"Mirk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now are gane, a' who ventured to save, The new grass is springing on the tap o' their grave; But the sun through the mirk blinks blithe in my e'e: "I 'll shine on ye yet in your ain countrie." It 's hame, an' it 's hame, hame fain wad I be, An' it 's hame, hame, hame, to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the black ditch, loathing the storm; A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare, And lit the face of what had been a form Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there; I say that he was Christ; stiff in the glare, And leaning forward from his burdening task, Both arms supporting it; his eyes on mine Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask Of mortal pain in Hell's ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... winds complain; Cauld lies the glaur in ilka lane; On draigled hizzie, tautit wean An' drucken lads, In the mirk nicht, the ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the level of the dykes, though it was almost a mirk night beneath the trees, and one arm outstretched before him straight as an elvint, Tommy faced this fearful passage, sometimes stopping to touch cold iron, but on the whole hanging back little, for Elspeth was in peril. Soon ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... but think, sir," returned Grizzie, "as I lie i' the mirk, o' the heap o' things 'at gang to nae kirk, oot an' aboot as sharp as a gled, whan the young laird is no in his bed—oot wi' 's algibbry an' astronomy, an' a' that kin' o' thing!'Deed, sir, it wadna be canny gien they cam to ken ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... ghost has been seen except the lady with the candle, viewed by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I thought she was one of the maids. Perhaps she was, but she went into an empty set of rooms, and did not come out again. Footsteps are apt to approach the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... And so through the mirk wood till I turned and slew, and armed myself, and tormented my prisoner; then to the collier's hut, and my talking with the child; then on till I saw the lights of the viking ships and so thereafter bore the war arrow—everything, till at last I saw myself ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... accompanied him on a portion of his march, and witnessed his insulting treatment of a Persian envoy, sent by Chosroes to meet him and deprecate his attack. Beyond this point exact information fails us; but we may suspect that this is the expedition commemorated by Mirk-hond, wherein the Great Khan, having invaded the Persian territory in force, made himself master of Shash, Ferghana, Samarkand, Bokhara, Kesh, and Nesf, but, hearing that Hornisdas, son of Chosroes, was advancing against him at the head of a numerous army, suddenly fled, evacuating ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... So utter dark, as that no eye Shall see the hugg'd impiety. Gifts blind the wise, and bribes do please And wind all other witnesses; And wilt not thou with gold be tied, To lay thy pen and ink aside, That in the mirk and tongueless night, Wanton I may, and thou not write? —It will not be: And therefore, now, For times to come, I'll make this vow; From aberrations to live free: So I'll not fear the ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... French leave," replied Sandy, "He just droppit oot o' a port-hole into the water after the guard made his rounds and got awa in the mirk; I wonner he was ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... "Oh, mirk, mirk is the midnight hour, And loud the tempest's roar; A waeful wanderer seeks thy tower, Lord Gregory ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... long black night, With its keen lightnings white, Thunder and floods: new light The glimmering low east streaks. The dense clouds part: between Their jagged rents are seen Pale reaches blue and green, As the mirk ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... window—fearing one moment, hoping the next, that her message had not reached him in time, that he would not come—till another night, though she was aware that it must be now or never.... And at last, down below, a mere spark of light moved in the mirk. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... like worms in a starless gloamin'; My hert like a sponge that's fillit wi' gall; My sowl like a bodiless ghaist sent a roamin', To bide i' the mirk till the great ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... desert of London town, Mirk miles broad; He wandered up and he wandered down, Ever alone ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... wood, and pineapples, and sweet it was to Ralph to see her face come clear again from out the mirk of the wood. Then they sat down again together and she said: "We two are seeking the Well at the World's End; now which of us knows more of the way? who is to lead, and who to follow?" Said Ralph: "If thou know no more than I, it is little that thou knowest. Sooth it is that for many ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... Astray From Eden long, here in this fair domain To bide; and through long cycles fearless reign Methinks were joy. In summer sheen Wide spreads thy land. The marge of islets green The palm-trees skirt. Soft shine the dusk lagoons And inland mountains. Mirk the jungle's glooms, And fair thy fertile plains. Oh, sweet the glow When we together watch the day, that low Among the winds lies still. Shut lilies blow While here we wait. Come, for they fain would show Their golden hearts. Or, love, with me to float Were it not sweet, ...
— Lilith - The Legend of the First Woman • Ada Langworthy Collier
... All in the mirk midnight when I was beside you, Who has seen, who has heard, what was said, what was done? 'Twas the night and the light of the stars that espied you, The fall of the moon, and the ...
— Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems • Andrew Lang
... This time their leading spirit was no longer Staupitz, disagreeably conscious of the difficulties of the enterprise, but the hunchback AEsop, who seemed to burn with a passion for slaughter. Lagardere likened him in his mind to some ungainly, obscene bird of prey, as he loomed out of the mirk waving his gaunt arms and shrieking in his rage and hate. "Kill them! kill them!" he screamed, as he rushed across the intervening space, and the bravos, heartened by his frenzy of fight, streamed after him, flinging ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... like you or me. I took no particular notice. More than that, it was an ill time for seeing patterns, being nigh on to pit mirk. He bade me lead the way. And this, to the best of my knowledge and ability, I did. But the track is not canny even in the broad of the day. Mickle worse is it when the light of the stars and the glimmer ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... was kind to her, feeding her mother love with small social triumphs. For one, Lola was chosen to sit with three other tots, the most beautiful of Tewana's children, at the feet of the Virgin in the Theophany of the "Black Christ" at the eastern fiesta. From morning to mirk midnight, it was a hard vigil. By day the vaulted church reeked incense; by night a thousand candles guttered under the dark arches, sorely afflicting small, weary eyelids; yet Lola sat it out like a small thoroughbred, earning thereby the ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... 'It was mirk, mirk nicht and nae starlicht, And they waded through red bluid to the knee; For a' the bluid that 's shed on earth Rins through ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... may hae nane. Gien it comena to ilk ane o' them, it comesna to a'. Ilk ane maun hae the revelation intil his ain sel', as gien there wasna ane mair. And gien it be sae, hoo are we to win at ony trouth no yet revealed, 'cep we gang oot intil the dark to meet it? Ye maun caw canny, I admit, i' the mirk; but ye maun caw gien ye wad win at onything!" "But suppose you know enough to keep going, and do not care ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... the boom of a gun strike doom; And the gleam of a blood-red star Glared at me through the mirk and gloom From the lighthouse tower afar; And I held my breath at the shriek of death That came ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... no shadows. And now the dryad took Nora's hand and she found herself in a little boat, no bigger than a leaf, sailing across the pond but still beneath its surface. And here she saw on every hand, working amid the mire and the mirk, such jolly little divers, who were feeding the fish and tending the pond lily roots, and, like all the ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... they reached the open way, Full free the rein he cast; Oh, never through the mirk midnight Rode man and maid ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Through the mirk loomed up the outlines of a canvas collapsible boat crowded with men. At two lengths from the shore the rowers laid on their oars. One of the men gave vent to a low whistle resembling the call ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... many a time I have heard people disputing about the pronunciation of the Scotch; and one ought to be able to read Burns with a proper accent. Now, you have no Scotch at all here; you don't say 'my dawtie,' and 'ben the hoose,' and ''twixt the gloaming and the mirk.'" ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... a gun somewhere in the mirk ahead and suddenly and quite horribly the Vaterland lurched, and Bert and the sentinel were clinging to the rail for dear life. "Bang!" came a vast impact out of the zenith, followed by another huge roll, and all about him the tumbled clouds flashed ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... night hide fiends to fight And phantoms to affray? What demons lurk in the grisly mirk, As the night-watch waits for day? O strange new gloom! we await the doom, And what doom none may deem; But it's new, new, new—and we'll sail it through, While the mocking ...
— Songs from Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... Then greyness, broken by these patches of misty colour, settles into the lower channels of the New York streets; while the upper heights of the sky-scrapers, clear of the roofs, are still lit on the sunward side with a mellow glow, curiously serene. To the man in the mirk of the street, they seem to exude this light from the great spaces of brick. At this time the cars, always polyglot, are filled with shop-hands and workers, and no English at all is heard. One is surrounded with Yiddish, ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... Dam," says I, I says; "but if I get oot o't livin', I'll lat the pileece hear o't. A gey Lichtin' Commitee we have, to hae fowk wammlin' aboot i' the mirk like this on their wey to the kirk! There's ower muckle keepin' fowk i' the dark a' roond," says I, I says; "an' there maun be an end till't. ...
— My Man Sandy • J. B. Salmond
... bonnie byke! My drappie aiblins blinks the noo, An' leesome luve has lapt the dyke Forgatherin' just a wee bit fou. And SCOTIA! while thy rantin' lunt Is mirk and moop with gowans fine, I'll stowlins pit my unco brunt, An' cleek my duds for ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton |
