"Lark" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... east, the other one west, both clusters huddled homelike and sheltered in bluffs of planted cottonwoods, straight rows of them, three, four trees deep. My horse kept trotting leisurely along, the wheels kept turning, a meadow lark called in a desultory way from a nearby fence post. I was "on the go." I had torn up my roots, as it were, I felt detached and free; and if both these prosperous looking farms had been my property—I believe, that moment a "Thank-you" would have bought them from me if ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... this is no lark, young woman, and you needn't trouble yourself to weave any more fairy tales. Mr. Ramsay is in a—he's very ill. His own wife hasn't seen him since that night, so you see ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... name of Powell. Milton had long known this family, and, it seems, decided to tarry with them a day or so. Just why he sought their company no one ever knew, and Milton was too proud to tell. The brown thrush, rival of the lark and mockingbird, seldom seeks the society of the blue jay. But it did this time. The Powells were a roaring, riotous, roystering, fox-hunting, genteel, but reduced family, on the eve of bankruptcy, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... ascending the steps, that he was going to have a rare lark with the driver, whose face, it appeared, was new on the road. They took seats in front, and Mr. Trew, adopting a rustic accent, inquired of the driver whether the canal below represented the river Thames; in regard to Trinity Church, near Portland Road Station, ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man's discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself. One day, when my axe had come off and ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... reach thine ear, Armor's clang, or war steed champing, Trump nor pibroch summon here Mustering clan, or squadron tramping. Yet the lark's shrill fife may come, At the daybreak from the fallow, And the bittern sound his drum, Booming from the sedgy shallow. Ruder sounds shall none be near, Guards nor warders challenge here, Here's no war steed's neigh and champing, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... year round, and today had been half-an-hour earlier on account of the press of work incident to the harvesting of the cherry crop. Several of the servants who were generally occupied about the house had risen today with the lark, to be able to help their lady, and soon a busy, silent party was working in pantry and still room under the careful eye of ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... you never before saw me out on a lark. I tell you, I'm a gay one when I get started," and forthwith there burst again from his lips a gay refrain, that sounded shrilly up the leafy path. They rounded the bend in the road, and the broker looked down into the eyes that were ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... says; "I daresay he's as sick about the whole business as you are. He's lost, too. Somebody's been having a lark with you. They've took your baby out and put this in—that is, if there ever ...
— The Observations of Henry • Jerome K. Jerome
... So the sweet lark, high poised in air, Shuts close his pinions to his breast, If chance his mate's shrill call he hear, And drops at once into her nest. The noblest captain in the British fleet Mighty envy William's lip ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... never do, you know," continued the other, "to let in every shallow young snipe that wanted to have a lark, and make game of the affair. We will ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... twenty-two, before they begin professional study or work. And when there is little money but either or both have a job, then by all means they should be married. When young people marry, they take difficulties of housekeeping and privations as a lark, even as young people do camping out. When I was a boy, camping out was absolute bliss; now it would be absolute horror. Furthermore, in youth neither of them has "set"; they can accommodate themselves to ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... had known her all my life, until she moved away, and then I packed up my things and came East, resolved to pretend I was Azalea and see what happened. It didn't seem so dreadful—I thought at first, it was just a big lark,—but now,—oh, now I know how right and honourable people look on ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... little repose: While the Moon-loving Dame, who had no wish to sleep, Meant in pensive delight, her lone vigil to keep: So her Guests took their leave, with a friendly adieu, And, forthwith, to a neighbouring Lime Tree withdrew. Their eyes now soon close, the night passes away, [p 23] And the LARK calls them up, at the first peep of day: When, quickly descending, each shakes his bright plumes, And with fresh expectation his ...
— The Peacock and Parrot, on their Tour to Discover the Author of "The Peacock At Home" • Unknown
... is an unerring instinct; does not puss purr, then scratch? does not the snake charm, then sting? And so the white mouse said, "Oh, step-moma darling, just one minute, I've been up to a lark, and now present myself to you as Lady Everly; of course you will feel too awfully small for anything, when I take precedence of you; but you are so fond of the Baronet, it was nice of me to keep him in the family;" this she said without a shadow; of self-consciousness, so intent ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... Partridges and young Flamingoes. Herons, and young partridges. Cygnets. herons. Dwarf-herons. A reinforcement of Olives. Teals. vinegar intermixed. Thrushes. Duckers. Venison pasties. Young sea-ravens. Bitterns. Lark pies. Geese, goslings. Shovellers. Dormice pies. Queests. Curlews. Cabretto pasties. Widgeons. Wood-hens. Roebuck pasties. Mavises. Coots, with leeks. Pigeon pies. Grouses. Fat kids. Kid pasties. Turtles. Shoulders of mutton, Capon pies. Doe-coneys. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... he reigned in Kent, Least kingdom of the Seven yet Head of all Through his desert. That morn the royal train, While sang the invisible lark her song in heaven, Pursued the flying stag. At times the creature, As though he too had pleasure in the sport, Vaulted at ease through sunshine and through shade, Then changed his mood, and left the best behind him. Five hours ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... day—I will not care how passes The cloud across my sight, If only, lark-like, from earth's nested grasses, I spring to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... thankfully towards the Sky. "I begin to like the Place, and to bless the warm Sun and pure Air. Ha! so there is a rippling Rivulet, that floweth on continually! . . . Lord, forgive me for my peevish Petulance . . . for forgetting that I could still hear the Lark sing her Morning Hymn, scent the Meadow-sweet and new-mown Hay, detect the Bee at his Industry, and the Woodpecker at his Mischief, discern the Breath of Cows, and hear the Lambs bleat, and the Rivulet ripple continually! Come! let us ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... and dewy breast, Soars upward like a spirit strong, From reedy nest, The gentle lark, To tune on high his ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones
... possibilities that the ruse contained; to say the least, he would be running little or no risk in the event of its miscarriage. In spite of possible unpleasant consequences, there were the elements of a rare lark in the enterprise; he felt himself being skilfully guided past the ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... specimens they are, don't you know. Now please tell the Prince that he positively cannot afford to miss a real sparring match. Every one is terribly excited over it, and naturally we are keeping it very quiet. Won't it be a lark? My daughter thinks it's terrible, but she is finicky. One of them is a ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the house and went to breakfast, Beale gay as a lark and Dickie rather silent. He was thinking over a new difficulty. It was all very well to bury twenty sovereigns and to know exactly where they were. And they were his own beyond a doubt. But if any one saw ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... Malagaski this garden-party was the frantic effort of a sinking man. To Kalora it was a lark. From the pure fun of the thing, she obeyed her father. She wore four heavily quilted and padded gowns, one over another, and when she and Jeneka were summoned from their apartments and went out to meet ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... self-importance thus express'd: 'Reason in man is mere pretence: How weak, how shallow is his sense! To treat with scorn the bird of night, Declares his folly, or his spite. Then too, how partial is his praise! The lark's, the linnet's chirping lays 20 To his ill-judging ears are fine; And nightingales are all divine. But the more knowing feathered race See wisdom stamped upon my face. Whene'er to visit light I deign, What flocks of fowl compose my train! Like slaves they crowd my flight behind, And own ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... fine fresh sweetbread for five minutes, and throw it into a basin of water. When the sweetbread is cold, dry it thoroughly in a cloth, and roast it plain. Or beat up the yolk of an egg, and prepare some fine bread crumbs. Run a lark spit or a skewer through it, and tie it on the ordinary spit. Egg it over with a paste brush, powder it well with bread crumbs, and roast it. Serve it up with fried bread crumbs round it, and melted butter, with a little mushroom ketchup and lemon juice. Or serve the sweetbread ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... tune, no reasoned theme. The music was beautiful in its own self. It rose straight up like the sky-lark from the ground, sheer up against the white light of the sky, and there it sang against heaven's gate. He had never heard harmony like it. He would never again hear such music, so thin and yet so full that it went ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... freshness in the air which made him forget for a moment his desire for repose. He looked about him, breathing deep draughts of its coolness. The robins which, though not so well advertised, rise just as punctually as the lark, were beginning to sing as they made their simple toilets before setting out to attend to the early worm. The sky to the east was a delicate blend of pinks and greens and yellows, with a hint of blue behind the grey which was still ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... the sea-bird if it loves the sea, Ask of the roses if they love the rain, Ask of the little lark, that will not sing Till day break, if it loves to see the day:- And yet, these are but empty images, Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire So great that all the waters of the main Can not avail to quench it. Will ...
— The Duchess of Padua • Oscar Wilde
... morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his bedroom, I observed that his ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... classic song. They are scarcely known, except to our own people, and they have not in general been exalted by praise above their real merits. We read, both in prose and verse, the praises of the European Lark, Linnet, and Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been immortalized in song. But the American Robin, (Turdus migratorius,) though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different habits. Little has been written about him, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... conthrivances," said Mr. Colhayne, "for doing that simple thing ye see there. They've pumps, and screws, and hydraulic devilments, as much complicated as a watch that's always getting out of order and going wrong; but with that ye'll see what good 'twill do him; he'll be as lively as a lark in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... a question which makes me say it virtually of myself. That is a way you keen lawyers have. Very well; I shall be an honest witness, even against myself. That I wasn't up with the lark this morning goes without saying. The larks that I know much about are on the wing after dinner in the evening. The forenoon is a variable sort of affair with many people. Literally I suppose it ends at 12 M., but ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... a place in this world we must earn it. The partridge makes its own nest before it occupies it. The lark, by its morning song, earns its breakfast before it eats it; and the Bible gives an intimation that the first duty of an idler is to starve, when it says if he "will not work, neither shall he eat." Idleness ruins the health; and very soon ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... dare, surely. Lizzie, I shouldn't have thought much of it if they'd done it once just for a lark. We're all human, and juniors will be juniors. But when it gets systematic, and they begin to sell their brooches, that's a ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... Keepe all upright—let me but hawlk at him, Ile play the vulture, and so thump his liver That (like a huge unlading Argosea) He shall confesse all, and you then may hang him. Shew me a clergie man that is in voice 40 A lark of heaven, in heart a mowle of earth; That hath good living, and a wicked life; A temperate look, and a luxurious gut; Turning the rents of his superfluous cures Into your phesants and your partriches; 45 Venting their quintessence ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman
... lied just as coolly then as I could now. I made love to a girl when I was ten years old." He laughed to himself at the remembrance. "Her father had a foundry. She used to wear a red dress, I remember, and her hair was brown. She sang like a little lark. I was half mad about her; and yet I knew that I didn't really love her. Still, I told her that I did. I suppose it was the cursed falseness of my whole nature. I know that whenever I have said most, and felt most, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... again opened them, I saw my companions lying near me, motionless, wrapped in their huge traveling rugs. Were they asleep or dead? For myself, sleep was wholly out of the question. My fainting fit over, I was wakeful as the lark. I suffered too much for sleep to visit my eyelids—the more, that I thought myself sick unto death—dying. The last words spoken by my uncle seemed to be buzzing in my ears—all is over! And it was probable that he was right. In the state of prostration to which I ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... good old bird. That's a rum theory of his about the corpses in the temple being buried deeper than anyone has yet dug, and hung with valuable ornaments. Wouldn't it be a jolly lark to dig down for one and have a ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... an infernal ass to mix myself up in a mad scheme like this," said Edward Henry to his soul, perusing the documents. "It's right off my line, right bang off it ...! But what a lark!" But even to his soul he did not utter the remainder of the truth about himself, namely: "I should like to cut a dash before this insufferable patronizer of England and the ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... sounds. Everything seemed beautiful to them, moors, and hills, and golden harvest-fields. They did not talk much, only now and then one would point out to the other some new object of interest, a glimpse of blue water caught between the hills, or a lark upspringing from some grassy knoll, ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... in flight, a human lark with a song. But a gloomy Italian is oppressive and almost terrible. Despite the training of years Amedeo's smile flickered and died out. A ferocious expression surged up in his dark eyes as he turned rather bruskly to scrutinize without hope the few remaining clients. But suddenly his face ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... mot when, in speaking of a certain famous pianist, he said: 'He plays Beethoven with velocity and Czerny with expression.' But to hear Sarasate play romantic music, his own 'Spanish Dances' for instance, was all like glorious birdsong and golden sunshine, a lark soaring heavenwards! ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... to have a lark" with old Polonius—a proceeding in exquisitely bad taste by the way—Mr. TREE's Hamlet attracts the young Court Jester's attention to his forthcoming novelty. Now this time, as the repartee is about as rude a thing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... that boys and girls ever should think of eating things which occasioned so much trouble. So the night was spent in singing and dancing, and our master would sleep as sweetly as you please. At last the lark—what a beautiful bird she is—would flutter against the window panes, and give the fairies warning ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... the reading of two volumes of Richardson's 'Pamela' and another friendly soul the reading of Smollett's 'Ferdinand Count Fathom,' and 'Peregrine Pickle.' The book which most delighted him, however, was a collection of English songs called 'The Lark.' ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... have Payne's room, who can go upstairs," Emmy continued. Payne was a staid English maid and personal attendant upon Mrs. Osborne, to whom the courier, as in duty bound, paid court, and whom Georgy used to "lark" dreadfully with accounts of German robbers and ghosts. She passed her time chiefly in grumbling, in ordering about her mistress, and in stating her intention to return the next morning to her native village of Clapham. "She may have Payne's room," ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and his ships were reported to be still at Isle-aux-Coudres. Vaudreuil sent thither a party of Canadians, and they captured three midshipmen, who, says Montcalm, had gone ashore pour polissonner, that is, on a lark. These youths were brought to Quebec, where they increased the general anxiety by ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... fingers softly over the strings every heart was hushed, filled with a sense of balmy rest. The lark, soaring and singing above his head, paused mute and motionless in the still air, and no sound was heard over the spacious plain save the dreamy music. Then the bard struck another key, and a gentle sorrow possessed the hearts of his hearers, and unbidden tears gathered to their eyes. Then, ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... "Make a lark of it," said she generously; "take that scapegoat Jerry-Jo McAlpin with you and have it out with him about being a young beast and worrying the heart out of old Jerry, who means well but ain't got no kind of a headpiece. Take ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... godlike giant's hold Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and tree. None would dream that grief even here may disembark On the wrathful woful ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... been expected that these two habits would have concurred, like those of display and pugnacity. Some authors, however, argue that the song of the male cannot serve to charm the female, because the females of some few species, such as of the canary, robin, lark, and bullfinch, especially when in a state of widowhood, as Bechstein remarks, pour forth fairly melodious strains. In some of these cases the habit of singing may be in part attributed to the females having been highly fed and confined (32. D. Barrington, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... dangerous one for the American poet is the lark, and our singers generally are very shy of him. The term has been applied very loosely in this country to both the meadow- lark and the bobolink, yet it is pretty generally understood now that we have no genuine skylark east ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... o' their flat all day, an' I could see't Mis' Loneway she's happy as a lark. But I knew pretty well what was comin'. Mind you, this was ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... "A late lark twitters from the quiet skies; And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, grey city An influence luminous and serene, A ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sleep, as he was a black rascal, and the men were liable to stumble over him while changing guards during the night. He never could be prevailed on to walk with his mother, but followed the wagon or rode in his hammock, and was always happy as a lark when the recipient of the outfit's attentions. We sometimes secured as much as two gallons of milk a day from the cow, but it was pitiful to watch her futile efforts at coaxing her offspring away ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... stuff," he acknowledged. "I knew you'd think of the right thing to end up the lark with." He looked across at Richard with a proud and happy face. "Didn't I tell you she was a peach of a sister?" he ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... middest whereof sprouteth or shooteth up a naked slender stalke nine inches long, every stalke bearing one flower and no more, sometimes white, and sometimes of a bluish purple colour, fashioned like unto the common Monkshoods" (he means Larkspurs) "called Consolida Regalis, having the like spur or Lark's heel attached thereto." Then after describing a third kind of Sanicle—(Cortusa Mathioli, a large-leaved Alpine Primula,) he goes on: "These plants are strangers in England; their natural country is the alpish mountains of Helvetia. They grow in my garden, where they flourish exceedingly, ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... morning, the dew still on the hedges and the lark still singing his matins, as we entered the city with a stream of market-carts bringing in fresh fruits and vegetables and flowers for the early morning markets. Only working-people were in the streets: ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... decide everything on his own judgment, on the spur of the moment, directly on the immediate fact, and in disregard of remoter contingencies and possibilities. He needs adventure to bring out his powers, and only really takes to business when business is something of a "lark." To combine the functions of a trader with those of an explorer, a soldier, and a diplomat is what he really enjoys. So, all over the world, he opens the ways, and others come in to reap the fruit of his labours. This is true in things ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... a sunny morning, while the lark was singing sweet, Came, beyond the ancient farmhouse, sounds of lightly-tripping feet. 'Twas a lowly cottage maiden, going,—why, let young hearts tell,— With her homely pitcher laden, fetching water from ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... him? And when that victory was apparently the direct means of establishing this Christian king upon the throne of Strathclyde, and the indirect means which led to the recall of St. Kentigern from St. Asaph's to Glasgow, how is it that the Welsh Triads talk of it enigmatically as a battle for a lark's nest? ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... the flamingo, the heron, the common kingfisher, and the black and white kingfisher of Egypt, the jay, the wood-pigeon, the rock-dove, the blue thrush, the Egyptian fantail (Drymoeca gracilis), the redshank, the wheat-ear (Saxicola libanotica), the common lark, the Persian horned lark, the cisticole, the yellow-billed Alpine chough, the nightingale of the East (Ixos xanthopygius), the robin, the brown linnet, the chaffinch; swallows of two kinds (Hirundo cahirica and Hirundo rufula); the ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... went on a lark, So his wife did remark, And some angry words, too, did she mutter. On a lark he went out, Of that fact there's no doubt, But he came in, alas! on ...
— The New Pun Book • Thomas A. Brown and Thomas Joseph Carey
... omnibus group, being both too elegant and too high-spirited. His proper role in the circumstances would have been to 'jump into a hansom'; but there were no empty hansoms, and moreover, for certain reasons of finance, he had sworn off hansoms until a given date. He regarded the situation as 'rather a lark,' and he somehow knew that the group understood and appreciated and perhaps resented his superior and tolerant attitude. An omnibus rolled palely into the radiance of the Queen's Elm lamp, the horses' flanks and the ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... of the soldiers, mere boys, donned citizens' dress and went out for a lark. At roll-call they were missing and a guard was sent to search for them. When found, they resisted arrest and three minutes after they all answered the roll-call ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... and he grew sleepy, he looked about for a heap of straw, and making a hole in it, crept in, like a lizard. Idiot though he was, he was never unhappy, but always thanked gratefully those who fed him, and sometimes would stop for a little and sing to them. For he could imitate a lark so well, that no one knew which was Peronnik and which was ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... "I had a lark with that missionary. He was a raw hand, and quite outclassed by a man like me. He gasped out who was I, and I told him to read the inscription at my feet if he wanted to know. There wasn't no inscription; why should there be? but down he goes to read, and his ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... farmer's cart drawn by one of those great, fat, gentle Shire horses that George Eliot has described so well. All spoke of peace and plenty, quiet and rest. The green fields and the flowers, the lark-song and the sunshine, the dipping willows by the stream, and the arch of the old stone bridge as I approached the village—all these I had seen and known and felt before ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... had loved or might have loved. A bud last night slept close curled in virginal strictness, with the morning light it awoke a rose. But the core of the rose is still hidden from the light, only the outer leaves know it, and so Elizabeth is pure in her first aspiration; she rejoices as the lark rejoices in the sky, without desiring to possess the sky. Ulick could not explain to himself the obsession of this singing; he was thrall to the sensation of a staid German princess of the tenth century, and the wearing of a large hat with ostrich feathers, ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... little English village in the real spring time, such as she must have known when she was a girl, with the daffodils in the cottage gardens, and the young leaves on the elm and the hawthorn. And perhaps a lark would be singing high up; and there might be a scent of wallflower; and the children coming home with daisy wreaths. She would cry, perhaps; but she would like it better than the hot-house flowers and the Riviera. There are some things that ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home; 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come; 'Tis sweet to be awakened by the lark Or lulled by falling waters; sweet the hum Of bees, the voice of girls, the song of birds, The lisp of children, and ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... paradise of pretty women, good cheer, and all that is nice to the sailor who is always ready for a lark! We at once went in for enjoying ourselves to our heart's content; we began, every one of us, by falling deeply in love before we had been there forty-eight hours—I say every one, because such ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... the perfide Albion well enough to be aware that nothing shocking is said, and that it is pretended that the cocotte is a mere kindly friend, the collage a trifling flirtation, the debauche a viceless lark, and that the foulest conduct of husband or wife does not reach a real breach of the commandment more often broken in England than the rest ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... well as numerous resinous or gum trees, the banana, sugar-cane, yams, aniseed, and lastly a plant called "Binao," which is used by the natives as bread. Cockatoos, wood pigeons, lories, and black-birds, somewhat larger than those of Europe, abounded in the woods. In the marshes the curlew, sea lark, a species of snipe, and ducks were to be found. The only quadrupeds the country produced were goats and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... sang like the lark? I must hear her again. But she won't be in tune for singing now, poor thing! What are they doing? Henry Ward taken to the practice? He used to be the dirtiest little sneak going, but I hope ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... boy," he said. "The question is withdrawn. You're perfectly right—and you're setting us an example by taking things seriously. This war isn't going to be a lark. But you can tell me a few things. You're scouts, I see. I was myself, once—before I went to Sandhurst. ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... days the turnips and mangolds seemed even more interesting than usual to Cardo Wynne. He was up with the lark, and striding from furrow to furrow in company with Dye and Ebben, returning to a hurried breakfast, and out again on the breezy hillside before the blue smoke had begun to curl up from the thatched chimneys which marked the cluster ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... a playground. To be at last in such secure innocence that one can juggle with the universe and the stars, to be so good that one can treat everything as a joke—that may be, perhaps, the real end and final holiday of human souls. When we are really holy we may regard the Universe as a lark; so perhaps it is not essentially wrong to regard the University as a lark. But the plain and present fact is that our upper classes do regard the University as a lark, and do not regard it as a University. It also happens very often that through some oversight they neglect to provide ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... smaller than the Horned Lark, and the throat is paler yellow, while the line over the eye and the forehead is white. They are the most abundant and have the most extended range of any of the better known species. In the Mississippi Valley, where they are ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... fantastic toe; And in thy right hand lead with thee The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty; And, if I give thee honour due, Mirth, admit me of thy crew, To live with her, and live with thee, In unreproved pleasures free: To hear the lark begin his flight, And, singing, startle the dull night, From his watch-tower in the skies, Till the dappled dawn doth rise; Then to come, in spite of sorrow, And at my window bid good-morrow, Through the sweet-briar ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... blessed stars came out, the moon peered over a farther mountain and on the last spur there was the gray horse browsing in the path—and the sound of running water not far below. Fortunately on the gray horse were the saddle-bags of the chattering infants who thought the whole thing a mighty lark. We reached the running water, struck a flock of geese and knew, in consequence, that humanity was somewhere near. A few turns of the creek and a beacon light shone below. The pales of a picket fence, the cheering outlines of a log-cabin came in ...
— A Knight of the Cumberland • John Fox Jr.
... starvation. Fortunately for himself and for the happiness of our homes, the Swallow gulps them all down indiscriminately, together with a host of other insects that perform aerial ballets. What would become of the Lark were his gizzard able to digest only one seed, invariably the same? When the season for this seed was over—and the season is always a short one—the haunter of ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... in these thoughts my self almost despising, Haply I think on Thee—and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... seem to think it was serious a little while ago," replied Pud. "Then, you said it was a lark. This is a fine lark. If we're kept here, we'll miss our boat to-morrow and that will make us miss the other boat to Escoumains and then Mr. Waterman won't know where we are and it will ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... alongside here, Jeff, you rascal," said Tom, "and let me get a fair hug at you. What do you think of this for a lark; eh?—to meet you out here, all promiscuous, in the forest, like Prince Arthur! We could not go out of our way to see you, though we knew where you were located, for we must hurry on and get a piece of country we have been told of on the next river. We ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... rose with the lark, and went out, walking in the summer day. His meditations—and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled along—hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... not have seemed too dear a price to pay for some magic spell that would have brought you to us when, at the festal games, I danced and sang to the tambourine while the loudest shouts of applause greeted me. Whenever many were listening I thought of you—then I poured forth like the lark the feelings that filled my heart, then my song was inspired by you and not by the fame of the Most High, to whom ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as I consulted his wishes, was free enough. Of my own I had a few hundred pounds left me by my mother. I took that and came to this country. I was introduced into society by a fellow-countryman, who thought my change of name a mere lark, and who soon went home, and then straightway I fell in love ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... the first achievements in the country is early rising: with the lark—with the sun—while the dew is on the grass, "under the opening eye-lids of the morn," and so forth. Early rising! What can be done with five or six o'clock in town? What may not be done at those hours in ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... in conclusion. "It was no end of a lark! I would not have missed it for the world; but the old chaps ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... A lark hovered over their heads. The note of a thrush was heard away inland. A guillemot skimmed over the water in the same direction as their own, and a tern on curved wing screamed in their wake. There was a sense of expectation over all. The scent of the young fir-trees and the heather ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... they gathered at morn On your high heather hills from the lark on the wing, From the blackbird at eve on the blossoming thorn, From the little green linnet whose plaining they sing, And the joy and the hope in the heart of the ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... on a lark, you bet; that's what it is," said Moll, nodding her head sagaciously. "Kids like they is allus up to somethin'. Maybe ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur
... thy neibor sweet, The bonnie lark, companion meet! Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet Wi' spreckled breast, When upward springing, blythe ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... while she sat mute In the soft shadow of the apple-tree; The skylark's song rang like a joyous flute, The brook went prattling past her restlessly: She let their tongues be her tongue's substitute; It was the wind that sighed, it was not she: And what the lark, the brook, the wind, had said, We cannot tell, for ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... wan wurrud Easter Sundah that comes on me, an' jolts me up with th' thoughts iv th' la-ads goin' to mass an' th' blackthorn turnin' green beyant, I dinnaw. But annyhow I'm as gay as a babby an' as fresh as a lark. I am so. ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... good work it does is the meadow-lark. Grasshoppers, caterpillars and cutworms form a large part of its diet, and its vegetable food consists of weed seeds ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... to be) dined; and, discoursing of the nature of serpents, he told us some that in the waste places of Lancashire do grow to a great bigness, and that do feed upon larks, which they take thus: They observe when the lark is soared to the highest, and do crawl till they come to be just underneath them; and there they place themselves with their mouths uppermost, and there, as is conceived, they do eject poyson up to the bird; for the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... when the lark sings clear, Of our sweet Mayflowers when the daisies bloom; And bear to our and thy ancestral home The kindly greeting of its ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... brighten with his inconstant giddy light. Hope is everywhere; murmuring in the brooks, and smiling in the sky. Upon the bursting trees she sits; she nestles in the hedges. She fills the throat of mating birds, and bears the soaring lark nearer and nearer to the gate of Heaven. It is the first holiday of the year, and the universal heart is glad. Grief and apprehension cannot dwell in the human breast on such a day; and, for an hour, even Self is merged ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... the stillness with his shining thread of song; one lark, and then presently another, invisibly in the air, making out of that blue quiet a woven cloth of ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... a tender gentle mien, like Mascarillo, who expects a beating and becomes merry as a lark when he finds his master in a good humor! Well—that is the mark of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... and so messeems fades life's perplecksing dreems, And vanish like that fishing-rod all in the dark messeems. I wonder if my perplecksing dreems will vanish like the rod in the dark, And I shall rise and rise and rise and rise all like a lark. ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... sky-lark song of sweetest daring, And April ecstasy, That I may follow it and go ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard
... friend typo—that last word—word of words in the epiphany of life and love. The scent of the flowers, the booty of the bee, the primal drip of spring waters, the overture of the lark, the twist of lemon peel on the cocktail of creation—such is the bride. Holy is the wife; revered the mother; galliptious is the summer girl—but the bride is the certified check among the wedding presents that the gods send in when man is ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... over rolling richness of foliage, wood and water, and a church-spire, a town and horizon hills. There sung a sky-lark. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... won't do any good to cry about it," retorted Roy philosophically, looking around upon the three pretty girls with an appreciative eye. "I call it a great lark, and if only you girls were coming along my ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... an awful lark to bolt," said Gully, with a chuckle. "But," he added, seriously, "if you really mean it, by George, I'll go too! Wilson has just given me a thousand lines; and I'll be ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... beneath Is golden gorse, or purple heath: And now we hear in woodlands dim Their unarticulated hymn, Now walk through rippling waves of wheat, Now sink in mats of clover sweet, Or see before us from the lawn The lark go up to greet the dawn! All birds that love the English sky Throng round my path when she is by: The blackbird from a neighboring thorn With music brims the cup of morn, And in a thick, melodious rain The mavis pours ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... came to camp for orders, and heard of Scott's performances, he said, laughing: 'Well, that settles it. He'll be Bakri Scott to the end of his days' (Bakri, in the northern vernacular, means a goat). 'What a lark! I'd have given a month's pay to have seen him nursing famine babies. I fed some with conjee [rice-water], but that ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... procession was passing at that moment. First came a splendid cock-a-doodle, all in black and gold, like a herald, blowing his trumpet, and marching with a very dignified step. Then came a rook, in black, like a minister, with spectacles and white cravat. A lark and bullfinch followed,—friends, I suppose; and then the bride and bridegroom. Miss Wren was evidently a Quakeress; for she wore a sober dress, and a little white veil, through which her bright eyes shone. The bridegroom was a military man, in his scarlet uniform,—a plump, ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... his companions. He did not speak much, and his mental attainments were not highly regarded; but, for some reason, whenever he did speak every playmate in hearing stopped whatever he was doing and listened. Perhaps it would be a plan for a new game or lark; perhaps it was something droll; perhaps it was just a commonplace remark that his peculiar drawl made amusing. Whatever it was, they considered it worth while. His mother always referred to his slow fashion of speaking as "Sammy's long talk." Her own speech ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the reflective shadows from her eyes. There had burst forth a whistle, clear, keen, inspiring. Only one person in her world was so lark-like, so jubilant, so joyous of nature as to improvise such ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... wax-white and like a statue on the wall,—and all the world looking on at what they deemed to be no less than Angus's courtship, I saw little of her except I rose on my arm to watch her smiling sleep deep in the night. And she was heartsome as the lark's song up the blue lift, and of late was never to be found in those two hours when my mother kept her room at mid-day, and was over-fond of long afternoon strolls down the river-bank or away in the woods by herself. Once I fancied ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... out of a cage'—a remark with which I entirely agree. Mr. Herbert's Bill for the protection of land birds gave her immense pleasure, though, to quote her own words, she was 'grieved to find that "the lark, which at heaven's gate sings," is thought unworthy of man's protection'; and she took a great fancy to a gentleman who, on being told of the number of singing birds that is eaten in Italy—nightingales, ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... que par un rayon, et s'en eloigne par les mille autres points de la circonference sociale." The world sees only her follies, and sees them at first sight; her good qualities lie hidden in the shade. Is she not busy as a bee, joyous as a lark, helpful, pitiful, unselfish, industrious, contented? How often has she not slipped her last coin into the alms-box at the hospital gate, and gone supperless to bed? How often sat up all night, after a long day's toil in a crowded work-room, to nurse Victorine in the fever? How often ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... jolly well right, Mr Rodd, say I," cried Joe, "for I call it taking a mean advantage of a man to sneak off like that with his pole. Why, look at him, sir. He's having a regular lark with it— picking his teeth, or something. Look how he's waggling the top of it about. What do you say to try and steer after him ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... song somewhere, my dear, There is ever a something sings alway: There's the song of the lark when the skies are clear, And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray. The sunshine showers across the grain, And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree; And in and out, when the eaves drip rain, The swallows ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey |
