Each hard-sought dainty that never failed to please, All delicacies, wines, from east, west, north or south, Are plenty here—for ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... add such beauty to the octagon of S. Gottardo, or in the string-courses of strange beasts and reptiles that adorn the church fronts of Pavia. They called to their aid the mandorlato of Verona, supporting their porch pillars on the backs of couchant lions, inserting polished slabs on their facades, and building huge sarcophagi into their cloister alleys. Between terra-cotta and this marble of Verona there exists a deep and delicate affinity. It took the name of mandorlato, I ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... of the Parish Church he paused, recalling something. Low and square-towered, couchant in the moonlight behind its railings, the Parish Church guarded under its ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... thus unconsciously preparing all things for the snake that even now—'her crest brightening with hope' was couchant by her children's cradle. Unhappy children! that on this quiet summer-night were to be driven out upon the main sea of a stormy and wicked world from the quiet haven of their father's castle, and had already on this earth parted for ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... that "Lions of sundry-kinds have sundry-names. Tear-in-pieces like a lion. That he ravin not, make-a-prey; called a plueker Renter or Tearer, and elsewhere Laby that is, Harty and couragious; Kphir, this lurking, Couchant. The reason of thier names is shewed, as The renting-lion as greedy to tear, and the lurking-Lion as biding in covert places. Other names are also given to this kind as Shachal, of ramping, of fierce nature; and Lajith of subduing his prey. Psalm LVI Lions called here Lebain, harty, stowt ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... too, lifted up his head as if he snuffed from afar off the living waters which marked the place of repose and refreshment. But a distant form separated itself from the trees, and advanced towards the knight at a speed which soon showed a Saracen cavalier. The Crusader, whose arms were a couchant leopard, disengaged his lance, and well acquainted with the customs of Eastern warriors, made a dead halt, confident that his own weight would give him the advantage if the enemy advanced to the actual shock; but the Saracen, wheeling his horse with inimitable dexterity, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... American reading public who desire to join this secret society may do so without fear of publicity, as the names will not be given out. The only means of distinguishing a fellow-member will be a tiny gold emblem, to be worn in the lapel, representing the figure (couchant) of Spain's most touted animal. The motto will be "Nimmermehr," which is a German translation of the Spanish phrase ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... outbreak to point a moral in one or two of his speeches on the Kingship Question. The standard taken at Mile-End-Green bore a Red Lion couchant, with the motto Who shall rouse him up?; and among the tracts or manifestos taken was one called A Standard set up, whereunto the true Seed and Saints of the Most High may be gathered together for the lamb, against the Beast and the False Prophet. It was a fierce diatribe against ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... sheep. Down the gorge lay our route; and paths, over which I had almost feared to walk my horse, were now passed in a quick continuous gallop. We soon reached the scene of my encounter with the huntress. The dog still kept sentry over the game. Couchant by the body of the bighorn, he only growled as the cavalcade swept past. No one stopped to relieve him, of his charge. On a war expedition the chase is universally neglected. Even its spoils are spurned. Hunger is supposed to beget prowess, as it sharpens ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... slopes of Palestine, with Hermon's snowy peak rising high above. It was accounted for, however, by the golden crosses of the kingdom of Jerusalem waving above the watch-tower, that rose like a pointing finger above the keep, in company with a lesser ensign bearing a couchant hound, sable. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... air Are golden everywhere, And golden with a gold so suave and fine The looking on it lifts the heart like wine. Trafalgar Square (The fountains volleying golden glaze) Gleams like an angel-market. High aloft Over his couchant Lions in a haze Shimmering and bland and soft, A dust of chrysoprase, Our Sailor takes the golden gaze Of the saluting sun, and flames superb As once he flamed it on his ocean round. The dingy dreariness of the picture-place, Turned very nearly bright, Takes on a certain dismal grace, And ...
— The Song of the Sword - and Other Verses • W. E. Henley |
