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Swan   /swɑn/  /swɔn/   Listen
Swan

noun
1.
Stately heavy-bodied aquatic bird with very long neck and usually white plumage as adult.



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"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books



... once capable of reading the past, and laying bare the future of all who consulted him; also of healing diseases of and preventing mishaps to such as visited him. Accordingly, having taken lodgings in Tower Street, at a goldsmith's house, situated next the Black Swan, he prepared himself for practice, adopted the title of doctor, the name of Alexander Bendo, and issued bills headed by the royal arms, containing the most remarkable and impudent manifesto perhaps ever set forth ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy

... church was somewhat poorly attended on this fine autumn evening, when the hunter's moon hung like a big golden shield above the river, glorifying the dipping willows, the narrow eyots, haunts of swan and cygnet, and the distant woodlands of Surrey. It was a night which tempted the free to wander in the cool shadowy river-side paths, rather than to worship in the warm ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon

... and produced a little gold swan-shot scarce distinguishable from the Chinese. He put this on the table, and took up ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... tale in the Gesta Romanorum (ch. 74 of the text translated by Swan) which seems to have been suggested by the Hebrew parable of the Desolate Island, and which has passed into general currency throughout Europe: A dying king bequeaths to his son a golden apple, which he is to give ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

... stumbled through my story; told him I had credit at the cabman's eating-house, but began to think it was drawing to a close; how Dijon lent me a corner of his studio, where I tried to model ornaments, figures for clocks, Time with the scythe, Leda and the swan, musketeers for candlesticks, and other kickshaws, which had never (up to that day) been honoured ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... and gaps; and upon the white satin lining of his "pink" there was a tiny button-hole bouquet, such as Mab might have held with her fairy fingers at the time of her coronation; and in collar, if in nothing else, he resembled the immortal Shakespeare; and his bosom was broad and snowy as the swan's; and his pumps were glossy as the raven's wing; and he was going dinnerward, with a winsome damsel on his arm and a complacent smile of self-conceit upon his countenance, when the smooth soles of these new ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... during the greatest part of our way favourable and gentle, the sea being quite as smooth as a mill pond, so that the paddles of our noble steamer, the Nikolai, were not at all impeded in their working by any rolling or pitching of the vessel. Immediately on my arrival I sought out Mr. Swan, one of the most amiable and interesting characters I have ever met with, and delivered to him your letter, the contents of which were very agreeable to him; for from applying himself too un-interruptedly ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... time, he ventured down to Monte Video, where he found the English brig Swan, bound round Cape Horn. Her crew, deluded by the false and extravagant promises of privateering captains and owners, had all deserted. In this dilemma the captain was compelled to supply their places with such materials as could be picked up in the streets ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames

... over the edge of the rock at his reflection in the water, and ventured, "Wouldn't I need a shave? and oughtn't I to have a string of beads around my swan-like neck, with a few spangles on it to glitter and sparkle? I'd have to hold my right hand over this old gun scar in my left shoulder, so as not to mar the beauty of the picture. Remind me of it, John, and I'll have some taken, and you ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... touched the water. At length his head lay back between his wings, and silently he lay there, like a white lotus flower upon the quiet lake. And a gentle wind arose, and crisped the quiet surface, which gleamed like the clouds that poured along in great broad waves; and the swan raised his head, and the glowing water splashed like blue fire over his breast and back. The morning dawn illuminated the red clouds, the swan rose strengthened, and flew towards the rising sun, towards the bluish coast whither the caravan ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... when this pile of Fiddles was to be dispersed. It fell to my lot to classify them, and never shall I forget the scene I witnessed. Here, amid the din of countless machines busy shaping magnum-bonums, swan-bills, and divers other writing implements, I was about to feast my eyes on some of the choicest works of the old Italian Fiddle-makers. Passing through offices, warehouses, and workshops, I found myself at a door which my conductor set himself ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... creatures. The koala poses as a small bear; the cuscus answers to the racoons of America. The pouched badgers explain themselves at once by their very name, like the Plyants, the Pinchwifes, the Brainsicks, and the Carelesses of the Restoration comedy. The 'native rabbit' of Swan River is a rabbit-like bandicoot; the pouched ant-eater similarly takes the place of the true ant-eaters of other continents. By way of carnivores, the Tasmanian devil is a fierce and savage marsupial analogue of the American ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... Edith, Harold's betrothed bride, fair and graceful as a lily: Edith of the Swan's Neck, as people called her. Her face was pale and sorrowful, but she had resolved ...
— Stories from English History • Hilda T. Skae

... the Dublin post-office, to every quarter of the kingdom. But the counterplot anticipated the plot. Lord Edward, betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the Freeman's Journal, was taken on the 19th of May, after a desperate struggle with Majors Swan and Sirr, and Captain Ryan, in his hiding-place in Thomas Street; the brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless escaped from the city, and finally from the country, to France. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... appear, but deeply impressed with the belief, he naturally called together Joshua and the Levites and gave his final charge. Whether fact or fiction this farewell is deeply interesting. The closing chapters, containing the "song of blessing," comes to all lovers of religious poetry as the swan song of Moses. Though doubting its authorship, one may enjoy its beauty and grandeur. Chapter xxxiv narrates ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... the often-quoted instance of the Dahlia.[626] After several years' culture the Zinnia has only lately (1860) begun to vary in any great degree. "In the first seven or eight years of high cultivation the Swan River daisy (Brachycome iberidifolia) kept to its original colour; it then varied into lilac and purple and other minor shades."[627] Analogous facts have been recorded with the Scotch rose. In discussing the variability of plants several experienced horticulturists have spoken to the {262} ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... toppled the three topmasts of the corvette. The falling of those masts was a beautiful sight. They did not rush down impetuously, but stooped themselves gradually and gracefully, with all their clouds of canvas. A swan in mid air, with her drooping wings broken by a shot, slowly descending, might give you some idea of the view. But after the descent of the multitudinous sails, the beauty was wholly destroyed. Where before there careered gallantly and triumphantly ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... perseverance, the most famous scenes in the Doctor's life—drawn him sliding on Christ Church meadows, sliding in these worn and clouted shoes of his, and with that figure which even the exercise of skating could not have made "swan-like," to quote the young lady in "Pickwick"? Johnson was "sconced" in the sum of twopence for cutting lecture; and it is rather curious that the amount of the fine was the same four hundred years earlier, when Master Stoke, of Catte Hall (whose career we touched on in the second of these sketches), ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang

... ceased. I heard the swan-like sough of her wings, and saw the rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... essays, for his letters, for his philosophy of life, for himself. He will be the well beloved, as he has been the well beloved. But his will be another claim upon posterity than what we are considering. For each epoch has its singer. As Scott sang the swan song of chivalry and Dickens the burgher-fear of the rising merchant class, so Kipling, as no one else, has sung the hymn of the dominant bourgeoisie, the war march of the white man round the world, the triumphant paean of commercialism and imperialism. For that ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... kingdom, all are well. The eagle builds his nest in a high tree; at times he grows careless in the fancied security of his high-perched home; then even a small bird will sometimes come and plunder it and eat the eggs and young brood: so it is with the swan whose nest is in the sedges on the lake. It, too, trusts too confidently in the dark thickets of reeds, yet prowling water falcons will sometimes come and rob it of eggs and young. This might happen to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... dap! Git dap! Limpin', creepin', crawlin', hoppin', jumpin'.... Starboard! starboard, you son of a Chinee! Need a tug to haul this critter into the channel, I swan you do! Git dap! All shipshape aft there, Cap'n Sears? ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... previous summer holidays, Dr. May had been called one morning to attend a gentleman who had been taken very ill, at the Swan Inn. ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... any glas, And eke his face, as it had been anoint. He was a lord full fat and in good point His eye stepe, and rolling in his bed, That stemed as a forneis of led. His botes souple, his hors in gret estat, Now certainly he was a fayre prelat. He was not pale as a forpined gost. A fat swan loved he best of any rost. His palfrey was as ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... burial. Yet he could not rest satisfied that he had won all that remained of his friend from the river's bed, and so he continued to haunt the stream, ever diving, ever searching, until the gods grew weary of his restless sorrow and changed him into a swan. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... them where the offices of religion are performed. The countenance which admirals and captains, prelates and lords of the Admiralty, have given to them, are the best warrant for their necessity and usefulness. A short notice of 'The Swan' and its Tender, will not be thought out of place ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... claps her hands] Are you here, my darling? My beauty! And was I blind as a bat, and didn't see you? Darling child! [She kisses her and sits down beside her] How happy this makes me! Let me feast my eyes on you, my milk-white swan! Oh, oh, ...
— Ivanoff - A Play • Anton Checkov

... any. In the evening I bought a very fat one for two hands of seewan. The chief cooked it for us, and the grease he mixed with our beans and maize. This chief showed me his idol; it was a male cat's head, with the teeth sticking out; it was dressed in duffel cloth. Others have a snake, a turtle, a swan, a crane, a pigeon, or the like for their idols, to tell the fortune; they think they will always have good luck in doing so. From here two savages went with ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various

... to the swans, whom she enticed once more with caresses to the borders of the lake. Suddenly she uttered a loud cry, and called to the two gentlemen for help. The great white swan had torn the camelias from the bosom of the princess, and sailed off proudly upon the ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach

... her daughter-in-law, and to make her son's wife her friend and confidante. But such a relationship was impossible; for, when she tried to share with her daughter the emotions which crowded upon her, they rolled off the queen like water off the breast of a swan. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... but their heads are those of the animals in which their respective husbands became incarnate, such as the lion, the elephant, &c., or those of the 'vahans', or animals on which they rode, such as the bull, the swan, the eagle, &c. But these, I presume, are mere capricios of the founder of the temple. The figures are sixty-four in number, all mounted upon their respective 'vahans', but have been sadly mutilated by the ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... a Swan:—Bone and skin your swan, and beat the flesh in a mortar, taking out the strings as you beat it; then take some clear fat bacon, and beat with the swan, and when 'tis of a light flesh colour, there is bacon enough in it; and when 'tis beaten till 'tis like dough, 'tis enough; then season it ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt

... Richmond. He went first to the United States Hotel, at the southwest corner of Nineteenth and Main Streets, in the "Bird in Hand" neighborhood where he had looked for the last time on the face of his young mother. He soon removed to the "Swan," because it was near Duncan Lodge, the home of his friends, the MacKenzies, where his sister Rose had found protection. The Swan was a long, two-storied structure with combed roof, tall chimneys at the ends, and a front piazza with ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... crystalline day began to be softly shadowed by twilight. Behind them lay the town, its roofs and spires robed in swan's-down, while on all sides the fallen logs and deep underbrush, the level stubbles and broad irregular hollows, and all the vast sweep of dark evergreen forest, melting away in immeasurable distance, was a dazzling white waste of snow. In the bright moonshine ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... swan with her long arched neck, "winning her easy way" through the waters, is beautiful; so is that of the nightingale singing upon her lone bush by moon-light. Poetic descriptions of real objects, are well suited to children; apostrophe and personification they understand; but all allegoric poetry is ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth

... Marche and Molly, a struggling bird tucked under each arm, waded out along the lanes of stools, feeling about under the icy water until their fingers encountered the wire-cored cords. Then, to the leg rings of each madly flapping duck and swan and goose they snapped on the leads, and the tethered birds, released, beat the water into foam and flapped and splashed and tugged, until, finally reconciled, they began to souse themselves with great content, and either mounted their stools or ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers

... he called out, as he drew rein alongside the two lads. "What's this here yer lookin' at? Another dead calf? No, I swan if it ain't a yearling as has been pulled down now. Things seem t' be gittin' t' a warm pass when sech doin' air allowed. Huh! an' it looks like Sallie's work, too! That sly ole critter is goin' t' git t' the end of ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson

... These ideas of substances, though they are commonly simple apprehensions, and the names of them simple terms, yet in effect are complex and compounded. Thus the idea which an Englishman signifies by the name swan, is white colour, long neck, red beak, black legs, and whole feet, and all these of a certain size, with a power of swimming in the water, and making a certain kind of noise, and perhaps, to a man who has ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke

... is treated with a mixture of two parts of sulphuric acid and one part of water perfectly cold, it becomes like parchment. It should at once be washed with water, and then with ammonia and water. The Swan incandescent light fibres are made of parchmentized cotton ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone

... the poet is more at home than in his own degenerate age.(18) To him too his own song "gracefully welling up out of rich feeling" sounds, as compared with the common poems, "like the brief song of the swan compared with the cry of the crane";—with him too the heart swells, listening to the melodies of its own invention, with the hope of illustrious honours—just as Ennius forbids the men to whom he "gave from the depth of the heart a ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... at other times he commended the symmetry and proportion of the rooms. He walked about the gardens; he bathed himself in the canal, swimming, diving, and beating the liquid element like a milk-white swan. The hall resounded with the sprightly violin and the martial hautbois. The family tripped it about, and capered like hailstones bounding from a marble floor. Wine, ale, and October flew about as plentifully as kennel-water. Then a frolic took John in the head to call up some of Nic. Frog's pensioners ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot

... feet in height, are covered with snow even in the middle of summer. Whilst the elevation of the principal peaks, Mount Exmouth, Mount Cunningham, and others was being taken, it was discovered that so far from Australia possessing only one large watercourse, the Swan River, it had several, the chief being Hawkesbury River, formed by the confluence of the Nepean, the Grose, and the Brisbane; the river Murray not being yet known. At the period under notice a commencement had been made in the working of coal-mines, slate quarries, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... time," he said, bringing forward a most convincing argument; and, dismissing the subject with one of his Podsnapian waves, he decided that a silver-coloured composition flower-bowl in the form of a swan was solid silver; "Him sing out all a same silver," he said, making it ring with a flick of his finger and thumb, when I differed from him, and knowing Cheon by now, we left it at that for ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... individuality, idiosyncrasy, originality, mannerism. aberration; irregularity; variety; singularity; exemption; salvo &c. (qualification) 469. nonconformist; nondescript, character, original, nonesuch, nonsuch[obs3], monster, prodigy, wonder, miracle, curiosity, flying fish, black sheep, black swan, lusus naturae[Lat], rara avis[Lat], queer fish; mongrel, random breed; half-caste, half-blood, half-breed; metis[Lat], crossbreed, hybrid, mule, hinny, mulatto; tertium quid[Lat], hermaphrodite. [mythical animal] phoenix, chimera, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... steer clear, if possible, of the political imbroglio, they eventually joined hands with the Reformers. How the egg of the Jameson conspiracy came to be laid no one exactly knew. Certain it was that those who looked for the hatching of a swan, were confronted with a very ugly duckling indeed! Arms and ammunition were purchased, and these, concealed as gold-mining impedimenta, were smuggled into the country. Messrs. Leonard and Phillips, two prominent Reformers, consulted Mr. Rhodes as to future ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... landing that Dick Lever made at the aviation camp, his great machine sailing down like a swan and landing so lightly that it would scarcely have broken a ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine, Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs: ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... question. Field-flower. The cloud's swan-song. To the sinking sun. Grief's harmonics. Memorat memoria. July fugitive. To a snow-flake. Nocturn. A May burden. A dead astronomer. 'Chose vue.' 'Whereto art thou come.' Heaven and hell. To a child. Hermes. House of bondage. The heart. A ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson

... or the young Swan, was formerly much esteemed; but it has "fallen from its high estate," and is now rarely seen upon the table. We are not sure that it is not still fattened in Norwich for the corporation of that place. Persons ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... forty only, a magic horse, and before the door of the room he finds a pool of gold in which he becomes gilded. In another (Hahn, No. 15) a prince finds in the forbidden fortieth a lake in which fairies of the swan-maiden species are bathing. In a third (No. 45) the fortieth room contains a golden horse and a golden dog which assist their bold releaser. In a fourth (No. 68) it imprisons "a fair maiden, shining like the sun," ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston

... and after the drawing-master had endowed the work with artistic merit by the application of white chalk to the high lights, the pearls, the canary's eyes, and the pathetic tear-drops upon the damsels' faces, the immortal productions were ready for framing. The giraffe or swan-necked angel was the keynote for all ideal work, and even the recognised artists of those days, with one or two brilliant exceptions, followed ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... him," for another wail reached them from the disconsolate warship. "He's fixed there as though, he was glued to it. He'll have to jettison all his bunker an' a gun or two afore he gets off. They tell me Cigno means 'swan.' I wonder wot's the I-talian for 'goose.' Go an' tell Tagg. Tell him to tumble up quick, if on'y for ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... though it was in a meagre sphere enough; and her mother was still not quite resigned: surely Florence might at least spend the summer in the country. At times, indeed, among her intimates, Mrs. Nightingale almost wept. 'We are ducks,' she said with tears in her eyes, 'who have hatched a wild swan.' But the poor lady was wrong; it was not a swan that they had hatched, it ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey

... pale-faced school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her mother for the belief but did not share it ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... in the field of battle, or in the mock combat of the tournament: the knight was known and named from the device used as his crest. Thus the heralds, in introducing him to the judges of the field, or to the lady that bestowed the prizes, called him the Knight of the Swan, the Knight of the Lion, &c., without mentioning any other title. And knights whose fame for gallantry and prowess was firmly established, had their crests painted over their coats of arms. In two ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous

... passed, mid in the grove before He heard a sound that strange, sweet, pleasing was; There rolled a crystal brook with gentle roar, There sighed the winds as through the leaves they pass, There did the nightingale her wrongs deplore, There sung the swan, and singing died, alas! There lute, harp, cittern, human voice he heard, And all these sounds ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso

... Here I stand hungering. Give me the little hill above the sea, The palm of Delos fringed delicately, The young sweet laurel and the olive-tree Grey-leaved and glimmering; O Isle of Leto, Isle of pain and love; The Orbed Water and the spell thereof; Where still the Swan, minstrel of things to be, Doth ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... fatigued tradesman, the weary labourer, may at any time saunter round and walk to the brink of the giddy heights facing Levi; feast their eyes on the striking panorama unrolled at their feet; watch the white winged argosies of commerce float swan-like on the bosom of the mighty flood, whilst the wealthy citizen, in his panelled carriage, would take his afternoon drive round the Park en payant. The student, the scholar, the traveller might each in turn find here amusement, and fresh air and shade, and with sketch ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine

... in sight, and riding proudly at anchor, the beautiful curves of her swan-like prows made cannon proof with plates of shining steel,—and below, in lieu of figurehead to promise victory, those letters of dread omen, C.D.X.,—with thirty oars-men from the arsenal of Venice, to ensure her speed, each ready at his oar-lock to wield his ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... clump of bushy oaks. The moon shone dimly, shrouded in mist, and over the earth there was, as it were spread out, a delicate smoke. The eye could not decide what it was, whether moonlight or fog. On one of the lakes a swan was asleep; its long back was white as the snow of the frost-bound steppes, while glow-worms gleamed like diamonds in the bluish shadow at the ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... soft and flowing in your verses; them I understand altogether. But there was Gottsched, one day, reading me his Translation of IPHIGENIE; I had the French Copy in my hand, and could not understand a word of him [a Swan of Saxony, laboring in vain that day]! They recommended me another Poet, one Peitsch [Herr Peitsch of Konigsberg, Hofrath, Doctor and Professor there, Gottsched's Master in Art; edited by Gottsched thirty years ago; now become a dumb idol, though at one time a god confessed]; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... in that direction, knowing that although the lieutenant was not at home, his telescope would be pointed seaward, and that even then Mary might be looking at the graceful ship which floated like a swan over the calm water. The Lizard was the last point of land seen, and the "Ione" stood out into ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... you'd buy her cow, an' when we come to do the tradin' part, why, con-found it! she wa'n't no more fit to buy an' sell a critter than my three-year-old Hepsy. I said a piece back I ha'n't got much natur', an' a man that trades dumb beasts the biggest part o' the time hedn't oughter hev; but I swan to man! natur' was too much for me this time; I couldn't no more ha' bought that cow cheap than I could ha' sold my old gran'ther to a tin-peddler. Somehow, she was so innocent, an' she felt so to part with the critter, an' then she let me know 't George was in the army; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... again, it is to be hoped, will become an English Rebuilder. Find Mankind where thou wilt, thou findest it in living movement, in progress faster or slower: the Phoenix soars aloft, hovers with outstretched wings, filling Earth with her music; or, as now, she sinks, and with spheral swan-song immolates herself in flame, that she may soar the higher and ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... of this Instant SEPTEMBER, from his Master John Johnson, of Boston, Jack-maker, a Negro Man Servant, named Joe, about 23 Years of Age, a likely Fellow, who had on when he went away a dark colored Fly Coat, with flat white Metal Buttons, a Swan Skin double breasted Jacket, Leather Deer Skin Breeches, a pair of high heel'd thick soled Shoes. He can play on the Flute, has a Scar on his upper Lip and SPEAKS GOOD ENGLISH. Whoever shall take him up and deliver him to his said Master, shall have Ten Pounds Reward, Old Tenor, and all reasonable ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... breasts, Eilidh; Woman of the gold-brown hair, and lips of the red, red rowan, Where is the swan that is whiter, with breast more soft, Or the wave on the sea that ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... hint at the geese whose sound saved Rome. The great goose question of the Reformation was the burning of one Huss, whose name in English signifyeth Goose, for which reason he is said to have exclaimed to his tormentors 'Now ye indeed roast a goose, but, lo! after me there will come a swan whom ye can not roast;' which was strangely fulfilled in LUTHER, whose name—slightly varied—signifies in Bohemian a swan. But, reader, 'an it please you,' here is the original and 'Simon Pure' explanation, as furnished ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... apparitions having been seen here; but it turned out at last that a gang of smugglers had taken up their residence in it." It was once used as a school, and later on as a reformatory. It is now in the possession of the Swan Laundry Company. ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton

... not have wings; and he went straight to the shore of the vik, climbed up into one of the longships, made his way to the lofty prow and sat down to think it over. That prow curved upward and over like a great swan's neck, with a dragon's head carved on the end, and he noted with curious eyes how here and there could be seen a splintered scar and in it perhaps still the arrow-head that made it. He dug one out and looked at it, with a sniff of contempt. He knew he could make a better one himself. ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... was a beautiful yawl, and sat like a swan upon the water, was manned by four oarsmen, with a man at the helm. Considerable attention and respect was shown the visitors, the ship's side being manned when they showed their intention of coming on board, and the usual naval courtesies ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... was the son of very honest people who kept a public-house in Clare Market. They were careful in sending him to school, and having taught him there to read and write etc., sufficiently to qualify him for business, then put him apprentice to the Swan Tavern near the Tower. There he served his time carefully and with a good character, nor did his parents omit in instructing him in the grounds of the Christian religion, of which having a tolerable understanding he attained a just knowledge, ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward

... a beautiful island for them. It bore grapes and nuts, and they called it their garden. In a cave there, a kind spirit dwelt, who blessed the land of the Indians. The spirit had white wings, like a swan. But in 1816 the United States built Fort Armstrong right on top of the cave, and the good spirit flew away, never to come back. The guns of ...
— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

... slavery or the stage-coach. He would be a bold man who should undertake to say what the national type is now; but it is safe to say that it is not a long, thin, cute Yankee, dressed in a swallow-tailed coat with brass buttons, whittling a stick, and interlarding his conversation with "I swan!" and "I calc'late." If Mr. Lowell were writing the "Biglow Papers" now, would "Uncle S." serve his purpose as he did during the war? By a merciful dispensation of Providence, however, Brother Jonathan and Uncle Sam still live on in the imaginations of large ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... announcing the government grant, a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London, and another from that of Paris, have further rewarded Dr Leichhardt's meritorious labours. Unflinching in pursuit of science, he again set forth, in December 1845, on an overland journey to Swan River, expected to occupy two years and a half. This time he is better provided. His party consists of only eight persons, but he has mules for the stores, fourteen horses, forty oxen, and two hundred ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... among animals which is very beautiful to see. They will come together for defence and to get food, and sometimes help each other in sickness and trouble. A blind swan was fed with fish brought twice a day by other swans from a lake thirty miles away. An English sparrow pluckily rescued his mate from a big snowdrift at the risk of his life. Livingstone tells of a wounded buffalo who was caught ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... rather difficult some day To turn out both, or either, it may be. Some persons think that Coleridge hath the sway; And Wordsworth has supporters, two or three; And that deep-mouthed Boeotian "Savage Landor"[591] Has taken for a swan ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... was wonder to wee Shane, there was so much of it that it flicked through his head like a dream: the hazy September afternoon; the long, lean vessel like a greyhound; the sails white as a swan's wing; the cordage that rattled like wood; the bare-footed, bearded sailors; the town of Carrickfergus in the offing; the lap-lap-lap of water; the silent man at the wheel; the sudden transition of the friendly Raghery ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

... lessened, as he tried to speak, And issued through a long extended neck; 10 His hair transforms to down, his fingers mee In skinny films, and shape his oary feet; From both his sides the wings and feathers break; And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak: All Cycnus now into a swan was turned, Who, still remembering how his kinsman burned, To solitary pools and lakes retires, And loves the waters as opposed to fires. Meanwhile Apollo, in a gloomy shade (The native lustre of his brows decayed) ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... ever after Let your tears be tears of laughter - Every sigh that finds a vent Be a sigh of sweet content! When you marry merry maiden, Then the air with love is laden; Every flower is a rose, Every goose becomes a swan, Every kind of trouble goes Where the last year's snows have gone; Sunlight takes the place of shade When you ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert

... was kind enough to accompany me to the coach, and on the 12th day of October, 1793,—oh! happy day, at least I thought so—we repaired to the sign of that nondescript bird, the "Swan with Two Necks" in Lad Lane, Cheapside. After taking an affectionate farewell of those who came with me, I stepped into the vehicle of transport with a light foot, a light heart, and, I fear, a light head, ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... Earle I am, and Suffolke am I call'd. Be not offended Natures myracle, Thou art alotted to be tane by me: So doth the Swan her downie Signets saue, Keeping them prisoner vnderneath his wings: Yet if this seruile vsage once offend, Go, and be ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... was proved that Perrault had in the course of the morning met Billy Blake, and asked him if he meant to bag the swan—if he followed the young lord's party and fired when they did, he would be sure to bring something down. He did not know that the Blakes never let the poor fellow load his old gun ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge

... full height and flung out his long arms, his face turned to the southern skies. The movement shot panic into the heart of a swan that had drawn nearer with amiably predatory designs. Its consequent abrupt retreat collided it with a stout old lady, who squealed and dropped her bag of peanuts. Jones ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... every variety of metre in common use, and appropriate to every occasion where God is worshipped and men are blessed. From the compositions of Billings, Holden, Maxim, Edson, Holyoke, Read, Kimball, Morgan, Wood, Swan, &c. &c., and eminent American authors now living, as well as from distinguished European composers. Embracing a greater variety of Music for Congregations, Societies, Singing Schools, and Choirs, than ...
— Rollo in Holland • Jacob Abbott

... swan, from the frontispiece of the metrical romance: "The Knight of the Swanne. Here beginneth the history of ye noble Helyas knyght of the swanne, newly translated out of frensshe," London, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... entirely off. They all peered into the box. There lay an old clay pipe and a roll of faded calico. Mr. Fairbanks took up the roll and shook it out. "It's an apron," said he. "It's his father's pipe, and his mother's apron—I—swan!" ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins

... touch each other. And your intelligence is great, and your navel deep, and your words solemn. And your great toes, and bust and hips, and back and sides, and toe-nails, and palms are all well-developed. And your palms, soles, and face are ruddy. And your speech is sweet even as the voice of the swan. And your hair is beautiful, and your bust shapely, and you are possessed of the highest grace. And your hips and bust are plump. And like a Kashmerean mare you are furnished with every auspicious mark. And your eye-lashes are (beautiful) bent, and your nether-lip is like ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... firm, and promised nothing more than that she would not marry the Bear, or any one else; and they returned to her father's teepee, little thinking that any one had overheard their conversation. But the "Swan" had heard ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman

... the "mot d'auteur" and the "mot de situation." The terms practically explain themselves; but a third class ought to be added—the "mot de caractere." The "mot d'auteur" is the distinguishing mark of the Congreve-Sheridan convention. It survives in full vigour—or, shall one say, it sings its swan-song?—in the works of Oscar Wilde. For instance, the scene of the five men in the third act of Lady Windermere's Fan is a veritable running-fire of epigrams wholly unconnected with the situation, and very ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room—but no tablecloth—at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky—faced savage, dressed in a shabby great—coat of the hodden grey worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and well—patched shoes; he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky steam ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott

... be seen in the passages; terrified faces peep out from half-opened doors. Dora Talbot, coming into the corridor in a pale pink cashmere dressing-gown trimmed with swan's-down, in which she looks the very personification of innocence and youth, screams loudly, and demands hysterically to be informed as to the cause of the ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"

... shagginess—indeed, her whole figure struck Felix as almost frighteningly vital; and she walked as if she despised the ground she covered. The boy was even more arresting. What a strange, pale-dark face, with its black, uncovered hair, its straight black brows; what a proud, swan's-eyed, thin-lipped, straight-nosed young devil, marching like a very Highlander; though still rather run-up, from sheer youthfulness! They had come abreast of the car by now, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... hovering over him closely, M'sieu sitting back in the shadows. She was like some wonderful wildflower, French, a little Indian. He told us how her long black hair would stream in a shining cascade, soft as the breast of a swan, to her knees and below; how it would hang again in two great, lustrous braids, and how her eyes were limpid pools that set his soul afire, and how her slim, beautiful body filled him with a monstrous desire. ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Winnipeg Lake into a stream leading to the Ball Club Lake (missing the great tributary Leech Lake River); third, at White Oak Point, below the Eagle's Nest Savannah; fourth, Pokegama Falls, a carry of two hundred yards on the left bank (a necessity); and fifth, a cut-off above Swan River, saving six miles. This last was the only portage (except the falls) made by my party, and was availed of to reach good camping-ground before dark. Indeed, as to portaging I must yield the palm to my vainglorious successor. Behold his record! He jumped twenty-six ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... idea without believing it practicable, but such is the power of imagination among florists, that although considering the undertaking as certain to fail, all their thoughts were engrossed by that great black tulip, which was looked upon to be as chimerical as the black swan of Horace or the white ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... geese (a glutton race) by thee deplored, Portend the suitors fated to my sword.' This said, the pleasing feather'd omen ceased. When from the downy bands of sleep released, Fast by the limpid lake my swan-like train I found, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... since her father often left her by herself, all day long, yet strange to say! the rudeness of her wild condition ran over her, leaving her soul untouched, like the water running in crystal drops that beautify but do not wet the neck of a royal swan. And one day she was discovered like a treasure in the wood by a band of hermits' daughters, that were roaming at a distance from the hermitage, away in the forest's heart. And those daughters of the sages all fell suddenly in love with her at once, ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... her pocket on to the floor, and sifting them. There were two pocket-handkerchiefs of fine texture, and exceedingly dirty, as if they had been there for months (the one she used she carried in the bosom of her dress or up her sleeve), a ball of string, a catapult and some swan shot, a silver pen, a pencil holder, part of an old song book, a pocket book, some tin tacks, a knife with several blades and scissors, etc.; also a silver fruit knife, two coloured pencils, indiarubber, ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... is History but the story of the bygone? The elegy, too, comes to us as the last lamenting, sadly solemn swan-song of that glorious golden time. And, indeed, are not all poesies but various notes of that mighty diapason of Thought and Feeling, that has, through the ages, been singing itself in jubilee ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... never heard before seemed to come from his throat, which had suddenly become narrow and slender. Already the water had risen to his waist, and he found himself sitting easily upon it, while its surface reflected back the image of a black swan, one ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... talking to the sacristan. "I hear many objections to that bird, sir," he remarked to me, "from fastidious tourists: one thinks that a peacock, spreading its jewels by mechanism, would have a richer effect. Another says that a swan, perpetually wrestling with its dying song, would be more poetical. Others, in the light of late events, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... wolfskin sleeping-sack, about seven feet in length and wide enough to hold our two bodies; covered that with two pairs of blankets; and finally lined the whole back part of the sleigh with large, soft, swan's-down pillows. At the foot of the sleeping-sack, under the driver's seat, we stowed away a bag of dried rye-bread, another bag filled with cakes of frozen soup, two or three pounds of tea, a conical loaf of white sugar, half a dozen dried and smoked salmon, and a padded box ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan

... this native of Arabia; but as, from their manner of using him after they had caught him, he does not by any means appear to have been a native of Arabia Felix, the Editor has left the proprietors to treat with Mr. Polito, and refused to receive this rara avis, or black swan, into the present collection. One exception occurs, in which the admirable treatment of this feathered incombustible entitles the author to great praise: that Address has been preserved, and in the ensuing pages takes the lead, to ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith

... safety at any season of the year; but for this there must be a proper boat. Any person going there at present ought not to land if the surf is high, without Captain Davies' large sail-boat, which is as safe as a tug, and rides the sea like a swan. Send him word to send his largest boat at the best hour for landing. The Captain is a native ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... This day I hear that G[od] has shot an arrow into the midst of this Town. The small pox is in an ordinary ye sign of the Swan, the ordinary Keepers name is Windsor. His daughter is sick of the disease. It is observable that this disease begins at an alehouse, to testify God's displeasure agt the sin of drunkenness & yt of multiplying alehouses!" [Footnote: The Heart of the Puritan, p. 177, edited ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... waters calm, the sands bare and glistening in the early sunbeams; no vestige of the storm or of the bloody outrage of the night remained—all was peace and beauty. In the distance was a single snow-white sail, floating swan-like on the bosom of the blue waters. All around was beauty and peace, yet from the young man's tortured bosom peace had fled, and remorse, vulture-like, had struck its talons deep into his heart. He called himself a murderer, the destroyer of Marian; he said it was ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth



Words linked to "Swan" :   err, Cygnus atratus, go, Anatidae, aquatic bird, locomote, declare, attest, whooper, maunder, sweep, Cygnus olor, assure, claim, assert, sail, protest, family Anatidae, cygnet, Cygnus buccinator, gad, jazz around, trumpeter, Cygnus columbianus, travel, tell, aver, gallivant, cob, take, coscoroba, Cygnus cygnus, pen, tramp, move, hold



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