"Bough" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plant, dear in its very homeliness, recalled former scenes associated with it. I recollect, too, that the mettlesome barb which bounded over the downs surrounding Longwood did not partake of my sympathy for the golden bough I had plucked. The smooth turf and the yellow furze had no charms for the exile of St. Helena. Never was the “lasciate ogni speranza” more applicable than to his island-prison, and in his melancholy hours his thoughts naturally reverted, with a gush of fond tenderness, to the land ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... heard nothing, save sounds natural to the wilderness, the rustling of leaves before the light wind, the whisper of the tiny current, and the occasional sweet note of a bird in brilliant dress, pluming itself on a bough in its pride. He drew fresh courage from the peace of the woods, and resolved to remain longer there by the stream. Settling himself into the bushes and tall grass, until he was hidden from ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... his best to make amends. He pointed out the oriole's little cradle that swung from the elm bough high above their heads. He showed her the ground-hogs' hole beside the hollow stump and the wasps' nest in the fence corner, until at last friendly ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... thought,—the murmuring noon He turns it to a lyric sweeter, With birds that gossip in the tune, And windy bough-swing in the metre; Or else the zigzag fruit-tree arms Recall some dream of harp-prest bosoms, Round singing mouths, and chanted charms, And ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... This bough of plum blossom was, in fact, only two feet in height; but from the side projected a branch, crosswise, about two or three feet in length the small twigs and stalks on which resembled coiled dragons, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... guard who was on foot espied a black squirrel darting across the road, and oblivious of his responsibility, gave chase to it, Glazier looking on and biding his time. The squirrel soon ran up a tree, and leaped from bough to bough with its usual agility. Suddenly it halted on a prominent branch, seeming to bid defiance to its pursuer. The carbine was instantly raised, and discharged. Without waiting to note the result, Glazier, feeling that now was his opportunity, dashed off at a gallop, urging ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... natives, who ran off at full speed when the rear of the party was passing their camp. One stout fellow came running up, armed with spears, and loaded with fish and bags filled with something to eat. Mr. Kekwick rode towards him. The native held up a green bough as a flag of truce, and patting his heart with his right hand, said something which could not be understood, and pointed in the direction we were going. We then bade him good-bye, and proceeded on our journey. At one o'clock the river suddenly turned to the east, coming from very ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... rich gordonia, never out of bloom, sends down its thirsty roots to drink at the stealing brook. Here the halesia hangs out its silvery bells, the purple clusters of the wistaria droop from the supporting bough, and the coral blossoms of the erythryna glow in the shade beneath. From tufted masses of sword-like leaves shoot up the tall spires of the yucca, heavy with pendent flowers, of pallid hue, like the moon, and from the grass gleams the blue ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... briers. Heeding nothing, she went after Bunny, who suddenly popped into his burrow with a whisk of his little tail and a kick of his little legs for good-bye. Then a loud chattering made her aware of Mr. Squirrel's presence, and she watched him jumping from bough to bough. Wondering if he would come to her if she kept very still, she sat so motionless that by-and-by her little head began to nod, and, wearied with her unusual exercise, she fell fast ...
— The Princess Idleways - A Fairy Story • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... that moment there was a sharper crack than ever, and a faint odour of burning, followed by the quick crackling so familiar when a green pine bough is ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... out the hand of friendship in this condition, when my first impression is, "My good sir, I strongly suspect that you were up my pear-tree last night?" It is a dreadful state of mind. The core is black; the death-stricken fruit drops on the bough, and a great worm is within—fattening, and feasting, and wriggling! WHO stole the pears? I say. Is it you, brother? Is it you, madam? Come! are you ready to answer—respondere parati et cantare pares? ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... As the bold, &c.] AEneas, whom Virgil reports to use a golden bough for a pass to hell; and taylors call that place Hell where they put all ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... towards me. I aimed at his fore-shoulder, hoping, if I did not kill him outright, to stop his career. In another moment he would have been into my side, for I had no time to reload, when, just as he was near me, I made a spring and caught the bough of a tree, which I could not under other circumstances have reached, and my feet struck his back as he dashed under them. Toa had now reloaded, but before he could fire the boar again charged; he, however, nimbly ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... top. But the most luxurious cultivation of the vine in hot countries is where it covers the trellis-work which surrounds a well, inviting the owner and his family to gather beneath its shade. 'The fruitful bough by well' is of the ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... that when life's summer hour For thee with love's bright blossoms hung the bough, Too quickly found an asp beneath the flower— And is naught ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... there's the Czar, and there's the Turk— The Pope—An India-merchant by Cut short the speech with this reply: All at a stand? you see great changes? Ah, sir! you never saw the Ganges: There dwells the nation of Quidnunckis (So Monomotapa calls monkeys:) On either bank from bough to bough, They meet and chat (as we may now): Whispers go round, they grin, they shrug, They bow, they snarl, they scratch, they hug; And, just as chance or whim provoke them, They either bite their friends, or stroke them. There have I seen some active ...
— English Satires • Various
... as he sat on that bough, Singing "Willow, titwillow, titwillow!" And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow, Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow! He sobbed and he sighed, and a gurgle he gave, Then he threw himself into the billowy wave, And an echo arose from the suicide's ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... man his father, and it was with cautious steps that he approached the walls. No light burned in any window. The inmates of the building were doubtless wrapped in sleep. He well knew his sister's window, and cutting himself a long hazel bough, he gently swept it to and fro across the glass. This had always been a signal between them in their childhood, and many had been their nocturnal rambles taken together when Cuthbert had contrived to escape from the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... beams be pitiful and come, Across the sundering of vanished years, From childhood and the happy fields of home, Like eyes instinct with tears Felt through green brakes of hedge and apple-bough Round haunts delightful once, desert and ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... hands met as in that joyous moment among the vegetables, but this time they clasped above a dusted cradle. In view of the increased expenses before the household they made each other no gifts; only Davie put a fir bough and ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... Cigale, hast a cure for thirst: the bark, Tender and juicy, of the bough. Thy beak, a very needle, stabs it. Mark The narrow passage welling now; The sugared stream is flowing, thee beside, Who drinkest of the flood, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... from end to end a three days' march, where gold-dust thickened the air, and an Inca drank with his nobles in a garden whose plants waved not in the wind, whose flowers drooped not, whose birds never stirred upon the bough, for all alike were made of gold. They believed in a fair fountain, hard indeed to find, but of such efficacy that the graybeard who dipped in its shining waters stepped forth a youth upon ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the Round Table, but this were a merry deed withal, to help thee unto that wherewith I might perchance mount some goodly bough for the crows to peck at," replied Tarquin. Terrible and unceasing was the struggle; but in vain the giant knight attempted to regain the use of his sword. Then Sir Lancelot, with a wary eye, finding no hope of his life ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... Sir Lancelot, "that ever any knight should die weaponless!" And looking overhead, he saw a great bough without leaves, and wrenched it off the tree, and suddenly leaped down. Then Sir Phelot struck at him eagerly, thinking to have slain him, but Sir Lancelot put aside the stroke with the bough, and therewith smote him on the side of the head, till he fell swooning ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... Siegfried returns to his mossy couch under the trees, and is presently again looking overhead for the friendly bird. "Once more, dear little bird, after such a troublesome interruption, I should be glad to listen to your singing. I can see you swinging happily on the bough; brothers and sisters flutter around you, blithe and sweet, twittering the while...." A vague sadness touches his mood, and this pensive moment goes far toward gaining back to him the sympathy which his overgreat sturdiness in dealing death had perhaps forfeited. He is now a poor lonesome beautiful ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone. I thought the sparrow's note from heaven, Singing at dawn on the alder bough; I brought him home, in his nest, at even; He sings the song, but it cheers not now, For I did not bring home the river and sky;— He sang to my ear,—they ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... limb there was a bough, The prettiest bough you ever did see; The bough on the limb, and the limb on the tree, The limb on the tree, and the tree in the wood, The tree in the wood, and the wood in the ground, And the green grass growing ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. * * * * * 'Twas all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her,—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush at least ... ... Who'd stoop to blame ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... mere academicians. We paint, not the world of the camera, but the world of the brain. We paint, not the thing you think you see, but the way you think you see it—its vibrations of your inner mentality. To paint the apple ripening on the bough one should reproduce the gentle swelling of the maturing fruit in your perception.... Now, you see, I am not trying to reproduce the precise carving of that door; I do not fix the wavings of that palm. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... gained the abattis. He went into it with a leap, a dozen men at his heels. A pointed bough met him in the ribs, piercing his tunic and forcing him to cry out with pain. He fell back from it and tugged at the interlacing boughs between him and the log-wall, fighting them with his left, pressing them aside, now attempting to leap them, now to burst through them with ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the Four Courts, and Grafton Street (the Regent Street of Dublin). It is easy to tell the stranger, stiff, decorous, terrified, clutching the rail with one or both hands, but we took for our model a pretty Irish girl, who looked like nothing so much as a bird on a swaying bough. It is no longer called the 'jaunting,' but the outside car and there is another charming word lost to the world. There was formerly an inside-car too, but it is almost unknown in Dublin, though still found in ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... air that night. Not a leaf stirred—not a bough moved of all the trees in the forest that we rode through. A 'possum might chatter or a night-owl cry out, but there wasn't any other sound, except the ripple of the creek over the stones, that got louder and clearer as we ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... morning he drew up by the roadside to listen to some lyrical robin on an apple-bough, or to make friends with the black- belted Durham cows and the cream-colored Alderneys, who came solemnly to the pasture wall and stared at him with big, good-natured faces. A row of them, with their lazy eyes and ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... at steadiness started for the door followed by Prince and Sam walking with wavering steps. In the street Prince took the portfolio out of the little man's hand. "Let your mother carry it, Tommy," he said, shaking his finger under Morris's nose. He began singing a lullaby. "When the bough bends ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... at last, but I have now thrown a few inches too far; my tail fly is in the bush, dangling across an overhanging bough. An impatient movement, a jerk, or a straight pull, and I am "hung up," as is the phrase, and delayed for half an hour at least. Happily there is a lull in the storm. I shake the point of the rod. The vibration ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... preferred wisdom to gold; and as I approach the Stygian shore, gold has less and less value in my eyes. Charon will charge my disembodied spirit but a single obolus for crossing his dark ferry. Living mortals only need a golden bough to enter the regions of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... a large oak tree, whose trunk, with a huge spread of bough and foliage, ragged with age, stood on the verge ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so they call themselves) hover with a Pair of Sheers in his two Feet, and cut Trees with all the Regularity imaginable; for, in a Walk of a League long, which is very common before the Houses of the Nobility, you won't see (not to say a Bough, but even) a Leaf grow beyond the rest. They are the best Weavers in the Universe, and make Cloath of stript Feathers, which they have the Art of spinning, and which is the Staple Commodity of the Kingdom; for no Feathers are comparable to these for this Manufacture. ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... fair bough that lowliest Droops, neither lifts he hand, nor turns to see; But lies, and gathers to him indolently The fruits that drop ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... dawned. The intense cold had abated though the air remained crisp and keen. A venturesome robin perched upon the bare bough of a cherry tree that grew near one of the sitting-room windows, and gave vent to his short and frequent song. Sally called ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... tweet, tweet!" It was Bea's best soprano, with several extra trills strewn between the consonants. "Listen to the mocking-bird. Oh, the mocking-bird is singing on the bough. Bravo, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... there was a little hum in the air—a leafless bough, like a withered arm with its sinews ragged out, bent over across my path. The sea gulls screamed and screeched; they flocked out from the cliff-ledges, and with still wings they towered up into the sky. Every twig and leaf began to play a diabolic symphony. Where the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... mournful. Yes, these are the troubles of life of which the little girl had often heard tell. Alas, poor doll! it began to grow dark already; and suppose night were to come on completely! Was she to be left sitting on the bough all night long? No, the little maid could not make up her mind to that. 'I'll stay with you,' she said, although she felt anything but happy in her mind. She could almost fancy she distinctly saw little gnomes, with their high-crowned hats, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... journey before Cuthbert reached the point for which he was bound. Here, in an open space, probably cleared by a storm ages before, and overshadowed by giant trees, was a group of men of all ages and appearances. Some were occupied in stripping the skin off a buck which hung from the bough of one of the trees. Others were roasting portions of the carcass of another deer. A few sat apart, some talking, others busy in making arrows, while a few lay asleep on the greensward. As Cuthbert entered the clearing several of the ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... platform, and began to swing himself from bough to bough. He was nervous and less expert than when he had climbed up the tree. He lost his grip once, and crashed from one branch to another, scratching himself handsomely in the operation. The owl, emboldened by his retreat, flew awkwardly down upon the scaffold, ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... faint odor of spring in the air, while the little mountain stream had not as yet given up its icy prattle. Little patches of snow still dotted the sides of the canyon, and here and there a crystal icicle sparkled from the end of a pine bough. ...
— Buffalo Roost • F. H. Cheley
... lie, to conceal his fault and avoid punishment; and here again we see how one sin leads to another. The temptations to cruelty are many. Sometimes they appear in the form of a bird's nest, placed by a fond and loving mother on the high bough of a tree, to secure ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... busy now with state affairs, I prate of Pitt and Fox; I ask the price of rail-road shares, I watch the turns of stocks: And this is life! no verdure blooms Upon the withered bough. I save a fortune in perfumes,— I'm not ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... loose white dress. Her morning face was wonderful. It was inevitable that he should ask himself where she had come from—what she had brought with her unknowing. She looked like a white blossom drifting from the bough—like a feather from a dove's wing floating downward to earth. But ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and more sympathetic company of the two mounted bull-drivers, to whose love of patriotic adventure they had appealed successfully. A few yards beyond a roadside pool backed by willow bushes they set down tar-bucket and pillow, and under a low, vast live-oak bough turned and waited. A gibbous moon had set, and presently a fog rolled down the river, blotting out landscape and stars and making even these willows dim and unreal. Ideal conditions! Now if their guest of honor, with or without his friend, would but stop at this pool ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... couldst not look on me and live: so runs The mortal legend—thou that couldst not live Nor look on me (so the divine decree)! That saw'st me in the cloud, the wave, the bough, The clod commoved with April, and the shapes Lurking 'twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark. Mocked I thee not in every guise of life, Hid in girls' eyes, a naiad in her well, Wooed through their ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... pretty Baby-treat; Nor, I deem, for me unmeet: Here, for neither Babe or me, Other Play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, That with stir of feet and wings, (In the sun or under shade Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this Orchard's narrow space, And this Vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... henceforth to scorn, because all the professions are nourished from it. That universality which the men of practice scorn no more, since they have tasted of its proofs, since they have reached that single bough of it, which stooped so low, to bring its magic clusters within their reach. Fed with their own chosen delights, with the proof of the divinity of science, on their sensuous lips, they cry, 'Thou ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... romantic than the swing in the playground at Winterburn Lodge, because a strong push would send the happy occupant high up among the green leaves, and give her a flying peep into a missel-thrush's nest on the topmost bough, where four gaping yellow mouths were clamouring for food. In a corner, down a flight of steps, there was a pond where grew marsh marigolds, and irises, and forget-me-nots, and other water-loving plants. ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... strength allows, climb up the tree of knowledge each on his own side, with his own ladder, in his own way, now passing from the branches to the trunk and again from the trunk to the branches, now from a remote bough to the principal branch and from that ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... lust be quencht; by appetite, Robbing the soul of blessedness and light: And thou light Varvin too, thou must go after, Provoking easie souls to mirth and laughter; No more shall I dip thee in water now, And sprinkle every post, and every bough With thy well pleasing juyce, to make the grooms Swell with high mirth, as with ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... evening, the magpie was perched upon a projecting bough of her oak, and the cat, who thought the cottage particularly dull that day, had come out ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... and brown, her brow broad and very fair, her lips fine and red: her cheek not ruddy, yet nowise sallow, but clear and bright: tall she was and of excellent fashion, but well-knit and well-measured rather than slender and wavering as the willow-bough. Her voice was sweet and soft, her words few, but exceeding dear to the listener. In short, she was a woman born to be the ransom ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... my kingbird, struggling with his early song. After practicing perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, he left his perch, flew across the yard, and circled around the top bough, with his usual good-morning to his partner, who at once slipped off and went for her breakfast, while he stayed to watch ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... the treasure, a huge red inflated ball, just stopped in its downward current by a short projecting stick. Jim could have got it certainly, because he could have suspended himself over the stream from a bough, and could have dislodged the ball, and have floated it on to ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... they had a large, high tub, called the Great Canoe, in the centre of their village, set up in commemoration of the flood; and that they held the mystery lodge when the willow leaves were in their prime under the river bank, because, they said, a bird had brought a willow bough in full leaf to the Great Canoe in ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... surrounding them. Nor are we without our rural noters of the time, to call us to our early task, and warn us of evening's close. The loud and discordant noise of the laughing jackass, (or settler's clock, as he is called,) as he takes up his roost on the withered bough of one of our tallest trees, acquaints us that the sun has just dipped behind the hills, and that it is time to trudge homewards; while the plaintive notes of the curlew, and the wild and dismal screechings of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 271, Saturday, September 1, 1827. • Various
... surprise and well-bred contempt in semitones. Any heart, still young and sensitive, might well have applauded the philanthropy of savage tribes who kill off their old people when they grow too feeble to cling to a strongly shaken bough. Mme. d'Aiglemont rose smiling, and went ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... said to Millicent, as he arranged the tree in the box. She stood silent and held the top bough, he filled in round ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... emitted a blood-curdling scream. He perches there each evening on the extreme end of the longest bough. Dimly outlined against the night, he has the appearance of a friendly hobgoblin. But I wish he didn't fancy himself as a vocalist. It is against his own interests, I am sure, if he only knew it. That American college yell of his must ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... rise with the morning lark, And labour till almost dark; Then folding their sheep, they hasten to sleep; While every pleasant park Next morning is ringing with birds that are singing, On each green, tender bough. With what content and merriment, Their days are spent, whose minds are bent ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... coming and going, lightly, softly, brushing here and there, soft dark wings fanning the air, making it ever lighter, thinner. Gradually the veil lifted; things stood out, black against black, then black against grey; straight majesty of tree-trunks, bending lines of bough and spray, tender ...
— Marie • Laura E. Richards
... 'grein,' a branch or prong, surviving in the word 'grains,' a pronged harpoon or fish spear. From its meaning, 'branch,' it might seem to be akin to 'stem' and to 'bow,' which is only another spelling of'bough.' But this is not likely. The older meaning of 'bows' was 'shoulders,' and this, it is agreed, is how it became applied to the head of a ship. There is, however, a secondary and more widely used sense of 'grain,' which means the space between forking boughs, and so almost ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... dove, each sighing bough, That makes the eve so blest to me, Has something far diviner now, It bears me back ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... while these woodland playmates twain Piped and frisked from bough to bough again, 'Neath the morning skies, In the little childish heart below All the sweetness seemed to grow and grow, And shine out in happy overflow From her ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... that sing so cheerfully, As if they did salute the flowering spring? Fitter it were with tunes more dolefully They shriek'd out sorrow, than thus cheerly sing. I will go seek sad desperation's cell; This is not it, for here are green-leav'd trees. Ah, for one winter-bitten bared bough, Whereon a wretched life a wretch would lese. O, here is one! Thrice-blessed be this tree, If a man cursed ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... tried to answer him we bit our tongues as the buck-board leapt over the tussocks of grass. Once we managed to call back, "You won't feel the journey in a buck-board." Then an overhanging bough threatening to wipe us out of our seats, Mac shouted, "Duck!" and as we "ducked" the buck-board skimmed between two trees, with ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... attached to one end of the roof. At odd intervals the freshening breeze swept these wires, and awoke a low aeolian murmur. The moon rose in the mean time, and painted on the uncarpeted floor the shape of the cherry bough that stretched across the window. It was two o'clock; Richard sat with his head ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... impossible to resist the temptation to watch her; and this Lennox did at first almost unconsciously. Then he did more. One beautiful still morning she stood under the cedar, her hand thrown lightly above her head to catch at a bough, and as she remained motionless, he made a sketch of her. When it was finished he was seized with the whimsical impulse to go out ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich pasture and a hardy race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye alternate with patches of flax in full flower, with meadows yellow with buttercups or pink with ragged robin; the young vines, running from bough to bough of elm and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. The poplars are fresh with bright green foliage. On the verge of this blooming plain stand ancient cities ringed with hills, some rising to snowy Apennines, some covered with white convents ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... bough on yonder tree; pluck it and strike the ground three times with it and see what thou ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... happenings are great, and our privations calculated to break the stoutest heart, yet to be rewarded by such fair sights I would endure still greater trials and still rejoice even as the bird on yonder bough.'" ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... a gorgeous morning. The sun arose and lit up into flashing splendor the icy glories of the landscape. From every roof and eave, from every bough and bush, dropped millions of blazing jewels. Earth wore a gorgeous bridal dress, bedecked with diamonds. Within the doctor's house everything was comfortable as you could wish. A rousing fire of hickory wood roared upon the hearth, an abundant breakfast of coffee, tea, buckwheat cakes, ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... annoyance of the birds he would meet by day, and the blinding light of the sun, retires in the morning, his feathers wet with dew and rumpled by the hard struggles he has encountered in seizing his prey, to the gloom of the forest or the thick swamp, where, perched on a bough, near the trunk of the tree, he sleeps through a summer's day, the perfect picture of a used-up little fellow, suffering from the sad effects of a night's carouse. But he is an honest bird, notwithstanding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to suspend a superb Mistletoe bough in the publishing-office. PUNCH will be in attendance from daylight till dusk. To prevent confusion, the salutes will he distributed according to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... lowest boughs, he bent himself down to Susanna, and said, "Give it here to me, I will manage it." And Susanna now gave him the bird, without any further remark. Lightly and nimbly sprang Harald now from bough to bough, holding the bird in his left hand, and accompanied by the crying starling-parents, who flew terrified around his head. It was certainly a surprise to them when the young one was placed uninjured ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... enough for a man to set his foot, so close was the foliage from the ground to the topmost bough of the tallest tree. Mile after mile they went on, without a sign of life, then from the shore an arrow whistled, pierced the awning, and ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... stands open now, And the wanderer is welcome to the hall 335 As the hangbird is to the elm-tree bough; No longer scowl the turrets tall, The Summer's long siege at last is o'er; When the first poor outcast went in at the door, She entered with him in disguise, 340 And mastered the fortress by surprise; There is no spot she loves so well on ground, ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the house his eyes strayed into a glade of bracken, gold gleaming through silver—a glade shadowed by noble oaks and beeches, with one birch tree in the middle of it surpassingly graceful. Upon this each delicate bough and spray were outlined sharply against the sky. Beyond the glade stretched the moor, rugged, bleak, and treeless, sloping sharply upward. Beyond the moor lay the Forest—belts of firs darkly purple; and flanking these the irregular masses of oaks and beeches, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... an over-abundant supply of meat; the difficulty was to carry it. We agreed that we would take the best portions, and give Pullingo as much as he could carry; while we fastened the remainder up to the bough of a tree, out of the reach of ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... the place where the ashes of the sunflower had been thrown, there sprang up a young mango tree, tall and straight, that grew so quickly, and became such a beautiful tree, that it was the wonder of all the country round. At last, on its topmost bough, came one fair blossom; and the blossom fell, and the little mango grew rosier and rosier, and larger and larger, till so wonderful was it both for size and shape that people flocked from far and near only ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... the willow tree beside the river and tripped lightly along a slender bough which dipped its tip ...
— Sandman's Goodnight Stories • Abbie Phillips Walker
... is the turf in the wildwood now, And my spirit flies from the dwellings of men, Where the wind blows soft through the cedar's bough, And the voice of the streamlet is heard ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth
... when half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons dramatized in some comic opera. These birds never remain stationary upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... happened, a little company of rustics, who had just issued from the low hatch-door of the village inn, stood for a moment under the sign of the Crown and Mitre, which swung huskily creaking from the bough of an ancient thorn tree, then passed on to the road, and took ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... drift by the gateway is dingy and low; And half of yon hillside is free from the snow: Among the dead rushes the brook's flowing now. And here's Pussy Willow again on the bough! ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 100, April, 1875 • Various
... a charming spot on the sea shore, she descended to the strand, and stood at the foot of a pine tree. She laid her musical instrument on a rock near by, and taking off her wings and feathered suit hung them carefully on the pine tree bough. Then she strolled off along the shore to dip her shining feet in ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... lad, wearing a manly brow, Knit as with problems of grave dispute, And a face, like the bloom of the orchard bough, Pink and pallid, but resolute; And flushed it grows as the clover-bloom, And fresh it gleams as the morning dew, As he reins his steed where the quick quails boom Up from the ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... coming— His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 260 Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds— The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice— The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, And mingles with the song of Cherubim, As the day closes over Eden's walls;— All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... but she checked an impudent reply. Pulling Tommy angrily along, she hurried up to the four-roomed, zinc-roofed humpey and its lean-to kitchen, protected by a bough shade, which lay between the head-station and the gully, with the stockyard close to it, and which constituted her domain. It annoyed Mrs Hensor to hear McKeith called her master. She always spoke ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... volume entitled Stories of the Prairie. I believe I have the names quite right, since the author impressed me as an inferior comer with an abundance of gold about him. In the story Corporal Flint was captured by the Indians under the leadership of Bough of Oak, a cruel ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... imprest His magic seal of peace—so, frozen, lies The loveliness of nature: every tree Stands hung with lace against the clear blue skies; The hills are giant waves of glistering snow; Rare and northern fowl, now strangely tame to see, With ruffling plumage cluster on the bough, And tempt the murderous gun; mouse-like, the wren Hides in the new-cut hedge; and all things now Fear starving Winter more than ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... another page in the history of religion which must be conned and digested before the career of Jesus can be fully understood. people who can read long books will find it in Frazer's Golden Bough. Simpler folk will find it in the peasant's song of John Barleycorn, now made accessible to our drawingroom amateurs in the admirable collections of Somersetshire Folk Songs by Mr. Cecil Sharp. From Frazer's magnum opus you will learn how the same ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... grenadiers on the forecastle, and the begrimed gunner's mates and quarter-gunners, sported most venerable beards of an exceeding length and hoariness, like long, trailing moss hanging from the bough of some aged oak. Above all, the Captain of the Forecastle, old Ushant—a fine specimen of a sea sexagenarian—wore a wide, spreading beard, gizzled and grey, that flowed over his breast and often became tangled ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... is it as for one that touches me Far off; 'tis for mine own sake I must see This sin cast out. Whoe'er it was that slew Laius, the same wild hand may seek me too: And caring thus for Laius, is but care For mine own blood.—Up! Leave this altar-stair, Children. Take from it every suppliant bough. Then call the folk of Thebes. Say, 'tis my vow To uphold them to the end. So God shall crown Our greatness, or for ever cast ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... a scene so fair, And treat their steeds with mountain air, Some rode apart, or led before, Rock after rock the wheels upbore; The careful driver slowly sped, To many a bough we duck'd the head, And heard the wild inviting calls Of summer's tinkling waterfalls, In wooded glens below; and still, At every step the sister hill, BLORENGE, grew greater, half unseen At times from out our bowers of green. ...
— The Banks of Wye • Robert Bloomfield
... "'Tis nought but a wind-broken bough fallen on my head. Have you no manners? Do you not see the gentleman waiting to enter and ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... remains Among our harmless northern swains, Whose offerings, placed in golden ranks, Adorn our crystal rivers' banks; Nor seldom grace the flowery downs, With spiral tops and copple [27] crowns; Or gilding in a sunny morn The humble branches of a thorn. So poets sing, with golden bough The Trojan hero paid his vow.[28] Hither, by luckless error led, The crude consistence oft I tread; Here when my shoes are out of case, Unweeting gild the tarnish'd lace; Here, by the sacred bramble tinged, My petticoat is doubly fringed. Be witness for me, nymph divine, I never robb'd thee with ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... a river runs, (To what unshadowed sea?) Bough-hidden here,—there by the sun's Gold treachery unbared to me. O Beauty in retreat, From beckoned eyes you steal, But the pursuing heart, more fleet, Lifts ...
— Path Flower and Other Verses • Olive T. Dargan
... little success as the previous day, only stopping to eat some herbs and fruit he found by the way. In this fashion he spent ten days, following the bird all day and spending the night at the foot of a tree, whilst it roosted on the topmost bough. On the eleventh day the bird and the prince reached a large town, and as soon as they were close to its walls the bird took a sudden and higher flight and was shortly completely out of sight, whilst Camaralzaman felt in despair at having ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... get the horse safe to his clearing without harm. It was only by dint of the utmost care and patience, the greatest watchfulness of the way, that he got along at all. Every rod or two he stumbled, and all but fell himself. Here and there a loaded hemlock bough, weighed out of its uprightness by the wet snow, snapped in his face and blinded him with its damp burden; and he knew long before nightfall that another night in the woods was inevitable. He could feed the horse on young ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... bring me, in Paradise, To green lanes leafy wi' bough and stem— To a country place in the land o' the skies, And not to the ...
— Grass of Parnassus • Andrew Lang
... association. The breeze, murmurous amongst the branches, set the leaves rustling like silk attire. Did I imagine it, or was there really a faint sweet perfume of yellow gorse in the air? A thrush on a bough below began to flute softly, trying its tones before it burst forth, giving full voice to its enthusiasm in one clear call, eloquent of life and love and longing, and all expressed in just three notes—crotchet, quaver, crotchet and rest—which shortly shaped themselves to a word in ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... that pressed upon us, although we evaded further mention of it; it made us spur and drive our horses as quickly, ay, and a little more quickly, than safety allowed. Once James's horse stumbled in the darkness and its rider was thrown; more than once a low bough hanging over the path nearly swept me, dead or stunned, from my seat. Sapt paid no attention to these mishaps or threatened mishaps. He had taken the lead, and, sitting well down in his saddle, rode ahead, turning ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... capital, to-day. I know not when I may come and see the Prince again. On him my thoughts and anxieties are concentrated, above all else. Realize these feelings in your own mind, and tell them to him." He also sent the following, fastened to a bough of ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... an irresistible bait for boys, and their settlement was broken up. They grew so wonted as to throw off a great part of their shyness, and to tolerate my near approach. One very hot day I stood for some time within twenty feet of a mother and three children, who sat on an elm bough over my head gasping in the sultry air, and holding their wings half-spread for coolness. All birds during the pairing season become more or less sentimental, and murmur soft nothings in a tone very unlike the grinding-organ ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the wild purple and scarlet flower of the Strelitzia, that gradually shaped itself into gorgeous Oriental robes, rolled in waves of splendor from the lithe waist and slender arms of a dark woman, no more young,—sallow, thin, but more graceful than any bending bough of the desert acacia, and with eyes like midnight, deep, glowing, flashing, melting into dew, as she looked at the sedate lady ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... tempting display. This was too much for Swift, who having a happy art of inventing rhymes to suit his purposes, applied it in the following manner on the occasion; "I remember," said he, stopping under a very heavy laden bough, "that my dear old grandmother had a ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... come the next morning—it was at the end of February—flowers were blooming in the grass and on the bushes, while the foliage of the trees glittered with the fresh green which the rising sap gives to the young leaves. I was sitting on a strong bough of a sycamore-tree, which grew opposite to the house, watching for them. Their arrival was delayed and, as I gazed meanwhile over the garden, I thought it must surely please them, for not a palace in the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... sight of the two giants; they were lying down under a tree asleep, and snoring so that all the branches shook. The little tailor, all alive, filled both his pockets with stones and climbed up into the tree, and made his way to an overhanging bough, so that he could seat himself just above the sleepers; and from there he let one stone after another fall on the chest of one of the giants. For a long time the giant was quite unaware of this, but at last he waked up and pushed his ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... instant he alights a wonderful transformation comes over him. He stiffens, draws himself as high as possible, and compresses his feathers until he seems naught but the slender, broken stump of some bough,—ragged topped (thanks to his "horns"), gray and lichened. It is little short of a miracle how this spluttering, saucer-eyed, feathered cat can melt away into woody fibre before our ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe |
