"Petrel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the best of all her birthday presents. He called her the "stormy petrel" in reference to her birth in the wild month of March, and because she was such a fiery little person. When she took sides in an argument he would say, in mild irony: "The shouts of the women in the opposite camp were heard demanding the heads of ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... petrel, better known to us under the name of sheerwater, frequents the tufted grassy parts of all the islands in astonishing numbers. It is known that these birds make burrows in the ground like rabbits; that they lay one or two enormous eggs in the holes and bring up their young there. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... Washington Doane Robin Redbreast William Allingham The Sandpiper Celia Thaxter The Sea-Mew Elizabeth Barrett Browning To a Skylark William Wordsworth To a Skylark William Wordsworth The Skylark James Hogg The Skylark Frederick Tennyson To a Skylark Percy Bysshe Shelley The Stormy Petrel Bryan Waller Procter The First Swallow Charlotte Smith To a Swallow Building Under our Eaves Jane Welsh Carlyle Chimney Swallows Horatio Nelson Powers Itylus Algernon Charles Swinburne The Throstle Alfred Tennyson Overflow John Banister Tabb Joy-Month David Atwood Wasson My Thrush ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... just a seething, nameless mass, apparently. But anything remarkable bubbles up to the top, as in the case of the alleged Peter Storm. Naturally, his fellow-passengers have nicknamed him "The Stormy Petrel." ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... astir,' said the waiter, who, in the intervals of a casual attendance on Sir John, spoke of these things, cigarette in mouth. 'There is doubtless something astir, since General Vincente is on the road. They call him the Stormy Petrel, for when he appears abroad there usually follows ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... down the Channel you see a few divers and gannets. The middle-sized gulls, with a black spot at the end of the wings, attend you a little way into the Bay of Biscay. When it blows a hard gale of wind the stormy petrel makes its appearance. While the sea runs mountains high, and every wave threatens destruction to the labouring vessel, this little harbinger of storms is seen enjoying itself, on rapid pinion, up and down ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... literally "little Peter," just as Emmot means "little Emma," and Marriot "little Mary." Petrel is of cognate origin, with an allusion to St Peter's walking upon the sea; cf. its German name, Sankt Peters Vogel. Sailors call the petrel Mother Carey's chicken, probably a nautical corruption of some old Spanish or Italian name. But, in spite of ingenious guesses, this lady's genealogy remains as obscure as that of Davy ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... wretches!" exclaimed Marie, as she watched another American ship, the "Petrel," leave the line of battle and make a rapid run right past the Spanish fleet for the village of Cavite. "I wonder what the villains are up to now." In a few minutes the Petrel returned, with six small vessels in tow as prizes. In addition, she ...
— The Woman with a Stone Heart - A Romance of the Philippine War • Oscar William Coursey
... Huguenots, by unbelievers, mark you! By fellows who had neither the sense nor the grace to be members of the true church. They could not walk upon the water. Oh! No! But the good Bishop he walked as easily as a stormy petrel, for he was a man of God. And, as he reached the boat he made the sign of the cross, saying, 'Beware of the rocks which you sail down upon! Bear off to the left! When you see the red buoy, bear to the right, and then come home by keeping your bow pointed for ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... sixty winters he has watched beside The turbulent ocean, with one purpose warmed: To rescue drowning men. And round the coast— For so his comrades named him in his youth— They know him as "The Stormy Petrel" still. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... vales, And grand old hills that guard my home, To where the seaward petrel sails And storm winds of the Northland moan. I live again in brighter days, New-born from dreams of the dead past, When she and I stood there to gaze At sparkling hull, ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... islands, which enclosed the spacious lagoon, but of the lagoon itself. The islands were densely covered with coco palms, interspersed here and there with lofty puka trees, the nesting-places of countless thousands of a small species of sooty petrel, whose discordant notes filled the air with their clamour as Rawlings and Barry passed beneath, walking along a disused native path, while the two boats pulled along the shore. The village was found to ...
— Edward Barry - South Sea Pearler • Louis Becke
... Chickens. The fish-fags of Paris in the first Great Revolution were so called, because, like the "stormy petrel," whenever they appeared in force in the streets of Paris, they always foreboded ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... to vanish only Through the mist, a ray of light? Soon he flies, a sea-gull lonely, Far away into the night! What is left me of this lover? But a flower in the dark: In my loneliness to hover Like a petrel round his bark! ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen |
