"Stilly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... where the hermit's cottage stood, Beneath its huge old guardian tree, The gazer's wand'ring eye might see, Where, in its maze of field and wood, And stretching many a league away, A broad and smiling valley lay:— Lay stilly calm, and sweetly fair, As if Death had not entered there; As if its flowers, so bright of bloom, Its birds, so gay of song and wing, Would never lose their soft perfume, Would never, never cease to sing. Fat flocks were ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... of a week, the bride stole down the stairs, while the family was at dinner, leading her dog Flush by a string, and all the time, with throbbing heart, she prayed the dog not to bark. I have oft wondered in the stilly night season what the effect on English Letters would have been, had the dog really barked! But the dog did not bark; and Elizabeth met her lover-husband there on the corner where the mail-box is. No one missed the runaways until ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... come back darkly in the stilly midnight hour, Dim and faded now, the pictures of Life's early glow and power, When the world was arched with halos of hopes unmixed with fears, And I marvelled they should tell me but of sorrowing and tears! ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... hanging all day in the dark clouds above them towards evening began to fall. Stilly and continually the tiny flakes came down, hiding all the ruggedness of earth under a spotless mantle, even as the white shroud covered the toil-worn frame of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... the stilly hour, In a voice like the deep wood's evening sigh: "I am wand'ring on, 'mid shine and shower, But that ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... and Holden went with him in a sort of stilly, unnatural calm. Cochrane ran the film-tape through the reversed camera ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... stilly sitting-room, away from the noisy crowd, to hear love's heart beating. He darted to the chair where Gertie had sat and guiltily kissed its arm. He tiptoed to the table, blew out the lamp, remembered that he should only ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... is not known How many changing moons have flown; Yet still, when Luna's rapiers bright Pierce through the tenuous robe of Night, And shining on the stilly shore Create again that scene of yore, Wenonah and her lover true Pass over in their white canoe; Their spirit forms unshadowed glide ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... that dragged themselves out whilst I waited for her to speak seemed endless. At length her words came in an awed whisper, so faint that even in that stilly night ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... elevated region. It is almost as light as day, and one can see to ride quite well wherever the road is ridable. The pale moon seems to fill the whole broad valley with a flood of soft, silvery light; the peaks of many snowy mountains loom up white and spectral; the stilly air is broken by the excited yelping of a pack of coyotes noisily baying the pale-yellow author of all this loveliness, and the wild, unearthly scream of an unknown bird or animal coming from some mysterious, undefinable quarter completes an ideal Western picture, a poem, a dream, that fully ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... the distance. The dark woodland on the opposite bank gave a bold border to the soft picture; the ships rode sluggishly upon the polished waters; the negro's touching song echoed and re-echoed along the shore; and the boatman's chorus broke upon the stilly air in strains so dulcet. And as the mellow shadows of night stole over the scene-as the heavens looked down in all their sereneness, and the stars shone out, and twinkled, and laughed, and danced upon ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... in which a mountain stream gets down from the perennial pastures of the snow to its proper level and identity as an irrigating ditch. It slips stilly by the glacier scoured rim of an ice bordered pool, drops over sheer, broken ledges to another pool, gathers itself, plunges headlong on a rocky ripple slope, finds a lake again, reinforced, roars downward to a pot-hole, foams and bridles, glides a tranquil reach in some ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... at the house of the turtle and the attractive Old Veuve: a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age, counting up to the extremer maturity attained by wines of stilly depths; and their worthy comrade, despite the wanton sparkles, for the promoting of the state of reverential wonderment in rapture, which an ancient wine will lead to, well you wot. The silly girly sugary crudity his given way to womanly suavity, matronly composure, with yet the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... either army stilly sounds, That the fixed sentinels almost receive The secret whispers of each other's watch; Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each battle sees the other's umbered face; Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... she knew not why. Indeed, she did not wish or try to sleep. She never did when sleep did not come naturally; but always remained calmly waiting for the soother, till slumber dropped uncalled and stilly upon her eyelids. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... breezes went steadily thro' the tall pines, A-saying "oh, hu-sh!" a-saying "oh, hu-sh!" As stilly stole by a bold legion of horse, For Hale in the bush; for Hale in ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... touchingly, tenderly play On the weird bird-whistle, sweeter than sin, That I bought for a halfpenny yesterday. My languid lily, my lank limp lily, My long lithe lily-love, men may grin— Say that I'm soft and supremely silly— What care I while you whisper stilly; What care I while you smile? Not a pin! While you smile, you whisper—'Tis ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the "stilly sound" of the low murmuring brook Misprinted in 1851 as "slitty sound". Probably John Home, ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... Lady Gertrude, proud, high-bred, Sir or Madam, Am I—this laurel that shades your head; Into its veins I have stilly sped, And made them of me; and my leaves now shine, As did my satins superfine, All ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call her with such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elves hears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was another and a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyond that edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund calls ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... along whose unpruned hedges straggle the riches of the wild-rose, most delicately flushed, as if God in passing had called her very good, and she had reddened at his praise; where the honey-suckle, too, is holding stilly aloft the open cream-colored trumpets and closed red trumpet-buds of ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... faint with distance, the silvery voices of the bells stole upon the warm, stilly air, speaking of pomp and state, of pride and circumstance, but now these seemed but empty things, and the Duchess Helen stood long with bent head and hands that strove to shut the sounds away. But in the end she ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... the day was not suitably ended if, after tidying up the kitchen and practicing "The Harp That Once" and "Oft in the Stilly Night" on his fiddle, he did not go across the fields to Marietta Martin's and compare the moment's mood with her, either in the porch or at her fireside, according to the season. They lived, each alone, in a stretch of meadow land just off the main road, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... a generous thing; but he did it so harshly as to deprive the act of the semblance of good-nature. I think he very seldom again felt sympathy or compassion for any living creature. Perhaps he thought the world had behaved hardly to his dead love, and so never forgave it. She passed away very stilly and painlessly. She was leaning on his breast when he saw death come into her eyes: he shivered then all over, as if a cold wind had struck him suddenly, but spoke no word. She understood him, though. Her last motion was to draw his cheek down to hers with her thin, shadowy arm, and ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... was in the art of surveillance, it was next to impossible that a casket could be thrown into her garden, or an interloper could cross her walks to seek it, without that she, in shaken branch, passing shade, unwonted footfall, or stilly murmur (and though Dr. John had spoken very low in the few words he dropped me, yet the hum of his man's voice pervaded, I thought, the whole conventual ground)—without, I say, that she should have caught intimation of things extraordinary transpiring on her premises. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... all in the name! the likeness was amazin'! amazin'!" And forth from the stilly air seemed to come to the good old butler's ear, "Dear little Jennie! ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... was thus cheating my benefactress of her fair perfections, she came in with her usual quiet and stilly step, and sat down beside me. The consciousness of what was passing in my mind, made the guilty blood rush warm to ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... lamentations;—but the distant voice is scattered by the passing winds, and is heard like the whisper of a summer breeze as it steals along the prairies of the west, or the cry of the wish-ton-wish as it faintly reaches the ear of the navigator, when, in the stilly night, he floats down "the old father ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... make me, Shane—what you need of me." Her hand sought his in the stilly dusk. "Come back only when you are ready dearest ... dearest ... ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... her. Second, in the quaint little drawing-room stood a piano. In the "early fifties" this latter was indeed a luxury, even in city homes. She uttered a little cry of delight, and flinging herself before the instrument, ran her fingers over the keys, and broke into his favorite song, "Oft in the Stilly Night." She had a beautiful voice, the possession of which would have made her renowned had opportunity afforded its cultivation. She had "picked up" music and read it remarkably well, and he, Indian ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... of the sun, the awful stillness came stealing to envelope them; and with insistent fingers seemed to press upon the very drums of their ears. The little river flowed as stilly and darkly as the water of Lethe at their feet; and the gaunt pines over the way stood transfixed like souls that had drunk of it. Under the spell of the silence they instinctively lowered their voices; and they broke sticks for the fire with reluctance; so painful ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... garden I was drawn—[13] A realm of pleasance, many a mound, And many a shadow-chequer'd lawn Full of the city's stilly sound, [14] And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round The stately cedar, tamarisks, Thick rosaries [15] of scented thorn, Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks Graven with emblems of the time, In honour of the golden prime Of good ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... forayed like the subtile haze of summer, That stilly shows fresh landscapes to our eyes, And revolutions works without a murmur, Or rustling of a ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... his chair, peering down at her to see how she took it. She took it stilly, and turned him a marble, storm-purged face, a pair of ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... enjoying, with that enjoyment of youth, health, and vitality which belongs to twenty-one, this rustic adventure. He touched the strings lightly with preliminary thrumming. It was a toss-up between "Annie Rooney" and "Oft in the stilly night." He decided for the latter. Raising his eyes to the closed blinds, behind which he knew the witch was hiding, he began the accompaniment. The soft thrum-thrum, vibrating through the melody, ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... the girls that are so smart Of a' the airts the wind can blaw Of Nelson and the North Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray Oft in the stilly night Oh, call my brother back to me Oh, Mary, go and call the cattle home Oh! the days are gone when Beauty bright Oh, the sweet contentment Oh where, and oh where, is your Highland laddie gone O Jenny's a' weet, poor body O listen, ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Elves! while the dew is sweet, Come to the dingles where fairies meet; Know that the lilies have spread their bells O'er all the pools in our forest dells; Stilly and lightly their vases rest On the quivering sleep of the water's breast, Catching the sunshine through the leaves that throw To their scented bosoms an emerald glow; And a star from the depths of each pearly cup, A golden star, unto heav'n looks up, As if seeking its kindred where bright they lie, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... queen with her state oppressed, Low by rushes and sword-grass stooping, Lies she soft on the waves at rest. The desert heavens have felt her sadness; The earth will weep her some dewy tears; The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, And goeth stilly, as soul that fears. ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... friendly one; A haze dimmed the shadowy shore As the first lampless boat slid silent on; Hist! and we spake no more; We but pointed, and stilly, to what ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... &c 581; solemn silence, awful silence, dead silence, deathlike silence. V. be silent &c adj.; hold one's tongue &c (not speak) 585. render silent &c adj.; silence, still, hush; stifle, muffle, stop; muzzle, put to silence &c (render mute) 581. Adj. silent; still, stilly; noiseless, soundless; hushed &c v.; mute &c 581. soft, solemn, awful, deathlike, silent as the grave; inaudible &c (faint) 405. Adv. silently &c adj.; sub silentio [Lat.]. Int. hush!, silence!, soft!, whist!, tush!, chut!^, tut!, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rode, and smote him behind his horse's arse a spear length. And then he alighted down and reined his horse on the bridle, and bound all the three knights fast with the reins of their own bridles. When Sir Lionel saw him do thus, he thought to assay him, and made him ready, and stilly and privily he took his horse, and thought not for to awake Sir Launcelot. And when he was mounted upon his horse, he overtook this strong knight, and bade him turn, and the other smote Sir Lionel so hard that horse and man he bare to the earth, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... of the nightingale, no obtrusive sound disturbed the solemn silence. The blue vault of heaven, glittering with countless stars, the rich perfume flung around by the orange flower and jasmine, and a stilly languor that pervaded the spot, all disposed the mind to gentle ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... was perfect stillness. Mr. Craig sat down to the organ and played the opening bars of the touching melody, 'Oft in the Stilly Night.' Mrs. Mavor came to the front, and, with a smile of exquisite sweetness upon her sad face, and looking straight at us with her ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... Skarphedinn and his brothers, how they bend their course up to Rangriver. Then Skarphedinn said, "Stand we here and listen, and let us go stilly, for I hear the voices of men up along the river's bank. But will ye, Helgi and Grim, deal with Lyting single-handed, or with ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to sea, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... have felt her sadness; Her earth will weep her some dewy tears; The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, And goeth stilly as soul that fears. ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... of blue and stilly light Bowed down before me, the dew came again, The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night, The sun returned ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... I can't be anybody else. I know, because I have often tried. Well, well, well, well! Stilly we used to call you; don't you remember? I'll never forget that time we sang 'Oft in the stilly night' in front of your window when you were studying for the exams. You always were a quiet fellow, Stilly. I've been waiting ...
— In the Midst of Alarms • Robert Barr
... hollow as the ocean's bellow, As moan of forests in the nightly tempest, Sounded his voice unto my ear! "What, Rota!" he shouted; Rota here! "Ye gods of heaven! Whom seekest thou, where unclomb rocks engirdle Peace, smiling peace? O say! whom, sent by Skulda, Wilt thou devote upon the stilly mountains? But ah! what light had I the power to kindle? Dark is my spirit. The terrific Norna, She who allots to time, ere it approaches, It's luck, and binds it with determined fingers Unto Fate's will, is silent, and drives Rota Far from each plain belov'd ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... And fife, and trump, and drum; But soon the foremost column Sees where, beneath the shade, In slumber, calm as childhood, Their wearied chief is laid; And down the line a murmur From lip to lip there ran, Until the stilly whisper Had spread to rear from van; And o'er the host a silence As deep and sudden fell, As though some mighty wizard Had hushed them with a spell; And every sound was muffled, And every soldier's tread Fell lightly as a mother's 'Round her baby's ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... they are, nor have they changed their cheer, The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows; Across the lonely dusk again I hear The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows, The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush Of the low whispering river, and through all, Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush With faint-heard song or desultory call: Oh comrades hold; the longest reach is past; The stream runs swift, and ...
— Among the Millet and Other Poems • Archibald Lampman
... Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears Of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken; The eyes that shone, Now dimmed and gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus in the stilly night Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Sad Memory brings the light Of ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... the man-hole worked through the heavy brick wall, made during the 'stilly nights,' opening into the attic of an annex to the main building. We found our way down by means of a rope ladder, and started our tunnel under the basement floor. But for the exposure we would have emptied the prison. To find the way down we gave them a lively hunt!—And those epithets!—I ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... hill-top bare, Dost see the far hills disappear In Autumn smoke, and all the air Filled with bright leaves. Below thee spread Are yellow harvests, rich in bread For winter use; while over-head The jays to one another call, And through the stilly woods there fall, Ripe nuts at intervals, where'er The squirrel, perched in upper air, From tree-top barks at thee his fear; His cunning eyes, mistrustingly, Do spy at thee around the tree; Then, prompted by a sudden whim, Down leaping on the quivering limb, Gains the smooth hickory, from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... of a time, When creeping Murmure and the poring Darke Fills the wide Vessell of the Vniuerse. From Camp to Camp, through the foule Womb of Night The Humme of eyther Army stilly sounds; That the fixt Centinels almost receiue The secret Whispers of each others Watch. Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames Each Battaile sees the others vmber'd face. Steed threatens Steed, in high and boastfull Neighs Piercing the Nights dull Eare: ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... steps, Seth opened wide the door of their dugout, looking gladly up at her, standing stilly there, a picture daintily silhouetted by the pearl pink ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... herself a little closer, and holds her breath. A few steps more,—she turns round,—places her back full at the driving storm,—and draws a long breath. Now for it! The flakes stop suddenly, as if awed by the quiet determination in the young face. They fall to the ground, stilly. The blue sky looks out, the sun shimmers white for five minutes. Minnie walks rapidly, runs up the steps,—rings, and takes into the house with her a full, fresh life, that vibrates from cellar ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... with the winds at play, Hiding in hollows along the way, White as a lily, Light as a feather, Coming so stilly In cold winter weather. Touching so lightly the snow-bird's wing, ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... night was always a favorite experience with me. In sultry weather one can nearly always get a whiff of freshened air, perhaps from the sea; and the quiet is not less reviving to the heated brain. Nowhere does the night seem more "stilly," or the sense of seclusion more profound, than in the middle of the broad bay on a midsummer night before or after the theatre-goers have crossed. The cities, veiled in moonlight or dim in the star-light, seem to be breathing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... change passed at that moment over the appearance of the bay. It was no more that clear, visible interior, like a house roofed with glass, where the green submarine sunshine slept so stilly. A breeze, I suppose, had flawed the surface, and a sort of trouble and blackness filled its bosom, where flashes of light and clouds of shadow tossed confusedly together. Even the terrace below obscurely rocked and quivered. It seemed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the stilly night, and that was a fox; but one snap from within, a perfectly abominable smell, and the narrowness of the accommodation proved too much for brer fox, and he, with an insolent cock ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... mustn't be 'bothered' in here. It's gross disrespect to my brother-prefects—my colleagues. Besides, you knew perfectly well that in the stilly night a malicious attempt was made upon—not upon the life—but upon the cane of Mr. Fillet, which is, after all, the life and ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... popular poet, produced few poems of lasting quality. Most characteristic of Moore, perhaps, are his lightest verses, such as "The Time I Lost in Wooing," the melodious lines "Oft, in the Stilly Night," ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... only was without expectation. From the blank darkness outside came in, through the aperture that served for a window, all the ever unfamiliar noises of night in the wilderness—the long nameless note of a distant coyote; the stilly pulsing thrill of tireless insects in trees; strange cries of night birds, so different from those of the birds of day; the drone of great blundering beetles, and all that mysterious chorus of small ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... fingers on their lips, enjoining silence on all those who would enter in, amaranth-crowned, and softly waving sheaves of poppies that bring dreams from which there is no awakening. There was there no gate with hinges to creak or bars to clang, and into the stilly darkness Iris walked unhindered. From outer cave to inner cave she went, and each cave she left behind was less dark than the one that she entered. In the innermost room of all, on an ebony couch draped ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... To-morrow eve, more stilly laid, My couch may be the bloody plaid, My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid! It ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is a nest of dreams, The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, All secret shadows and mystic lights, Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze - ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... deep, and he held on to the rope with all his strength. Then, all at once, a peculiar vibration ran through it, as if the crocodile had rapidly shaken its head, and the next moment there was a tremendous jerk, and right out in the river, a violent movement in the stilly flowing water, as if the monstrous brute had suddenly wallowed and twisted itself round, the water rising in eddies and then becoming discoloured with clouds of mud which flowed slowly by them, the direction the reptile had taken being somewhat up ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... pink-tinted as if the colours of the sunsets they had known had run into their whiteness. Hazel sat down on the hilltop and saw the sleek farm-horses far below feeding with their shadows, swifts flying with their shadows, and hills eyeing theirs stilly. So with all life the shadow lingers—incurious, mute, yet in the end victorious, whelming all. As Hazel sat there her own shadow lay darkly behind her, growing larger than herself as the sun ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... into each other's arms and break In terror and in tempests wild of tears. No rain fell on the rock; but flakes of foam Swept cold against our faces, where we sat Between the hush and howling of the winds, Between the swells and sinking of the waves, Between the stormy sea and stilly shore, Between the rushings of the maddened rains, Between the ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... Comes floating from the fane, And listening, as with all his soul Sat old Canute the Dane; And reverent did he doff his crown, To join the clerkly prayer, While swelled old lauds and litanies Upon the stilly air."[10] ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... By the stream rolling, Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling. Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly; Shrill came the night-wind, ...
— The Fitz-Boodle Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... break the stilly night's repose. The seamen list once more, As from her bower, There fall those witching sounds they've heard before, In days long gone, from Ragnor's lofty tower. When hearts with voices ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... carminatives? Did the immortal Godfrey live and die in vain? Did not a kind Providence vouchsafe to us a Daffy? Are there not corals? Are there not India-rubber rings? And is there not the infinite tenderness and pity which we learn for the small, wailing sufferer, as, during the night which is not stilly, while the smouldering wick paints you, an immense, peripatetic silhouette, upon the wall, you pace to and fro the haunted chamber, and sing the song your mother sang while you were yet a child? What a noble privilege of martyrdom! What ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... invasion of Col. Church, the inhabitants of Grand-Pre were exposed to such treatment as may be conceived of. The smoke from the borders of the five rivers, overlooked by Blomidon, rose in the stilly air, and again the sea rolled past the broken dykes, which for nearly a century had kept out its desolating waters between the Cape and the Gasperau. Driven to despair, a few of the younger Acadians took up arms to defend their ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... say so Arthur—cannot remember Mr Clennam until the word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true it is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound people, fond memory brings the light of other days around people—very polite but more polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery business without so much as sending a line or a card to papa—I don't say me though there ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... floated far down upon the air, mingled with the swish of steady oars and laughter and happy voices as the occupants of the various boats called out merrily to each other across the water, or here and there broke into light-hearted song. Denham's boat glided stilly along through all this carnival-like revelry. Gerald was not in a mood for talking, and he felt little inclined to disturb her. It was companionship enough merely to glance at her ever and anon as she sat silently in the stern, the red ropes of the tiller ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... of the prevalent gloom. The waiters start in at the far end of the room and turn out a few lights. Drawing nearer and nearer to you they turn out more lights; and finally, by way of strengthening the hint, they turn out the lights immediately above your head, which leaves you in the stilly dark with no means of seeing your food even; unless you have taken the precaution to spread phosphorus on your sandwich instead of mustard—which, however, is seldom done. A better method is to order a ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... while the dew is sweet; Come to the dingle where fairies meet. Know that the lilies have spread their bells O'er all the pools in our mossy dells; Stilly and lightly their vases rest On the quivering sleep of the waters' breast, Catching the sunshine thro' leaves that throw To their scented bosoms an emerald glow; And a star from the depth of each pearly cup, ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 209, October 29 1853 • Various
... with much taste. He repaired rifles, and performed various descriptions of handicraft with neatness and finish." Making powder-horns—repairing rifles—employments in pleasing unison with old pursuits, and by the associations thus raised in his mind, always recalling the pleasures of the chase, the stilly whispering hum of the pines, the fragrance of wild flowers, and the deep solitude of the ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... magic, untouched by human clumsiness, rare and spellbound as a stilly afternoon in oak woods ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... grew almost harsh in its intensity, and the hand that had hung so stilly beside her closed on the skirt of her dress in her effort to keep the hot blush ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... Anvert, was opposite to us, the glacier at our side; at our feet Arveiron, white and foaming, dashed over the pointed rocks that jutted into it, and, with whirring spray and ceaseless roar, disturbed the stilly night. Yellow lightnings played around the vast dome of Mont Blanc, silent as the snow-clad rock they illuminated; all was bare, wild, and sublime, while the singing of the pines in melodious murmurings added a gentle interest to the rough magnificence. Now ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Mrs. Farnham had struck the Judge on a sensitive point when she sneered at that beautiful crescent-shaped fall, rolling in a sheet of crystal over its native rocks, the sparkling waters all in sunshine; the still basin beneath, green with stilly shadows cast over it from masses of tall trees that ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Or he, far mightier, to whose conquering car Monarchs were yoked, Rameses: by the Greeks Sesostris styled. And yet no sculptor's art Moulded this shape, for form it seemed of flesh, Yet motionless; its dim unlustrous orbs Gazing in stilly vacancy, its cheek Grey as its hairs, which, thin as they might seem, No breath disturbed; a solemn countenance, Not sorrowful, though full of woe sublime, As if despair were now a distant dream Too dim ...
— The Infernal Marriage • Benjamin Disraeli
... the willows close where he had lost her, and waited with what patience he could; and it was a wise plan. Shortly after dawn, moving stilly as the break of day, trembling with fear, she came slipping to the river for a drink. It was almost brutal cruelty, but her fear must be overcome someway; and with a cry of triumph the Cardinal, in a plunge of flight, was ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... so much in vogue at that period. I have heard through Mrs. Samuel L. Hinckley, an old friend of mine, who remembered the incident, that during a visit to Boston when he sang Tom Moore's pathetic ballad, "Oft in the Stilly Night," there was scarcely a dry eye in the room. In referring to the introduction of the Italian Opera into this country Dr. John W. Francis in his "Old New York" thus speaks of Dominick Lynch: "For this advantageous accession to the resources of mental gratification, ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... are works Of God's sabbatic rest, A music perfect as the calm Of wave's unbroken crest! These woven leaves that stilly nod, These violets, ope their ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... stilly woods of oak? And the dread ditch beside? O that was where the Saxons broke On the ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... of one of those stilly cisterns of darkness that between two and four are deepest with sleep, Henry was awakened on the crest of such a blow and yell that he swam up to consciousness in a ready-made armor ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... pillow-borne head, Had vorgotten their swing on the lawn, An' their father, asleep wi' the dead, Had vorgotten his work at the dawn; An' their mother, a vew stilly hours, Had vorgotten where he sleept so sound, Where the wind wer a-sheaeken the flow'rs, Aye, the blast the feaeir buds ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes
... at hay; Prompt at the signal of alarms, Each son of Alpine rushed to arms; So swept the tumult and affray Along the margin of Achray. Alas, thou lovely lake! that e'er Thy banks should echo sounds of fear! The rocks, the bosky thickets, sleep So stilly on thy bosom deep, The lark's blithe carol from the cloud Seems for the scene too ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... for the bright day of gladness to come, When with arms outstretched she will welcome the warrior home. But lo, as the darkness grows denser in Mindanao's heights, The loud pealing of cannons is heard in the dark stilly night. ...
— The Battle of Bayan and Other Battles • James Edgar Allen
... half-masted, and the order was given for the troops to "reverse arms" and "rest on their arms reversed." The massed bands of the 13th Infantry Brigade played the "Dead March in Saul," after which "Oft in the Stilly Night" was played by the band of the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The massed bugles of the 13th Infantry Brigade then sounded "The Last Post," and the flag on the Memorial Arch ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... should have thought me blest To stand high-pinnacled upon the peak Of middle life and look adown the bleak And unfamiliar foreslope to the West, Where solemn shadows all the land invest And stilly voices, half-remembered, speak Unfinished prophecy, and witch-fires freak The haunted twilight of the Dark of Rest. Yea, yesterday my soul was all aflame To stay the shadow on the dial's face At manhood's noonmark! Now, in God His name I chide aloud the little interspace ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... The bleat of the lone lamb, the carol rude Heard indistinctly from the village green, The bird's last twitter, from the hedge-row seen, Where, just before, the scattered crumbs I strewed, To pay him for his farewell song;—all these Touch soothingly the troubled ear, and please The stilly-stirring fancies. Though my hours (For I have drooped beneath life's early showers) Pass lonely oft, and oft my heart is sad, Yet I can leave the world, and feel most glad To meet thee, Evening, here; here my own hand Has decked ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... of duty, moves at length away, And draws his train behind the distant hills, Till all is lost to the admiring gaze, Which feasted on the beauties to the last. For darkness comes with night, his paramour, And cast their shadows over all the land; And in their stilly presence creeps repose, And folds his arms around the lifeful sounds, Till all is hushed of nature into rest, And all the tuneful throng is mutely still, And comes no sound of labor from the hill. Then thrilling is the ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... warming up to a man who can lie like that. Talk about Chatterton's Rowley deception, Macpherson's Ossian fraud, or Locke's moon hoax! Compared with this tremendous fib they are as but the stilly whisper of a hearth-stone cricket to the shrill trumpeting of a wounded elephant-the piping of a sick cocksparrow to the brazen clang of a donkey ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... winds;—and the fluttering verdure of that pleasant land glittered like countless emeralds, and swelled itself in the breeze, as if conscious of, and glorying in, its immortality! Beside me flowed a river—or rather, a broad, bright, lovely lake—slumbering as stilly in the morning light as those who are at peace with the world, and with Heaven. Romantic woods skirted the shores of this waveless water;—here trees, for which the language of man hath no name, drooped gracefully ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... sea to slumber stilly, Bind its odour to the lily, Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver, Then bind ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks And supplication. For his simple heart Might not resist the sacred influences Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound Of the invisible breath that swayed at once All their green tops, stole over him, ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... furniture was better than it looked, was hardly prepared for the rapture with which he stared out of the window. His boyhood had been spent in a sooty Lancashire town, and to him the green garden, the quay-door, the barque, and the stilly water, seemed to fall little short ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... all my heart. You know we were speaking before of the manner of Mr. Badmans death: {171a} How that he dyed very stilly and quietly; upon which you made observation, that the common people conclude, that if a man dyes quietly, and as they call it, like a Lamb, he is certainly gone to Heaven: when alas, if a wicked man dyes ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... no child should authors catechise, Especially, poor fellow, if, like me, Father and author both at once is he. Wise authors all such questions strictly ban, And never answer—even if they can. If of our good knight's wooing you would hear, Keep stilly tongue and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... the greenwood grove, In vain she hears the merlin sing, In vain she seeks her flower alcove, In vain for her the roses spring. If holy peace she tries to seek, She hears Clorinda's maniac song, Or Florabel's ecstatic shriek, Sounding the stilly ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... stilly night Ere slumber's chain hath bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other ...
— The Happy Adventurers • Lydia Miller Middleton
... piece of his mind. Thus the man who has such wild and beautiful thoughts in the night and never can hold on to them long enough to turn on the gas and get his writing materials, can set this thing by the head of his bed, and, when the poetic thought comes to him in the stilly night, he can think into a hopper, and the genius of Franklin and Edison together will enable him to fire it back at his friends in the morning while they eat their pancakes and glucose syrup from Vermont, or he can mail ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... arm of the Romans reached even across the Channel. The first Roman officer who entered Brittany, Publius Crassus had already (697) crossed thence to the "tin-islands" at the south-west point of England (Stilly islands); in the summer of 699 Caesar himself with only two legions crossed the Channel at its narrowest part.(42) He found the coast covered with masses of the enemy's troops and sailed onward with his vessels; but the British war- chariots moved on quite as ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... existence; all that is not pain, But utter weariness; oh! to be free But for a while from conscious entity! To shut the banging doors and windows wide, Of restless sense, and let the soul abide Darkly and stilly, for a little space, Gathering its strength up to pursue the race; Oh, Heavens! to rest a moment, but to rest From this quick, gasping ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler |
