"Halcyon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little we knew on the day of my ordination, and in those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential friend in a hundred families in the town,—cutting the social trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation,"—to keep abreast of the thought of the age ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... The halcyon weather held for two weeks, the delicate weather of Indian summer. Day by day the forest dropped its leaves under a blue windless sky; but the nights sharpened their frosts. Ruth, stealing early to her bathing-pool, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Those were halcyon days which Robert passed at Silverton, but one stood out prominently before him, whether sitting by his camp-fire or plunging into the battle, and that the one when, casting aside all pride and foolish theories, Bell Cameron freely acknowledged her love ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... Hall—to students; and their rabbis instructed even Christian students in their synagogue. Jews took care of vacant benefices for the king. In the reign of Henry I. the Jews began to make proselytes, and monks were sent to several towns to preach against them. Halcyon times! With the reign of Stephen, however, began the storms, and, with the clergy, the usurper persecuted the Jews, exacting a fine of L2,000 from those of London alone for a pretended manslaughter. The absurd story of the Jews murdering ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... opposition, Bruno enjoyed fair weather, halcyon months, in England. His description of the Ash Wednesday Supper at Fulke Greville's, shows that a niche had been carved out for him in London, where he occupied a pedestal of some importance. Those gentlemen of Elizabeth's Court did not certainly exaggerate the value ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and corruption."[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The common people of China are ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... great tranquillity upon the distresses of Austria, and, in their indolence of gluttony, stand idle spectators of that deluge, by which, if it be suffered to roll on without opposition, their own halcyon territories must at ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... of phrase, runs them very close. Still, Mozart, Bach, and Handel do move us more profoundly. And an odd demonstration that Purcell the instrumental writer is almost above Purcell the composer for the voice, is that in such songs as "Halcyon Days" (in "The Tempest") the same phrases are perhaps less grateful on the voice than when repeated by the instrument. The phrase "That used to lull thee in thy sleep" (in "The Indian Queen") is divine when sung, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... short halcyon days of his opening independence, however, he was able to make himself the centre of such a world as he would have loved to live in. He was not, of course, generally popular, either at college or at home; nor yet in town, except among that small set in whose midst he ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... with a garment to enfold, And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew, And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake, Seeming delight to take In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay, From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay. Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light, With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright, Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight; And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... to lay the matter before his Grace of Newcastle:" "Please your Grace, it is hardly three months since the illustrious Treaty of Vienna was signed; Dutch and we leading in the Termagant of Spain, and nothing but halcyon weather to be looked for on that side!" Grace of Newcastle, anxious to avoid trouble with Spain, answers I can only fancy what; and nothing was done upon Jenkins ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... To the halcyon days in which such delights were possible Uncle Matt belonged. He was too old to look forward; he wanted his past again; and to find himself the sole faithful retainer in a once brilliant household, with the chance of making himself indispensable ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... calm between the storms; halcyon days, as they have well been named, in which genius had sufficient freedom in determining its own direction to devote itself with all its ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... had Calico become in these halcyon days. His back and flanks were like the surface of a well-upholstered sofa. His coat of motley told its own story of daily rubbings and good feeding. The white was dazzlingly white and the carrot-red patches glowed ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek:— What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire A Briton's independence taught to seek Far western worlds; and there his household fire The light of social love did long inspire; And many a halcyon day he lived to see, Unbroken but by one misfortune dire, When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she Was gone;—and Gertrude ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... Chartist riot, or Irish rebellion, or Indian mutiny, or petty Colonial war. To suppress these sporadic disorders a small professional army was incomparably the best instrument, and it was, of course, best secured and maintained by the system of voluntary enlistment. Thus in the halcyon Georgian and Victorian days the right inherent in every sovereign Government to call upon its subjects for national service sank into forgetfulness, the ancient military obligations of Englishmen fell into desuetude, and ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... created by swelling and subsiding storms, or by calms around thy ship transformed into immeasurable plains, they filled thy fancy with images dominant over the memories of the steadfast earth. The petterel and the halcyon were the birds the sailor loved, and he forgot the songs of the inland woods in the moanings that haunt the very heart of the tumultuous sea. Of that ship nothing was ever known but that she perished. He, too, the grave and thoughtful English boy, whose exquisite scholarship we all so ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... lenient &c 740; gentle, mild, mellow; cool, sober, temperate, reasonable, measured; tempered &c v.; calm, unruffled, quiet, tranquil, still; slow, smooth, untroubled; tame; peaceful, peaceable; pacific, halcyon. unexciting, unirritating^; soft, bland, oily, demulcent, lenitive, anodyne; hypnotic &c 683; sedative; antiorgastic^, anaphrodisiac^. mild as mother's milk; milk and water. Adv. moderately &c adj.; gingerly; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... shut them; then hearing a deep sigh, he shrugged his shoulders, and looked as pitiable as a prime minister with a rebellious cabinet. At length he ventured to lift up his head; there was not a wrinkle on the face of ocean; a halcyon fluttered over him, and then scudded before his canoe, and gamesome porpoises were tumbling at his side. The sky was cloudless, except in the direction to which he was driving; but even as Popanilla observed, with some misgivings, the mass of vapours which had there congregated, the great square ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... This halcyon period of our autumn will always in some way be associated with the Indian. It is red and yellow and dusky like him. The smoke of his camp-fire seems again in the air. The memory of him pervades the woods. His plumes and moccasins and blanket ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... Representative, 500l. per annum. To this is added certain mileage allowance for traveling backward and forward between their own State and the Capitol. A Senator, therefore, from California or Oregon has not altogether a bad place; but the halcyon days of mileage allowances are, I believe, soon to be brought to an end. It is quite within rule that the Senator of to-day should be the Representative of to-morrow. Mr. Crittenden, who was Senator from Kentucky, ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... promise of sooner or later revolving into a chaos of equal sadness, universal strife. It is the relation of the immediate isthmus on which we stand ourselves to a past and (prophetically speaking) to a coming world of calamity, the relation of the smiling and halcyon calm which we have inherited to that darkness and anarchy out of which it arose, and towards which too gloomily we augur its return—this relation it is which enforces the other impulses, whether ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... maiden-hair ferns, and masses of hydrangea bushes, which must be beautiful as a poet's dream when they are covered with their great bunches of pale blue blossom. That will not be until Christmas-tide, and, alas! I shall not be here to see, for already my three halcyon days of grace are ended and over, and this very evening we must steam away from a great deal yet unvisited of what is interesting and picturesque, and from friends who three days ago were strangers, but who have made every moment since we landed stand out as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... from a strenuous and successful manhood by so dark a gulf as to concentrate all the powers of recollection upon them with a desperate kind of intensity. It was the realization of a childish ambition conceived in that halcyon era which drew him to Gadshill, and he returned again and again to the contemplation of his earliest dreams and imaginings. He wrote from Gadshill of his old nurse—the original, it can ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... theological Professor, the other by another, comprised the theological teaching of a seat of learning which had been the home of Duns Scotus and Alexander Hales. What envious mischance put an end to those halcyon days, and revived the odium theologicum in the years which followed? Let us do justice to the authoritative rulers of the University; they have their failings; but not to them is the revolution to be ascribed. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... more comfortable. The heavens of international politics were as serene as the evening sky; not yet was the storm-cloud that hung over Ireland bigger than a man's hand; east, west, north and south there brooded the peace of the close of a halcyon day, and the amazing doings of the Suffragettes but added a slight incentive to the perusal of the morning paper. The arts flourished, harvests prospered; the world like a newly-wound clock seemed to be in for a spell of serene and orderly ticking, with an occasional chime just ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... toward the north and toward the south, in the halcyon weather that had seldom failed since the withdrawal of the nebula, they arrived at the place (or above it) which had stood during centuries for a noon-mark on ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... me back the halcyon days Of grateful rest, the week of leisure, The journey lapped in autumn haze, The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure, The morning ride, the noonday halt, The blazing slopes, the red dust rising, And then the dim, brown, ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... halcyon days of the Reconstruction only to find themselves reduced almost to the status of slaves, many Negroes deserted the South for the promising west to grow up with the country. The immediate causes were doubtless political. Bulldozing, a rather vague term, covering all such crimes ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... students innumerable, all in their own departments capable of satisfying a youth's curiosity, by explaining to him the particular virtues of books discussed, or of antique works of art inspected. During those halcyon years, before the invasion of Charles VIII., it seemed as though the peace of Italy might last unbroken. No one foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which were about to be poured forth upon her plains and cities through the next half-century. Rarely, at any period of the world's history, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients. If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have no fear ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... halcyon broods through the Sabbath-days of winter, and, looking from her nest, sees the waves of a summer calm and brightness,—now while she meditates, with the eggs under her wings, of a fast-approaching time when she shall teach her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... the translucent firmament. And as the air by a bird's wing laven, Or a deep pool by a white hand waven, Floated the swells of the dewy tide Round the sea-maiden and me beside. Onward we went where a diamond portal Kept the pure light of the dawn immortal, Making the heart sicken o'er to win The halcyon joys it enclosed within; Entered we under its arching sweep Into the palace hall of the deep, Where 'neath the vault of its lofty dome Have the nymphs and mermen gay their home; There sat old Neptune upon his throne, A foaming wave that was turn'd ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... mine, however, and I would hold them: the halcyon breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag with the broken chain—the bag! Why, it was in ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian, the philosopher, the historian and the humble listener, there has been a divine melody running through the song, which speaks of hope and halcyon ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... From such halcyon dreams they were startled one morning, at daybreak, by a savage yell, and jumped for their rifles. The yell was repeated by two or three voices. Cautiously peeping out, they beheld, to their dismay, several Indian warriors among the trees, all armed and painted in warlike style, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... The halcyon days, so much desired, may be far distant! I have to comment, elsewhere, on certain parts of the Report of the commissioners on the British Museum—which I hope to do firmly, yet respectfully; and on the evidence of ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... change. Just at first it was hardly noticeable. But it swiftly developed, and the shrewd mind of the watcher in the hills realized that the days of halcyon were passing all too swiftly. Men were no longer satisfied ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... passion for revolutions are admirable,(685) and yet it is natural for an historian to like to describe times of action. Halcyon days do not furnish matter for talents; they are like the virtuous couple in a comedy, a little insipid. Mr. Manly and Lady Grace, Mellefont and Cynthia, do not interest one much. Indeed, in a tragedy where they are unhappy, they give the audience full satisfaction, and no envy. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... simplicity of his faith, "is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprising, more snarl'd with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; an Attempt so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy Halcyon Days with all the Vultures of Hell trodden under our feet." In sound and structure Mather's style is what the critics call "archaistic." It is all untouched by the influences of another world, and though "the New Englanders were," in Mather's ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... introduction and recommendation. Wells, having known the applicant less than a fortnight, was pleased with him and said what he could. Allison was impressed by the applicant's fluency and apparent frankness, and in less than a week the erudite Elmendorf found himself in halcyon waters. Then came the foreign trip, another thing to rejoice in; but before he sailed Elmendorf had had an opportunity of doing good to his kind, as he conceived it. Seeking an inexpensive lodging on his arrival in Chicago, he had found a neat, cheerful home under the roof of an elderly ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... imperil their happiness with the hope that at some future period, when they will have put a little together, they will be enabled to thoroughly lay themselves out for enjoyment. But in the vast majority of cases these halcyon days never arrive, or, if they do, it is more than probable the health is undermined by the neglect of those very matters which should form part and parcel of one's daily existence. It is the exact parallel ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... witness the effects of the mandarine's folly. At times a ray of reason penetrates her diseased brain, and then the sight of her anguish would soften a heart of stone. Enter, and for the small sum of ten sous you shall hear sobs such as the Odeon never echoed in its halcyon days. The unhappy woman has waked up to the absurdity and inanity of her blind passion; she confesses to herself that she is madly pursuing a phantom. She knows but too well that he, in the vigor and beauty of youth, cannot love a faded old ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... have a feeling answering to all these, rooted in the breast, unalterable, unutterable, to which all other feelings are light and vain! Perfect love reposes on the object of its choice, like the halcyon on the wave; and the air ...
— Liber Amoris, or, The New Pygmalion • William Hazlitt
... enabled her to throw herself into other people's interests; it gave her positive happiness to see Michael so tranquil and content, and carrying himself with the air of a man who knows himself to be anchored in some fair haven after stress of weather; and, indeed, these were halcyon days ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the preference to the present Summer season that has but recently commenced, a season so rich in enjoyment. For now Unceasing are the charms of halcyon days, When the cool bath exhilarates the frame; When sylvan gales are laden with the scent Of fragrant Patalas; when soothing sleep Creeps softly on beneath the deepening shade; And when, at last, the dulcet calm of eve Entrancing steals o'er every ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister, the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality by Tinto's brush, custom ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... into the channel of a brook that circled along the foot of the descent; and here, turning joyfully to the left, we rode in luxury and ease over the white pebbles and the rippling water, shaded from the glaring sun by an overarching green transparency. These halcyon moments were of short duration. The friendly brook, turning sharply to one side, went brawling and foaming down the rocky hill into an abyss, which, as far as we could discern, had no bottom; so once more we betook ourselves to the detested woods. When next we came forth from their dancing ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... to facilitate his commerce supply him with fish, and wash his shores; often wrecks his ships, frequently bursts its boundaries, lays waste his lands, destroys the produce of his industry, and commits the most frightful ravages. The halcyon, delighted with the tempest, voluntarily mingles with the storm; rides contentedly upon the surge; rejoiced by the fearful howlings of the northern blast, plays with happy buoyancy upon the foaming billows, that have ruthlessly dashed in pieces the vessel ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... took time; but a beginning was made in those halcyon, summer days, and the art of working by the hand gradually brought to some perfection. No little of this dog's gladness in life was centred eventually in this accomplishment, and he was never happier ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... outside world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... would not own it yet), at York and Flamborough it was not so. No crisis arose to demand his presence; no business went amiss because of his having to work so hard at love. There came, as there sometimes does in matters pressing, tangled, and exasperating, a quiet period, a gentle lull, a halcyon time when the jaded brain reposes, and the heart may hatch her own mares'-nests. Underneath that tranquil spell lay fond Joe and Bob (with their cash to spend), Widow Precious (with her beer laid in), and Widow Carroway, with a dole at last ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... in her youthful eye, The Halcyon's feathers flame; She wish'd a pair of these, tho' shy, ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... These were halcyon hours, happier as Leonora grew up and received the education prescribed for her by her parent. Her Hebrew was fair, and her Hittite up to a first class, but, to my distress, she mainly devoted herself ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... Fairer far than this fair Day, Which, like thee to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake 5 In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born, 10 Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, 15 And breathed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... fable of later invention, that Ireland was a land of peace and harmony, of orderly government and abounding prosperity, when a wicked English minister came and "stole away the Parliament House"—since which all has been decay and desolation. The halcyon period is generally made to coincide with that of "Grattan's Parliament"—of the semi-independent and quite unworkable Constitution of 1782, which had been extorted from England's weakness when Ireland was denuded of regular troops, and at the mercy of a Volunteer National Guard, when ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... On halcyon wings our moments pass, Life's cruel cares beguiling; Old Time lays down his scythe and glass, In gay good-humour smiling: With ermine beard and forelock gray, His reverend part adorning, He looks like Winter turn'd to May, Night soften'd into Morning. How grand in age, how fair in youth, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... nature seemed to be in such perfect tune with the deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,—he had done with world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation it seemed as though the true meaning ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... for a quart d'heure, Sir Paul. Helas! It was not so in the old days. It was always gay then at this time of the night, with the band playing and all the guests chattering like mad." The maitre d'hotel breathed a gentle sigh for the halcyon days of long ago. ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous
... left me without a sou in the locanda at Venice," said Mistigris. "And I had to get from Venice to Rome by painting portraits for five francs apiece, which they didn't pay me. However, that was my halcyon time. I ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... unfamiliar dialect, an English which to us sounded almost like a foreign tongue. Then the first glimpse of the sea; the excitement of noting whether tide was high or low—stretches of sand and weedy pools, or halcyon wavelets frothing at their furthest reach, under the sea-banks starred with convolvulus. Of a sudden, ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... population of Holland the halcyon days are past. The spirit of reform is in the air. It may not be long before the tjalk, with its doll's house and its residential population, will finally disappear, and leave the canals of Holland as dull and colourless as the inland waters of any other country. The reform seems likely to come about ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... wicked a doctrine." To the ancients all beyond the region they had traversed was an unknown land, clothed in darkness, crowded with mystery and allurement. Across the weltering wastes of brine, in a halcyon sea, the Hindu placed the White Isle, the dwelling of translated and immortalized men.8 Under the attraction of a mystic curiosity, well might the old, wearied ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... himself but scanty allowances of wine, and no allowance of anything stronger than wine, and did not dislike his temperance. There was about him at all hours an air which seemed to say, "There; I told you all that I could do it as soon as there was any necessity." And in these halcyon days he could shoot for an hour without his pony, and he liked the gentle, courteous badinage which was bestowed upon his courtship, and he liked also Julia's beauty. Her conduct to him was perfect. She was never pert, never exigeant, never romantic, and never humble. She ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... period of our nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year—one of those unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon (*1),—I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting my eyes, I saw ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... harvested my first crop of filberts from my experimental garden here in town and my bushes at Halcyon Frunut Gardens (this is the name of my nut farm) are growing nicely and some have catkins for next year's crop. The filberts that I have just harvested were borne from three Cosford bushes of the French strain. I have some German strain that I received from Mr. McGlennon ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... the state of Israel in spite of the halcyon days it enjoyed under Jeroboam II. From the indirect results of war, from changes in the tenure and in the culture of the soil, from defective administration of justice, the humbler classes had much to suffer; they found that the times were evil. But it was not this that caused Amos ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... so halcyon skies Chill blasts of disillusion blow When I observe with pained surprise The state of things in Mexico; And "Why," I ask, "in Heaven's name, Can't 'God's own country' (U.S.A.) go And, by the right none else may claim, Put it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various
... of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... the halcyon days of Spain, and what a breed of men she produced! Read the story of their conquests in Mexico and Peru, as told with so much skill and taste by our own Prescott; or read of the grandeur of her national character, and the wonderful valor of her troops, and the almost ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... eve of a Jubilee Year, when the halcyon shall plume his wing, and we shall hear much oratorical trash and hebetude about the peacefulness of ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... 1726; "Alessandro," 1726; "Admeto," 727; "Siroe," 1728; and "Tolommeo," 1728. They made as great a furore among the musical public of that day as would an opera from Gounod or Verdi in the present. The principal airs were sung throughout the land, and published as harpsichord pieces; for in these halcyon days of our composers the whole atmosphere of the land was full of the flavor and color of Handel. Many of the melodies in these now forgotten operas have been worked up by modern composers, and so have passed into modern music unrecognized. It is a notorious fact that ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris
... was taught by the manner of his friend Poppins that he could not now expect to receive that high deference which was paid to him about the time that Johnson of Manchester had been in the ascendant. Those had been the halcyon days of the firm, and Robinson had then been happy. Men at that time would point him out as he passed, as one worthy of notice; his companions felt proud when he would join them; and they would hint to him, with a mysterious reverence that was very gratifying, their assurance that ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... her luring smile, The mystic charm-light of halcyon hours, Shall no more with her witch'ry our souls beguile, As the leaves grow seer on Life's fading bowers, And the blushes are pale ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... with a French family, just around the corner from the Hospice. The head of the family had been, in the halcyon days before the war, the village butcher. There was now Madame, the little Marie, a sturdy boy about twelve, and the old Grand'mere. The husband was away, of course,—"dans les tranchees," explained ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... you what that bird was—a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon of the ancients, about which so many tales are told. It lives on fish, which it catches in the manner you saw. It builds in holes in the banks, and is a shy, retired bird, never to be seen far from the stream ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... The halcyon days of autumn, that seemed like the last sweet smiles of summer, had come, when one day Albert packed a valise and boarded the early morning train for Maine. An insidious longing to see the girl that had been in his thoughts for four months ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... after the "discovery" of the field by Mr. Peter Finnerty, old "Taeping," as Gordon's ex-marine engineer had been promptly nicknamed, arrived with his crushing battery, and then indeed were halcyon days for the Flat. From early morn till long past midnight, the little bar of the "Digger's Best" was crowded with diggers, packhorsemen and teamsters; a police trooper arrived and fixed his tent on the ridge overlooking ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... dispelled my last doubts. It was my intention to invite you to dine with me to-day but you have quite discouraged me. I live quite en garcon, you know, and have no Chateau Yquem nor pheasant a la Sainte Alliance, and whatever else your halcyon days at the Cafe Anglais may have accustomed ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... In the halcyon days of Cartagena's greatness, when, under the protection of the powerful mother-country, her commerce extended to the confines of the known world, her streets and markets presented a scene of industry and activity wholly foreign to ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... me again, You are very happy, said he, my beloved girl, in your style and expressions: and the affectionate things you say of me are inexpressibly obliging; and again, with this kiss, said he, do I confirm for truth all that you have promised for my intentions in this letter.—O what halcyon days are these! God continue them!—A ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... the honey-bees," extracting liquid sweets from opening buds; so the butterfly expands its wings to the idle air; so the thistle's silver down is wafted over summer seas. An airy voyager on life's stream, his mind inhales the fragrance of a thousand shores, and drinks of endless pleasures under halcyon skies. Wherever his footsteps tend over the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... and Sue, who have ice-cream, Life is a glowing, halcyon dream, While Tom stands empty by; And says, "Gee! fellers, ain't it prime? Say, I had ice-cream too, one time, And it ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells
... strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might his pinion ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... patter with his human, disarming grin. The Great Patapon, contrary to jealous anticipation, saw himself welcomed as a contrast and received more than his usual meed of applause. This satisfied, for the time, his singer's vanity which he professed so greatly to despise. They entered on a spell of halcyon days. ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... such a trial of his patience! In fact, his troubles were scarcely worth mentioning, for he was never cursed with learned servants!" Saying this, the doctor retired, lamenting his hard fate in not having been born in those halcyon days when cooks drew nothing but their poultry; whilst the gentle Celestina's breast panted with indignation at his complaint. An opportunity soon offered for revenge; and seeing the doctor's steam valet ready to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 281, November 3, 1827 • Various
... minutiae of detail, I shall briefly say that things did not long remain in this delightful position; for before many months had elapsed, poor Fanny had to bear with her husband's increased and more frequent storms of passion, unfollowed by any halcyon and honeymoon suings for forgiveness: for at my instigation every shilling went; and when there were no more to go, her trinkets and even her clothes followed. The lieutenant became a complete brute, and even allowed his ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in your carols praise The Halcyon's happy state; Hear in compassionate amaze, One ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... Despair, therefore ill becomes one who has follies to bewail, and a God to trust in. Johnson and Goldsmith, with numerous others, at some seasons were plunged deep in the waters of adversity, but halcyon days awaited them: and even those sons of merit and misfortune whose pecuniary troubles were more permanent, in the dimness of retrospection, only stand ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... eventful day—a day far back in that happy, halcyon age when ships sailed as freely across the ocean as ferry-boats across the North River and men roved at will among the nations of the earth—one sunny August morning, eight years after the day of our coming, ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine
... oppress my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which is the theme I yearn to ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... I must pass quickly over that time of my life on which I should most love to linger, those halcyon hours when, with Marian by my side and the prospect bright before us, we voyaged through those Indian seas, down the long coast of Malabar and up the long coast of Coromandel, past the Isle of Serendib, and the reefs and foaming seas, to where the tangled banyan roots ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... once been a family servant—an indoor domestic, and handmaiden to a white mistress. This in the days of youth—the halcyon days of her girlhood, in "Ole Varginny"—before she was transported west, sold to Ephraim Darke, and by him degraded to the lot of an ordinary outdoor slave. But her original owner taught her to read, and her memory still retains ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... was gratified, not completely, but enough to remove grounds for lover's fretfulness. He passed idyllic days in halcyon weather. Often she would send her gondola to fetch him from the Grand Hotel, where he was staying. Now and then, most graciously audacious of princesses, she would come herself. On such occasions he would sit awaiting her with beating heart, juvenis fortunatus ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... lovely, gracious, delicate, entrancing poem he remembered so well! And by and by, as each mellifluous stanza sounded softly on his ears, a strangely solemn tranquillity swept over him,—a most soothing halcyon calm, as though some passing angel's hand had touched ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... memory carried them back to many scenes connected with past experiences; and they lived again in the various happenings marking those halcyon days. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel
... stopped my mouth, and I reserved my thanks for a future occasion; for I could not but feel, that being an officer of the Company, it was robbing me of a part of my pay under the pretext of an indulgence. Availing myself, however, of this ungenerous grant of freedom, I spent some halcyon days in the company of relatives most dear to me, and expected no interruption to my enjoyment until the time appointed for the embarkation: but a few days after I had joined my relatives in the vicinity of Montreal, I received a letter, commanding me, in the most peremptory ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... old days,—the halcyon days of youth,—after the sap was gathered, and the fuel piled high beside the arch, then it was that we sat down by the blazing fire and watched it burn; heaped on the logs, filled up the kettle, and again sat down to muse, or talk, or read. If the wind whistled afar, the boiling-place ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... greys and blacks for times of grave political crises; fawn, buff, pearl, moose—I am not sure that this is a colour, but it sounds quite possible—for brighter hours; and colours familiar to every student of spectroscopy for halcyon days of rejoicing—the opening of the Royal Academy, the Handel Festival, the return of HARRY LAUDER, or the elevation of Mr. BERNARD SHAW to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 22, 1914 • Various
... reputation as a preacher in London, and had moved,—if not in fashionable circles,—at any rate in circles so near to fashion as to be brought within the reach of Lady Eustace's charms. They were married, and for some few months Mr. Emilius enjoyed a halcyon existence, the delights of which were, perhaps, not materially marred by the necessity which he felt of subjecting his young wife to marital authority. "My dear," he would say, "you will know me better soon, and then things will be smooth." ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... fine morning of some miles. Whether the whole, as involving some little added trouble of mind to that whose whole weight he was going so soon to remove, was too severe a penance for the steward's neglect, may be variously judged by various readers. In the halcyon days that followed, Winifred never forgot the place on the Tivy bank where she slept and dropped her book; nor did the happy husband, melancholic no more, forsake his coracle or his harp utterly, but would often serenade ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... occasional draught of weak beer, his fastidious appetite demanded fresh meat or fish, white bread, vegetables freshly gathered, and ale of the best. As long as his store lasted, he worked as little as possible, and grumbled at the fortune that made him a laborer. But these halcyon days were few, and soon passed away, to be followed by decreasing allowances of the commonest food, fierce pangs of hunger, and miserable destitution. A bad harvest inflicted untold wretchedness on the poor. Ill lodged, ill fed, and scantily clothed, disease cut them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... sharp ascent from the town, as well as the still sharper and highly dangerous descent into the valley again, where the little mediaeval village lay nestled. Thus it was enabled to gather to itself a strangely beautiful halcyon calm on the Lord's Day,—and in fair Spring weather like the present, dozed complacently under the quiet smile of serene blue skies, soothed to sleep by the rippling flow of its ribbon-like river, and receiving from hour to hour a fluttering halo of doves' wings, as these traditional ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... in a canal-boat is the pleasantest of all, granting that there is no crowd of passengers, and that the weather is agreeable. But there are so few parts of the world where this is now practicable, that we need not say much of it. The school-girls of this generation may well long for those old halcyon days of Miss Portia Lesley's School. In that ideal establishment the girls went to Washington to study political economy in the winter. They went to Saratoga in July and August to study the analytical processes ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... But such halcyon days could not last long. Even Paradise might pall on such a restless temperament as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He began to sigh for the outer world in which he felt that it was his destiny to shine, for an arena in which ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... so we mused upon the whims of Fate That had degraded Tragedy from its old, supreme estate; And duly, at the Morton bar, we stigmatized the age As sinfully subversive of the interests of the Stage! For Jack and I were actors in the halcyon, palmy days Long, long before the Hoyt school of farce became the craze; Yet, as I now recall it, it was twenty years ago That we were Roman soldiers with Brutus in ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... But first November came, with its 'saint Martin's summer, halcyon days' and the old man revived a little. He stood one morning and looked from his window on the garden behind the house, all glittering with molten hoar-frost. A few leaves, golden with death, hung here and there on a naked bough. A kind of sigh was in the air. The very ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Man ushered in a halcyon period in Goldsmith's life. The Traveller and the Vicar had gained for him only reputation: this new comedy put L500 in his pocket. Of course that was too big a sum for Goldsmith to have about him long. Four-fifths of it he immediately expended on the purchase and decoration ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... halcyon days, when I returned to spend the vacations at the Lodge, and found myself ever a welcome visitor at the Hall. With a proud heart I recounted to Sir Alexander, all my boyish triumphs at school, and the good baronet listened to my enthusiastic details with the most intense interest, and fought ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... Philosophies, Sensibilities,—beautiful art, not only of revealing Thought, but also of so beautifully hiding from us the want of Thought! Paper is made from the rags of things that did once exist; there are endless excellences in Paper.—What wisest Philosophe, in this halcyon uneventful period, could prophesy that there was approaching, big with darkness and confusion, the event of events? Hope ushers in a Revolution,—as earthquakes are preceded by bright weather. On the Fifth of May, fifteen years hence, old Louis will ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the home. The details of a dinner or a social company at the fireside become the topics for the gossip of strangers. I sometimes think that the young people of the present day lose much of the romance that used to belong to the halcyon period of courtship. In the somewhat primitive days of my youth, young lovers kept their own secrets, and were startled if their heart affairs were on other people's tongues; but now-a-days marriage engagements are matters of public announcement—not infrequently ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... a lover," and we elderly people are always pleased to note the progress of young folks' love affairs, especially if either of them is a relative of ours. In them we seem to renew our youth, for their entrancements seem to carry us back to the halcyon days when we ourselves were young. When "Love took up the glass of time and turned it in his glowing hands" everything seemed of a roseate hue, and we dwelt in the seventh heaven of delight, at peace with all the world ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... would almost seem, does not direct but looks on, as her world emerges in painful toil from chaos. We do not find her with precipitate zeal intervening to arrest at a given point the ferment of creation; stretching her hand when she sees the gleam of the halcyon or the rose to bid the process cease that would destroy them; and sacrificing to the completeness of those lower forms the nobler imperfection of man and of what may lie beyond him. She looks always to the end; and so ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... Calaveras County, to a cabin on jackass Hill. Jim Gillis, a lovable, picturesque character (the Truthful James of Bret Harte), owned mining claims. Mark Twain decided to spend his vacation in pocket-mining, and soon added that science to his store of knowledge. It was a halcyon, happy three months that he lingered there, but did not make his fortune; he only laid ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... by mine own folly of stubborn pride had known so little of content and the deep and restful joy of it; here, I say, greatly tempted am I to dwell and enlarge upon these swift-flying, halcyon days whose memory Time cannot wither; I would paint you her changing moods, her sweet gravity, her tender seriousness, her pretty rogueries, her demureness, her thousand winsome tricks of gesture ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... undisturbed, unruffled, pacific, placid, tranquil, halcyon; sedate, collected, imperturbable, unmoved, cool, composed, dispassionate. Antonyms: excited, stormy, agitated, ruffled, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... always felt at any rate the warmest friendship? Such were not her thoughts, nor were they in any way akin to this. They ran back instantly to years gone by,—over long years, as her few years were counted, and settled themselves on certain halcyon days, in which she had dreamed that he had loved her, and had fancied that she had loved him. How she had schooled herself for those days since that, and taught herself to know that her thoughts had been over-bold! And now it had all come round. The only man that she had ever liked had ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... the concern," said Watson, "and take to stagging in Surrey." This was supposed to be the bitterest piece of satire that could be uttered in regard to the halcyon country in which their operations were ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... put an end to wrangling, by giving us all an agreeable object to worship, while for mental demands and social purposes generally we could fall back on Philosophy. Had not our fathers tried Philosophy? When had society a better well being than in the halcyon ages of Plato and Pythagoras? Yet there was a term of indecision with us—or rather incubation. To what school should we attach ourselves? A copy of the Enchiridion of Epictetus fell into our hands, and after studying it faithfully, we rejected Stoicism. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... often called a "hornbill" by foreigners in the Philippines, is probably the halcyon kingfisher (Ceyx euerythra) of the islands. The ground hornbill is confined to Africa; and the tree hornbill of the Philippines does not make its nest at the foot of trees, ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... halcyon days of the free trade, the fixed price for carrying a box of tea or bale of tobacco from the coast of Galloway to Edinburgh was fifteen shillings, and a man with two horses carried four such packages. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... heron, and the grey Halcyon talked from cedar's spray, Drummed the partridge far away;— Ah! could we choose to ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... of "halcyon," it was fabled by the ancients to build its nest on the surface of the sea, and to have the power of calming the troubled waves during its period of incubation; ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... Coosett Lake this afternoon, sir." The man was respectful. The stranger's garb and demeanor impressed him. "The trolley will take you pretty near it. Take a car in the square—a Halcyon Park car." ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the weather as did her mother, there was nothing feeble about her, nor was she averse to action. Life at Ardkill Cottage was dull, and therefore she also was dull. Had she been surrounded by friends, such as she had known in her halcyon school days at Paris, she would have been the gayest of ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Unhappily for Georgy, these halcyon days were broken by intervals of storm and cloud. The weak little woman was afflicted with that intermittent fever called jealousy; and the stalwart Thomas was one of those men who can scarcely give the time of day to a feminine acquaintance without some ornate and loud-spoken ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... Khalid spend his halcyon months in the desert. Here was an arcadia, perfect but brief. For his delight in infant worship, and in the new Love which was budding in beauty and profusion, and in tending his sick cousin who was recovering her health, and in the ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... for his virtue's sake, Though most beloved in his native land, And dreaded most for valour by his foes, He lived a stranger in a foreign land. She, too, that maiden, 'twas her fate to share Her husband's troubles for her beauty rare. Still 'twas a little heav'n their new home where The halcyon days of mutual love were spent. 'Tis sweet to love and sweeter to be loved; And thus in their new home their life of joy They spent in undisturbed solitude; But ah! this even was not long to be. One day the news was brought to their new king, By a small troop of sorrow-stricken men, That ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... parlor of the house. In that densification of population which proceeds so incessantly on Manhattan Island this old house, like many another, was modernly compelled to hold more people than it had been meant for in the halcyon days when Second Avenue was a fashionable thoroughfare. The second floor of the house had been let, without board, to a gentleman and his wife, and the rooms above to single gentlemen. The parlor floor and the basement were made to accommodate the mother and ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... April's heart sweet, she was sometimes in danger of becoming slightly tete montee. But she always pinched herself in time, with the reminder that it was all only a dream from which she must awaken very soon. For the nineteen halcyon days of the voyage were speeding by and coming to an end. Hot, hard blue skies gleamed overhead, and at night came the moon of Africa, pearl-white instead of amber-coloured, as it looks in Europe. ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... laundress, of a gentleman residing at the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were halcyon. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... he was supplanted by another; of their dinners in the sunshine amid the corn-fields; of their boats, banners, and music on the water; of their gentleness, simplicity, and honest, hearty enjoyments. These halcyon days soon came to an end. The infamous Captain Argall, hearing that a number of white people had settled in this hyperborean region, set sail from Jamestown for the colony, in a ship of fourteen guns, in the midst of a profound peace, to burn, pillage, and slaughter ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... appear to us brooding over that doubtful sea. But something of prophetic vision is required of us. We are told that all perils which seem to threaten the first stages of our course are entirely illusive—that they will vanish as we approach—that we shall soon arrive in halcyon waters, and regions where wisdom, peace, and purity reign supreme. If we cautiously inquire after some assurance of such results, we are told that to those sailing under the flag of progress triumph is inevitable, failure is impossible; and that many of the direst evils hitherto ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... and the following night; and I watched over her with as much jealousy of all that might disturb her, as a mother watches over her new-born baby; for I hoped, I fancied, that a long— long rest, a rest, a halcyon calm, a deep, deep Sabbath of security, might prove healing and medicinal. I thought wrong; her breathing became more disturbed, and sleep was now haunted by dreams; all of us, indeed, were agitated by dreams; the past pursued me, and the ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies German finds himself sober—he believes himself ill Govern under the appearance of obeying Great science of political equilibrium Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland Guarantees of forgiveness for every imaginable sin Habeas corpus Halcyon days of ban, book and candle He knew men, especially he knew their weaknesses He did his best to be friends with all the world Heresy was a plant of early growth in the Netherlands His imagination may ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... away! Fairer far than this fair day, Which, like thee, to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon morn To hoar February born; Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... imagination. There the blooming Adonis was seen, not breaking away to pursue the boisterous chase, but crowned with flowers, and languishing in the embraces of celestial beauty. There Acis wooed his Galatea in the shade, with the Sicilian sea spreading in halcyon serenity before them. There were depicted groups of fauns and dryads, fondly reclining in summer bowers, and listening to the liquid piping of the reed; or the wanton satyrs, surprising some wood-nymph during her noontide slumber. There, too, on the storied tapestry, might be seen the chaste ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... that she was all his own seemed then to be world enough for him. For a few weeks he lived a hero to himself, and was able to tell himself that for him the glory of a passion was sufficient. In those halcyon moments no common human care is allowed to intrude itself. To one who has thus entered in upon the heroism of romance his own daily work, his dinners, clothes, income, father and mother, sisters and brothers, his own street and house are ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... neither the temerity to use nor the hardihood to melt or sell. He could but gloat over them behind locked doors, as I used to tell him, and at last one afternoon I caught him at it. It was in the year after that of my novitiate, a halcyon period at the Albany, when Raffles left no crib uncracked, and I played second-murderer every time. I had called in response to a telegram in which he stated that he was going out of town, and must ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... life, but another time the mishap might not be turned to diversion. The coach would not always traverse sunny byways; the dry leaf floating from the majestic arm of the oak, the sound of an acorn as it struck the earth presaged days less halcyon to come. ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... to their native town of Grovebury. The six weeks by the sea seemed a kind of oasis between the anxious period of the war that was past and gone, and the new epoch that stretched ahead in the future. To Ingred they were halcyon days. To have her father and brothers safely back, and for the family to be together in the midst of such beautiful scenery, was sufficient for utter enjoyment. She did not wish her mind to venture outside ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... that blows from the craggy peaks over the treeless plateau seems to take all superfluous moisture out of the men of Madrid. But it is, like Benedick's wit, "a most manly air, it will not hurt a woman." This tropic summer-time brings the halcyon days of the vagabonds of Madrid. They are a temperate, reasonable people, after all, when they are let alone. They do not require the savage stimulants of our colder-blooded race. The fresh air is a feast. As Walt Whitman says, they loaf and invite ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... her, when the gentleman had the opportunity of making his "best genteel-comedy bow." Now it was on the younger generation of the Kembles that the Queen bestowed her gracious countenance. These were halcyon days for society as well as for the stage, when, in Mrs. Oliphant's words, "the Queen was in the foreground of the national life, affecting it always for good, and setting an example of purity and virtue. The theatres to which she went, and which both she and her husband ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... New York was under the reign of Walter Van Twiller, the first governor of the province, and the best it ever had. In his sketch of this excellent magistrate Irving has embodied the abundance and tranquillity of those halcyon days:— ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... So passed the halcyon hours. During the day time Aristide in a corner of the Mayor's office, drew up flamboyant circulars in English which would have put a pushing Land and Estate Agent in the New Jerusalem to the blush, and in the evening played piquet with Madame Coquereau, while Mademoiselle Stephanie, model ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... year," 1851, appears to our backward gaze almost like a short day of splendid summer interposed between two stormy seasons; but at the time men were more inclined to regard it as the first of a long series of halcyon days. Indeed, the unexampled number and success of the various efforts to redress injury and reform abuses, which had signalised the new reign, might almost justify those sanguine spirits, who now wrote and spoke ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... the trees. Sometimes, through the thin forest, in the blue distance, deer were seen; bears began to approach the corn-cribs, and in the unbroken wilderness wolves were heard at night. Early and late the air struck cold, but each midday was a halcyon time. In the last of October, on a still and coloured morning, Rand and Jacqueline, having shaken hands with the overseer and the slaves they were leaving, caressed the dogs, and said good-bye to the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... Napoleon's suggestion that the abolition of the old Empire must be an advantage to Prussia. They clutched eagerly, however, at his proposal that Prussia should form a league of the North German States, and made overtures to the two most important States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. During a few halcyon days the King even proposed to assume the title Emperor of Prussia, from which, however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him. This castle in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of August that Napoleon was seeking to ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... assassin; and the repetition of murder rendered him less willing, and less able, to forgive. [1018] A horrid narrative of the victims whom he sacrificed by poison or the sword, by the sea or the flames, would be less expressive of his cruelty than the appellation of the halcyon days, which was applied to a rare and bloodless week of repose: the tyrant strove to transfer, on the laws and the judges, some portion of his guilt; but the mask was fallen, and his subjects could no longer mistake ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are; A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon; Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone; Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar, Being of its furthest fires oracular;— The evident heart of all life ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti |
