Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




More "Robin" Quotes from Famous Books



... in His personality. To see Him was to believe in Him, or rather to accept Him as inevitably true. "We do not explain nature or escape from it by sentimental regrets: the bare cries like a child, the wounded stag weeps great tears, the robin kills his parents; life exists only on condition of death; and these things happen however we may weave theories that explain nothing. Life must be accepted on those terms; we cannot be wrong if we follow nature; rather to accept them is to find peace—our great ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... of the elves; they waded in the brook, hoping to catch a water-sprite; they ran after thistle-down, fancying a fairy might be astride; they searched the flowers and ferns, questioned sun and wind, listened to robin and thrush; but no one could tell them any thing of the little people, though all had gay and charming bits of news about themselves. And Daisy thought the world got younger ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... sat at the piano and sang one Scots song after another. She had a really exquisite voice, and when 'Robin Adair' and 'Ye Banks and Braes' and 'Annie Laurie' rang through the old hall, the man gave himself up to the delight of listening. He stood by her and turned the pages of music, while the two ladies, Mrs Constable ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade

... merrily, whoa! To the old gray church they come and go, Some to be married and some to be buried, And old Robin ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley

... Europe not a nest of such a colony could have lived an hour within reach of such a population; for the baya bird has no peculiar respect paid to it by the people here, like the wren and robin-redbreast in England. No boy in India has the slightest wish to molest birds in their nests; it enters not into their pastimes, and they have no feeling of pride or pleasure in it. With us it is ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... lady had come forth to the forest to collect her widow's dues of honey, and had tarried on her way for a little friendly discourse. But methought that "little" must have had some strange meaning, inasmuch as the housewife's withered cheeks were of the color of a robin's breast. Hereupon I threatened her with my finger, and enquired of her whether she had not betrayed more to the evil-tongued old woman than she ought, but she ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? Have ye tippled drink more fine Than mine host's Canary wine? Or are fruits of Paradise Sweeter than those dainty pies Of venison? O generous food! Drest as though bold Robin Hood Would, with his maid Marian, Sup and bowse with ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley

... of name brought the Australian word nearer to its English use. "Robin" for instance is applied to birds of various species not known in Europe. Bird-names, fish-names, plant-names, are sometimes transferred to new species, sometimes to a new genus, sometimes to an entirely different ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs—for there were some most pleasant ones not far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... Anna doubtfully. "I had to learn that once at school, but, somehow, I didn't think that it was about a robin." ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... October came a round-robin from the Carrolls. Would Susan come to them for Thanksgiving and stay until Josephine's wedding on December third? "It will be our last time all together in one sense," wrote Mrs. Carroll, "and we really need you to help us over the ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris

... and English chronicles showing the romantic glamour surrounding the great Charlemagne and his crusading knights. "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood," written and ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... the roof and look from the steeple, And never see a robin, nor a beech or ellum tree! And right here in ear-shot of at least a thousan' people, And none that neighbors with us or we want to ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley

... made two flower beds a few days ago, and the hens scratched them very badly. I am eleven years old, and I go to school, and have lots of fun. I have no pets now, but I did have a pet robin that I was very ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... I was surprised at the extraordinary tameness of the smaller landbirds: a thrush (Turdus magellanicus) almost allowed me to knock it down with my cap, and some other birds were quite as familiar as our robin in winter—a pair of loggerhead ducks (Brachypterus micropterus) were quietly pluming themselves on the jetty at government house, and others were swimming along shore within pistol shot of a public road; at first I thought they were domesticated, and refrained from firing. The loggerhead is a ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... evenings, when one wants company, (for I don't suppose that many people will frequent me then,) one may sit and scribble verses against Crouch-back'd Richard, and dirges on the sweet babes. If I die there, and have my body thrown into a wood, I am too old to be buried by robin redbreasts, am not I? ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... and pigeons come here on account of the springs like this one, and I get 'em with a bow and arrow. I didn't call myself Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin' when I was knee-high to a grasshopper." He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and put it on the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he brought out a small ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... flourish of the bob-o'-link, the soft whistle of the thrush, the tender coo of the wood-dove, the deep, warbling bass of the grouse, the drumming of the partridge, the melodious trill of the lark, the gay carol of the robin, the friendly, familiar call of the duck and the teal, resound from tree and knoll and lowland, prompting the expressive exclamation of the ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie

... clean breast of it, mother," he ses. "He got round you too." She was goin' for the slate again, but he stops her. "It's all right, mother," he ses. "I've seen him sense you have, an' he won't trouble us no more." The old lady looks up quick as a robin, an' she writes, "Did he say so?" "No," ses Jim, laughin'. "He didn't say so. That's how I know. But he bested you, mother. You can't have it in at me for bein' soft-hearted. You're twice as tender-hearted as what I be. Look!" he ses, an' he ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... summoning rook to build, Dunnock his beak with moss has filled, Robin is bowing in coat-tails brown, Tomtit ...
— Poems: New and Old • Henry Newbolt

... circumscribed but appreciative sphere. No social occasion in Eden Place was complete without Mrs. Grubb. With her (and some light refreshment), a party lacked nothing; without her, even if other conditions were favourable, it seemed a flat, stale, and unprofitable affair. Like Robin Adair, ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... step and martial bearing. He was apt—like his grandfather—to hold his own will to be other people's law, and (happily for the peace of the nursery) this opinion was devoutly shared by his brother Nicholas. Though the Captain had left the army, Robin continued to command an irregular force of volunteers in the nursery, and never was colonel more despotic. His brothers and sisters were by turn infantry, cavalry, engineers, and artillery, according ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various

... following: Perthichoaren, Denbighshire, wherein were found the remains of Platycnemic man—so named from his having sharp shin-bones; Cefn, St. Asaph; Uphill, Somerset; King's Scar and the Victoria Cave, Settle; Robin Hood's Cave and Pinhole Cave, Derbyshire; Black Rock, Caldy Island, Coygan Caves, Pembrokeshire; King Arthur's Cave, Monmouth; Durdham Downs, Bristol; and sundry others, near Oban, in the valleys of the Trent, Dove, and Nore, and of the Irish ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... "I don't believe there are," she said. "Oh, of course I like 'Treasure Island,' and 'Robin Hood,' and that kind of thing. But history, and the Waverley Novels—why, Margaret would like to read the Waverley Novels all day; and they put me to sleep in ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... in request, my ding-dongs, My pairs of dear Indentures, King of Clubs, Than your cold water Chamblets or your paintings Spitted with Copper; let not your hasty Silks, Or your branch'd Cloth of Bodkin, or your Tishues, Dearly belov'd of spiced Cake and Custard, Your Robin-hoods scarlets and Johns, tie your affections In darkness to your shops; no, dainty Duckers, Up with your three pil'd spirits, your wrought valours. And let your un-cut Coller make the King ...
— Philaster - Love Lies a Bleeding • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... design Was blindly fostered by well-meaning folly, And great sane folk like Mr. Samuel Pepys Canvassed his weakness and slept sound all night. For little Samuel with his rosy face Came chirping into a coffee-house one day Like a plump robin, "Sir, the unhappy state Of Mr. Isaac Newton grieves me much. Last week I had a letter from him, filled With strange complainings, very curious hints, Such as, I grieve to say, are common signs —I have observed it often—of worse to come. He said that he could neither eat nor sleep Because of ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes

... Says Carlyle: "In a peasant's death-bed there may be the fifth act of a tragedy. In the ballad which details the adventures and the fate of a partisan warrior or a love-lorn knight,—the foray of a border chieftain or the lawless bravery of a forrester; a Douglass, or a Robin Hood,—there may be the materials of a rich romance. Whatever be the subject of the song, high or low, sacred or secular, there is this peculiarity about it, it expresses essentially the popular spirit, the common sentiment, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various

... make too sure o' that, Sir,' urged Mr. Weller, shaking his head. 'If you know'd who was near, sir, I rayther think you'd change your note; as the hawk remarked to himself vith a cheerful laugh, ven he heerd the robin-redbreast a-singin' round ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... generally of the round-robin description, and were handed on from one member to another of the family, but this had been specially written to Marjorie and addressed to Brackenfield, so it was a great treasure. She determined to do her best to ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... Rabbit hurried right over to Jack Rabbit's, told him what his plan was, and brought Jack Rabbit back with him. Then Doctor Rabbit hurried around through the Big Green Woods telling his friends. He told Stubby Woodchuck, Cheepy Chipmunk, Chatty Red Squirrel, Frisky Grey Squirrel, Robin-the-Red, O. Possum, busy Blue Jay, Jim Crow, and quite a number of others. He asked them all to come about the middle of the forenoon to the place where Farmer Roe had placed the cow's head, as he would need every one of them at ...
— Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox • Thomas Clark Hinkle

... his rod on the board, No man dare speak a word. For he hath all the saying, Without any renaying. He rolleth in his records; He sayeth, How say ye, my Lords? Is not my reason good? Good even, good Robin Hood. Some say, Yes; and some Sit still, as they ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... may brag of gardens fine, But let the children race in mine; And let the roses, white and red, Make gay the ground whereon they tread. And who for bloom perfection seeks, Should mark the color on their cheeks; No music that the robin spouts Is equal to their merry shouts; There is no foliage to compare With youngsters' sun-kissed, tousled hair: Spring's greatest joy beyond a doubt Is when it brings ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... inside the cage or the miserable man outside of it sighed the loudest. And so on, through all the significant rooms. The spider-room overwhelmed him altogether, till his sobs and the beating of his breast were heard all over the house. The robin also when gobbling up spiders he made an emblem of himself, and the tree that was rotten at the heart,—till the Interpreter's patience with this so perverse pilgrim was fairly worn out. So the Interpreter shut up his significant ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... Complement was return'd both by the Castle and Dutch Commodore. The Europa Saluted us as we passed her, which we return'd. This Ship was to have sail'd with or before us, but not liking the opportunity she lay fast. At 5 in the Evening anchor'd under Penguin or Robin Island in 10 fathoms water, the Island extending from West-North-West to South-South-West, distant ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... fell in with—within short, with a band of robbers, who detained us, half as guests, half as captives. They needed Adam's stout arm; and there was a shrewd, gray, tough old fellow, who had been in Robin Hood's band, and was looked up to as a sort of prince among them, who was bent on making us one with them. Lady, you would smile to hear how the old man used to sit by me as I lay on the rushes, and talk of outlawry, as Father Adam de Marisco ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge

... spring everywhere. The robin and the bluebird were piping sweetly in the blossoming orchard. The sparrows were chirping, and hungry crows were calling loudly for food. The farmers of Killingworth were plowing the fields, and the broken clods, ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... robin crying, He has heard the voice of Spring; From the woods the crow is flying, And the jay is ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... man wha first did shape That vile, wanchancie thing—a rape! It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, Wi' chokin dread; An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... to retain what it has received.—Call down Dolly your chamber-maid, and I will give you my cap and bell along with it, if I make not this matter so plain that Dolly herself should understand it as well as Malbranch.—When Dolly has indited her epistle to Robin, and has thrust her arm into the bottom of her pocket hanging by her right side;—take that opportunity to recollect that the organs and faculties of perception can, by nothing in this world, be so aptly typified and explained as by that one thing ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... for the robin redbreast, and the wren, [Cornelia doth this in several forms of distraction. Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of unburied men. Call unto his ...
— The White Devil • John Webster

... were the outlaws his tyranny had driven to the forests, the forerunners of the Robin Hoods and Little Johns of later days, whose exploits against the Norman race awoke the enthusiasm of so many minstrels and ballad ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... Poppies; woods carpeted with Bluebells, Anemones, Primroses, and Forget-me-nots; commons with the yellow Lady's Bedstraw, Harebells, and the sweet Thyme; marshy places with the yellow stars of the Bog Asphodel, the Sun-dew sparkling with diamonds, Ragged Robin, the beautifully fringed petals of the Buckbean, the lovely little Bog Pimpernel, or the feathery tufts of Cotton Grass; hedgerows with Hawthorn and Traveller's Joy, Wild Rose and Honeysuckle, while underneath are the curious leaves ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... commit his dispatch to the posting-box—in fact, his hand was outstretched—when, to the amazement of a cock-robin who frequented the pillar for company's sake, and had seen more letters posted than there were feathers upon his back, he hesitated, exclaimed, stared at the letter with knitted brow, and then thrust it back into ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... preceding pages give examples. The name, not being subject as other words are to a normalizing influence, is easily affected by the traditional or accidental spelling. Otherwise Fry would be pronounced Free. The o is short in Robin and long in Probyn, and yet the names are the same (Chapter VI). Sloper and Smoker mean a maker of slops and smocks respectively, and Smale is an archaic spelling of Small, the modern vowel being in each case ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley

... an unhappy matter, brother Robin," he said—"a most unhappy occurrence, and goes nigh to put strife and quarrel betwixt the nobility and the commons here, as they have been at war together in so many distant lands. I see but one cause of comfort in the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... said John, closing his eyes and doing his utmost to assume the expression of a martyr. "If anything goes wrong, put the blame on little Johnnie. Cock Robin wasn't in the same class ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... and to build a roofed loggia for convalescents. If there were anything left over, we might buy deck-chairs and air-pillows. Of course it was easy for any one to know that we needed all these things. Our lack was notorious. We sent a much disinfected, carbolic-smelling round robin of thanks to "James W. Beckett, Junior," son of the western ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... evil by fiction and the drama, there is much honest disagreement. My personal opinion is that little good is done by the theater or by such publications as Reginald Kaufmann's "House of Bondage," and Elizabeth Robin's "My Little Sister." They all leave the unsophisticated reader with an exaggerated and even hysterical notion that white slavery is exceedingly common and the main cause of prostitution. Certainly the great majority of the army of prostitutes, ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... tipsy rascal should be allowed to go on with his ribaldry. He seems to pervade the whole boat, and to subject everybody to his sway. He's a perfect despot to us helpless sober people,— I wouldn't openly disagree with him on any account. We ought to send a Round Robin to the captain, and ask him to put that religious liberal in irons during the rest ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells

... had subsided some, and the sun shone through the branches. From below rose the song of a robin redbreast, filling the woods with joy. Maya could see it perched on a branch, could see its throat swell and pulse with the song as it held its little head raised ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... suitable for the fourth grade. The biographies "How Columbus Got His Ships" and "Boyhood of Washington" are excellent in the fifth or sixth grade as an introduction to history study, and the romance "Robin Hood and the Merry Little Old Woman" may be used appropriately in any of these grades, especially if it is made to supplement a ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... surprise, then cast a glance at Frank Manison, who sat at ease, calmly watching and listening with no sign of objection. Waterman turned back to Brennan and said, "Let's take one more turn around Robin Hood's Barn, Mr. Brennan. First, James ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith

... good boy, speak plain, Robin; how does his majesty like him, I pray? will he give eight-pence a day, think ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris

... latter-day caprice that has made of the place a fashionable resort. The very name of the State suggests that of a classic island famed for its atmosphere; and as Verrazano, writing in 1524, compares Block Island to Rhodes, it is possible that hence arose its title. Neal in 1717, and the Abbe Robin in 1771, both speak of Newport as the Paradise of New England, and endorse its Indian appellation, Aquidneck, or the Isle of Peace. Berkeley, dean of Derry, who came here in 1729 full of zealous but utopian plans of proselytism, writes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... "It seems Robin came two days ago, and has hardly been seen about the house since. Besides, Purdy-Pell could do nothing with him when he ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... wore the silvery-gray uniform of the elect. He turned his eyes towards the house, where a dozen women, old and young, were sitting out under the tree, sewing and singing peacefully. The burden of their song came sweetly across the pasture; a golden robin, high in the elm's feathery tip, warbled incessant accompaniment to the breeze and the flowing of water and the far song of ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... Could Robin Viner have foreseen The glorious triumphs of his master; The Wool-Church statue Gold had been, Which now is made of Alabaster. But wise men think had it been wood, 'Twere for ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber

... Nugent, the master's mate, as he struggled ineffectively to find the left sleeve of his jacket. "The word has already been passed; I passed it myself when Master Cock-robin there," pointing to Copplestone, "came and roused us out. And, as to candles, I'm afraid we haven't any; the rats appear to have eaten the last two we had in the locker. However—ah, here comes the cocoa. Put the pot down there, Cupid—never mind if it does soil our beautiful damask ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood

... describe it, nor can the artist reproduce it. It is both a mystery and a miracle. Into this miracle nature has poured her lavish treasures of fertility, of rain, of sunshine, and of zephyrs, and from it at the zenith of its beauty the full-throated robin pours forth his heart in melodious greeting. It may be well to dismiss the school to see the circus parade, but even more fitting is it to dismiss the school to see this burst of splendor. In its glorious presence silence ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... account of his exploits, which raised the pride of the whole village; who considered their champion as having subdued all London, and eclipsed the achievements of Friar Tuck, or even the renowned Robin Hood himself. ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... are the Sweet Peas, and Marigolds, sown in the Spring, still in a faded Blossom, and the Spirit that Tennyson told us of fifty years ago haunting the Flower-beds, {160} and a Robin singing—nobody else. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... her twenty-four hours in which to clear out of the place. No one seems to have enquired into the truth of the story, or to have asked Thornbury and Elliot what business it was of theirs; they had it entirely their own way. I propose that we should all sign a Round Robin, go to Rodriguez in a body, and insist upon a full enquiry. Something's got to be ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf

... You see, it is to be what you might call a 'first friends'' party. Helen was the first girl we met. Now she and Jerry are college pals. Katherine is Lucy's first friend. Muriel is so fond of Hortense, and Ronny and I look upon you and Vera as nearer than any of the others. I am fond of Robin Page, and Portia Graham, too. They really ought to be included. Are they here, and how long have you and ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... thinking of getting what is called 'blood-money.' One hundred pounds for Robin Lyth. ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... cheerless. The sun had already set, from the standpoint of all life in the valley, and darkness, hastening out of the east, merged the traceries of a million naked boughs into a thickening network of misty grey. The river beneath these woods churned in winter flood, while clear against its raving one robin sang little tinkling litanies from the branch ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... Major-Gen. and Commissary Gen. (as he sent me word) were still gone on in the prosecution of them, and saith, that except 150 horse in one body, he heares they are fled by 16 or 18 in a company, all the country over. Robin Montgomery was come out of Sterling, with 4 or 5 regiments of horse and dragoons, but was put to a stand when he heard of the issue of this businesse. Straughan and some other officers had quitted some 3 weeks or a month before ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... the crisp air reechoed with the booming that proclaimed the breaking-up of the ice. Great crowds of people thronged the banks, wondering if the bridge would go out or would stand the strain of pounding icecakes. The unmistakable note of a robin sounded from somewhere. Great dark spots began to show in the white ice-ribbon that wound through the valley. The air at sundown ...
— The Long Ago • Jacob William Wright

... stand, take one's stand. kick, kick against; recalcitrate[obs3], kick against the pricks; oppose &c. 708; fly in the face of; lift the hand against &c. (attack) 716; rise up in arms &c. (war) 722; strike, turn out; draw up a round robin &c. (remonstrate) 932; revolt &c. (disobey) 742; make a riot. prendre le mors aux dents [French: take the bit between the teeth]; sell one's life dearly, die hard, keep at bay; repel, repulse. Adj. resisting &c.v.; resistive, resistant; refractory ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... cedar-tree? No, only an oriole; though some have said that this bird is a fairy prince in disguise, and that if he can win the love of a pure maiden the spell will be loosed, and he will regain his own form. This cannot be true, however; for Melody knows Golden Robin well, and loves him well, and he loves her in his own way, yet has never changed a feather at sight of her. He will sing for her, though; and sing he does, shaking and trilling and quivering, pouring his little soul out in melody for joy of the summer ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards

... in the schoolroom one day, and the teacher of the animal children, who was a nice young lady robin, had all the windows open. But even then it was still warm, and the pupils, including Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frog boys, and Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks, weren't ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... come back, indeed!' exclaimed Bell. 'Why, we shall write long round-robin letters every few days, and send them by the team. Papa says Pancho will have to go over to the stage station at least once a week for letters and any provisions we ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... When settlers put up beam and rafter, They asked of the birds: "Who gave this fruit? Who watched this fence till the seeds took root? Who gave these boughs?" They asked the sky, And there was no reply. But the robin might have said, "To the farthest West he has followed the sun, His life ...
— American Poetry, 1922 - A Miscellany • Edna St. Vincent Millay

... safety, getting fresh air through the tubes in the bottom, and was taken out when the boat drifted, bottom upwards, on the beach: ten lives were lost.' In 1841, the life-boat at Blyth, Northumberland, capsized, and ten men were drowned. At Robin Hood's Bay, Yorkshire, in 1843, the life-boat capsized, three men remaining under her bottom, while others got upon it. The accident was seen from the shore, and five men put off in a coble, fitted with air-cases like a life-boat; but ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various

... alert eyes of a robin who suddenly perceives the crumbs some kindly hand has scattered ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... in England (Our ancient records tell), With Robin Hood and Little John Who dwelt by down and dell; And yet we love the bold outlaw Who braved a tyrant foe, Whose cheer was the deer, And his only friend ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... Robin hated it, after falling and introducing twenty barbs to that portion of him utilised usually in a chair; he had to reline a little to one side for a couple of days. Then blood poisoning set in, he reported "sick," and was sent down the line ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... that Mr. Mifflin was well astride his hobby: he had started to tell the children about Robin Hood, but I had the sense to give him a wink. We had to be getting along or surely Andrew might be on us. So while Mifflin was putting Pegasus into the shafts again I picked out seven or eight books that I thought would fit the needs of the Masons. Mr. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... than what he really was, a most ardent favourer of the Netherland cause, wrote at once to congratulate him on the change in her Majesty's demeanour. "The Queen is in very good terms with you now," he said, "and, thanks be to God, well pacified, and you are again her 'sweet Robin.'" ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... the robin-redbreast and the wren, Since o'er shady groves they hover, And with leaves and flowers do cover The friendless bodies of ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... sometimes called, Robin Goodfellow) was a shrewd and knavish sprite, that used to play comical pranks in the neighboring villages; sometimes getting into the dairies and skimming the milk, sometimes plunging his light and airy form into the butter-churn, and while ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... memory of the words and then urged Archie to join him in the ballad, which he said was endeared to him by the most sacred associations. Archie hadn't indulged in song since he sang "Fair Harvard" at his last class reunion, but the Governor praised his singing and carried him through "Robin Grey" and a few other classics ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... she watched him, with her head a little on one side and her eyes shining brightly, like an expectant motherly robin ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... not be welcome to them, nor are they the sort of people I like. I shall be very happy with the 'quiet folk,' if they won't let me be in the way," answered Jenny, in the cheerful voice that reminded one of the chirp of a robin. ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... a rumpled robin where she had deposited him. He had confided to me once that he rather liked being nursed by Mary Ellen, though the heaving of her bosom bothered him. He was far too polite to tell her this: but now that she was gone, he hunched his shoulders, ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche

... self with one's Eyes open; besides it is really doing her an Injury. This last Consideration, forsooth, of injuring her in persisting, made him resolve to break off upon the first favourable Opportunity of making her angry. When he was in this Thought, he saw Robin the Porter who waits at Will's Coffee-House, passing by. Robin, you must know, is the best Man in Town for carrying a Billet; the Fellow has a thin Body, swift Step, demure Looks, sufficient Sense, and knows the Town. This Man carried Cynthio's first Letter to Flavia, and by frequent Errands ever ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... been so much accustomed for a long time to read in our papers about 'enormous wrong,' 'stupendous injustice,' 'the slave-breeders,' 'sum of all villanies,' that, unconsciously, I have come to think of the South, indiscriminately, as though they were Robin Hood's men, or"— ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams

... Martyr in his postchaise to London, to Clare, and drank tea with him. To Drury Lane playhouse, but could not get in, so we went to the Robin Hood Society, and stayed till after 10. The question was, whether the increase of unmarried people was owing to the men's greater bashfulness, or women's greater ...
— Extracts from the Diary of William Bray, Esq. 1760-1800 • William Bray

... hard, sweetin's," answered Serena gravely,—"master hard; but it can be done with help." They sat there on the shady doorstep for some minutes without speaking. A robin was chirping loud, as if for rain, high in one of the elms overhead, and the sun was getting low. Presently Serena was mindful of her evening duties and rose to go in, but not before Betty had put both arms round her ...
— Betty Leicester - A Story For Girls • Sarah Orne Jewett

... Do the work that's nearest, Though it's dull at whiles, Helping, when we meet them, Lame dogs over stiles; See in every hedgerow Marks of angels' feet, Epics in each pebble Underneath our feet; Once a year, like schoolboys, Robin-Hooding go, Leaving fops and ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... following winter the war was prosecuted with much zeal, and the West-Siders, in imitation of Robin Hood and his Merry Men, armed themselves with cross-bows, and lay in ambush in the underbrush, aiming their swift arrows against any intruder who ventured to cross ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... Vico were his parents. Any one who reads the Georgics or The Bird will see the truth of this, for he loved all created things, his ardent spiritism perceiving that the essence which moved the ocean’s tides was the same that sang in the robin at the window during his last illness, which he called his ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... the dancers go from village to village in the times of fetes, and are much sought after: they appear very like our May-day mummers, or morrice-dancers, and have probably the same, namely, an eastern, origin: instead of Robin Hood, the Chevalier Bayard is the personage represented in their disguise, and a female always appears amongst them, who answers to our Maid Marian: they are covered with flaunting ribbons, and hold little flags ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... same time, the necessity of leaping from wall to wall, of fighting strange gentlemen, of running down long streets from pursuers—all healthy and pleasant exercises. We give him a glimpse of that great morning world of Robin Hood or the Knights Errant, when one great game was played under the splendid sky. We give him back his childhood, that godlike time when we can act stories, be our own heroes, and at the same ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... another ballad; she meant to devote her talent to that much neglected but always attractive branch of her art. It was a great surprise, therefore, to all but one person in the hall when, instead of singing "Auld Robin Grey," she placed herself at the piano, and, with a smiling glance over her shoulder at the children, broke out in the old bird song which first won Rose. But the chirping, twittering, and cooing were now the burden ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... blanket around Philip, and dragged the sledge on which he was lying still nearer to the fire. Then he threw on a fresh armful of dry sticks and from a pocket of his coat drew forth something small and red and frozen, which was the carcass of a bird about the size of a robin. DeBar held it up between his forefinger and thumb, and looking at Philip, the flash of a smile passed for an instant over ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... the act of removing his coat when he became aware of a certain sound, occurring at quick intervals. In the posture of a plump and mature robin he cocked his head on one side to listen; and now he remembered that he had heard the same sound the night before, and the night before that. These times, though, he had heard it intermittently and dimly, as he tossed about half awake and half ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... suppose who paints the red rose, And the rest of the flowers which every one knows, And the same red will do (or a similar hue), For Robin and ...
— Christmas Roses • Lizzie Lawson

... not think that David's life was ever an easy one. He always had hard battles to fight. Once, for quite a long period, he was an outlaw, much like Robin Hood of a later day, and with a band of brave young men he lived in the woods and the mountains, defending the property of his friends from other outlaws, and sometimes perhaps making forays against his foes, sweeping off their cattle and burning their ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... wise, Maiden, reading with a rage, Envy fluttereth round the page Whereupon thy downward eyes Rove and rest, and melt maybe— Virgin eyes one may not see, Gathering as the bee Takes from cherry tree; As the robin's bill Frets the window sill, Maiden, bird, and bee, Three from me half hid, Doing what we did When our ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... body of a sleeping robin. An owl, lodged in the fork of a tree, moved not as the men passed. It, too, was whelmed in deep, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... Continent'—rather a wide term—Mr. Hilderic Friend says, 'the three essential plants for composing a magic wreath are rue, crane's-bill, and willow.' The crane's-bill is the Herb Robert, or Robin Hood, and the willow has always been connected with lovers. Such a wreath, then, is made by lovers when they wish to see their 'fate.' Love-sick maidens will employ such a wreath to find out how long they have ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor

... spring of the year for the time of John Burroughs's birth. A little before the day when the wake-robin shows itself, that the observer might be on hand for the sight, he was born in Roxbury, Delaware County, New York, on the western borders of the Catskill Mountains; the precise date was April 3, 1837. Until 1863 he remained in the country about ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... hearken, gentlemen, That be of free-born blood, I shall you tell of a good yeoman, His name was Robin Hood. ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... into forgetfulness. A jar of buttercups and fool's-parsley in the window-bottom kept her away in the meadows, where in the lush grass the moon-daisies were half-submerged, and a spray of pink ragged robin. Yet before her were faces of fifty children. They were almost like big daisies in a dimness ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... rustle among the lofty tree tops made a delicious murmur high up in the air; a waft of cool breeze flitted past us laden with the scent of newly-cut wood (and who does not know that nice, clean perfume?); innumerable paroquets almost brushed us with their emerald-green wings, whilst the tamer robin or the dingy but melodious bell-bird came near to watch the intruders. The sweet clear whistle of the tui or parson-bird—so called from his glossy black suit and white wattles curling exactly where a clergy-man's bands would be,—could ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... said he, glad that the conversation had taken a turn which they could all understand. "I think I do know a few. Why is a robin like ...
— Dick, Marjorie and Fidge - A Search for the Wonderful Dodo • G. E. Farrow

... note of sentiment. In Mr. Tennyson alone, as we think, the spirit of the Middle Age is perfectly reflected; its delight, not in the "sublime and picturesque," but in the green leaves and spring flowers for their own sake—the spirit of Chaucer and of the "Robin Hood Garland"—the naturalism which revels as much in the hedgerow and garden as in Alps, and cataracts, and Italian skies, and the other strong stimulants to the faculty of admiration which the palled taste of an unhealthy age, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... were coming in from abroad, they espied a little robin with a great spider in his mouth; so the Interpreter said, Look here. So they looked, and Mercy wondered; but Christiana said, What a disparagement is it to such a little pretty bird as the robin-redbreast ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... being fed with the fragments. I took them to be sparrows and things of that kind, but they did not look altogether familiar to me. One little fellow, most lively in his motions, was remarkably like my old friend the robin, only the bosom was more vivid, running almost into orange, and the wings and tail were tipped with the same hue, giving it quite a distinguished appearance. Another small olive-green bird, which I at first took for a green linnet, was even prettier, the throat ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... I am a phantom, would alter their tone provided they were to ask me to a good dinner; bottles emptied and fowls devoured are not exactly the feats of a phantom. No! I partake more of the nature of a Brownie or Robin Goodfellow, goblins, 'tis true, but full of merriment and fun, and fond of good eating ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... dislodge a fly far ahead of its season. Light had just filmed the windows; and with that the first sparrow woke, chirped instantly, and roused neighbours in the trees of the small yard, including a loud-voiced robin. Vociferations began ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington

... and she did not reappear. Juliet waited, her nerves stretched in expectation, but nothing happened. Overhead little birds, tomtits and creepers, played about the bark of the fir-trees; a robin came and looked at her consideringly, with a bright sensible eye; from two hundred feet below, the murmur of the burn rose constant and insistent; but no other sound broke the stillness, nor was there any sign of human life upon ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce

... articles inside protruded, and the rug, being longer than the others, hid all the ends, and, when strapped round just tightly enough to hold all together comfortably without unnecessary squeezing, it made such a neat-looking roll as compelled even Robin's admiration. Ella's travelling-cap had been inside the bundle before, but Kate took it out and advised her to carry it in her hand-bag, as being easily accessible if she did not ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various

... afloat, ain't you. Cal'late you'll have to go way 'round Robin Hood's barn to keep off the flats. I forgot about the tide or I wouldn't have talked so much. Hello! there's another craft about your size off yonder. Somebody else out rowin'. Two somebodys. My eyes ain't as good for pickin' em out as they used ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln

... if you go beyond inhabited precincts, down to the river-side, you are almost sure to be quite alone; you may stand, as Christian was accustomed to do, on any one of the bridges which connect the college buildings and college grounds, and see nothing but the little robin hopping about and impressing tiny footprints after yours in the path, then flying on to the branches of the nearest willow, which, heavy with a weight that is not leaves, but snow, dips silently ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... come to particulars, as we dip into the stores of earlier centuries the broadsheets reveal almost nothing intended for children—the many Robin Hood ballads, for example, are decidedly meant for grown-up people; and so in the eighteenth century we find its chap-books of "Guy, Earl of Warwick," "Sir Bevis, of Southampton," "Valentine and Orson," are ...
— Children's Books and Their Illustrators • Gleeson White

... very good to me. He taught me to play on it,' said Lance; 'that is, he showed me a little; but Robin made me lock it up and give her the key all last spring, for fear of hindering my mugging; and I can't touch her now, so she has been very little use to me. I promised Poulter, and I think he should ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... part. But, although knightly love and valor are the stock topics, we occasionally come across a theme of Christian humility, like Sir Isumbras, or of democracy, as in the Squire of Low Degree and in the Ballads of Robin Hood. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... is in, will you remember our poor Edinburgh Robin? Burns alone has been just to his promise; follow Burns, he knew best, he knew whence he drew fire - from the poor, white-faced, drunken, vicious boy that raved himself to death in the Edinburgh madhouse. Surely there is more to be gleaned about Fergusson, and surely it is high time the ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... follies of some people who got money by it,—that is to say, by printing predictions and prognostications,—I know not; but certain it is, books frighted them terribly; such as 'Lily's Almanack,' 'Gadbury's Astrological Predictions,' 'Poor Robin's Almanack,' and the like; also several pretended religious books, one entitled, 'Come out of Her, my People, lest Ye be Partakers of her Plagues'; another called 'Fair Warning'; another, 'Britain's Remembrancer'; and many ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Walter Scott, with whom she was acquainted, requesting him to inform his personal friend, the author of "Waverley," that she was indeed the author. She enclosed a copy to Sir Walter, written in her own hand; and, with her consent, in the course of the following year, he printed "Auld Robin Gray" as a contribution to the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... and the Bruchus pisi, for want of peas, is frequently caught in the bean-tops. But the republican armies of ants are immense, and the realm of bees is uncircumscribed; as no birds of prey, neither the audacious robin, nor the woodpecker, tapping away on the hollow beech-tree, diminish their hordes. But if the fowls of the air be few, the nets of entomologists abound. Slaters of an immense kind, and spotted, and small mahogany-coloured Blattidae, are found under stones, which also conceal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various

... call the birds in, The birds from the sky. Allie calls, Allie sings, Down they all fly. First there came Two white doves Then a sparrow from his nest, Then a clucking bantam hen, Then a robin red-breast. ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves

... end of Gloucester Road. There is a family connection between the Gray and the Brooks families, and the daughter of Benjamin now resides with Samuel Brooks, the old sexton of Horfield Church. A model of the Horfield Stop Gate may be seen at Robin Hood's Retreat near ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... a cool breeze, not even the song of a bird! A great yard so cursed that the little brown wrens refuse to bless it with their feet! The sound of machinery and of the hammers of unwilling toilers, but no mellow voice of robin or chatter of gossiping chimney-swallows! To Albert they were six weeks of alternate hope and fear, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston

... generally, in every old neighborhood, some one house on which is fixed, so to speak, the community gaze, and in our case it was on the Arthur Wellses'. It was a curious, not unfriendly staring, much I daresay like that of the old robin who sees two young wild canaries ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... London of the thirty-nine British officers placed in detention barracks by the Germans in retaliation for English treatment of German submarine crews shows the names of seven Captains and thirty-two Lieutenants, included being the names of Lieutenant Goschen, son of a former Ambassador to Berlin; Robin Grey, a nephew of Sir Edward Grey, and many ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... shutters wide and the daylight streamed in. It was not fraught with colour, like the mists of her dream, but was the clear, sane light of every day. A robin outside her window chirped cheerily, and a bluebird flashed across the distant meadow, then paused on the rushes at the bend of the river and swayed there for a moment, like ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... down a track toward the Dead Sea, riding among huge shadows cast by the hills on our right hand. The little jackals they call foxes crossed our path at intervals. Owls the size of a robin, only vastly fluffier, screamed from the rocks as we passed them. Otherwise, it was like a soul's last journey, eerie, lonely and awful, down toward ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... it was just "tweaky," and Judy took it as a compliment. One could easily imagine her shining little face peeping over the edge of a nest, the rest of her sitting warmly upon half a dozen smooth, pink eggs. Her legs certainly seemed stuck into her like pencils, as with a robin or a seagull. She adored everything that had wings and flew; she was of the air; ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... mounted and armed, evidently an esquire, rode forward, exclaiming, 'Well met, fair Lady Anne! Great have been the Mother Prioress's fears for you, and she has called up half the country side, lest you should be fallen into the hands of Robin of Redesdale, or some other ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "Robin Redbreast has a blithe interpreter," said Willy Ray, as he leaned for a moment against the open door of the dairy in passing out. Rotha was there singing, while in a snow-white apron, and with arms bare above the elbows, she weighed the butter of the last ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... softness and radiance in her beauty, and by the fact that the Shaker cloak was singularly becoming. He thought of his sermon on personal adornment, and in spite of his anxiety, a deep amusement dawned in his eyes. "And went around Robin Hood's barn, by ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... said Jolly Robin's wife as she sat in the apple tree where she and her husband had a nest every summer. "Don't Mrs. Pig's children make a dreadful noise? I never knew half-grown pigs to have such loud voices. Their grunts certainly ...
— The Tale of Grunty Pig - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... prisoners in a compound where five out of the eighteen correspondents were sick with dysentery or fever, and finally as a reward we were released from captivity and taken to see smoke rings eight miles away! That night a round-robin, which was signed by all, was sent to General Oku, pointing out to him that unless we were allowed nearer to his army than eight miles, our usefulness to the people who paid us our salaries ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... of Rob Roy, the elder James, tall and handsome, the younger Robin Oig, ruddy and dark, both hung their heads. And after the first burst of her indignation was over, the elder explained how Rob Roy had been summoned to bide tryst with—(here Frank Osbaldistone missed the name, but it sounded like his own). Having, however, some suspicion of treachery, ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... when it is said of me, that I have spent more on wine than oil, as did Demosthenes, when it was told him, that his expense on oil was greater than on wine. I truly hold it for an honour and praise to be called and reputed a Frolic Gualter and a Robin Goodfellow; for under this name am I welcome in all choice companies of Pantagruelists. It was upbraided to Demosthenes by an envious surly knave, that his Orations did smell like the sarpler or wrapper of a foul and filthy oil-vessel. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... with thought, watched his older brother. And still the thin singing entered the room, that matchless old melody of "Robin Adair;" the day shall never come when that song does not go straight from heart to heart. But because Donnegan still listened to it, Lord Nick felt that he was contemptuously received, and a fresh spur was driven into ...
— Gunman's Reckoning • Max Brand

... everywhere around traces of the child and the sister; they could talk of her with calmness, and recall the many pleasant little traits of character which she had even at so early an age exhibited. The robin that she had fed daily, came still at her brother's call to peck daintily at the grain which he threw toward it. The pet kitten gamboled upon the sunny porch, or peered with curious face over the deep ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... cards upon the panels. Ruth, thankful that her attention had been providentially distracted from the matter that filled her own thoughts, in a way that surprised and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should separate ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... be the musical oracle of the family; the father must forego his favourite old songs, written by "honest Harry Carey," (as Ritson insists on his being called); the mother is laughed to scorn if she mentions "Auld Robin Gray," "Mary's Dream," "Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang wi' me?"—or such obsolete stuff;—and even the brothers, who might stickle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 393, October 10, 1829 • Various

... As Robin Hood in the forest stood, All under the greenwood tree, There was he ware of a brave young man, As fine as fine ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... purchase, dusting its gold on the black wood of wainscot and floor. He was in the gallery at the moment, studying one of his two favorite portraits, a gallant little lad in the green costume of Robin Hood. The boy's expression was imperious and radiant, and he had that perfect beauty which in any disposition appealed so powerfully to the author. But as Orth stared to-day at the brilliant youth, of whose life he knew nothing, he suddenly became aware of a human stirring at the foundations of ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... the genesis is clear, and it makes for the one-man theory. In other instances, I can quite imagine myths arising from a spectacle witnessed in common by a multitude, or an incident developing itself under the eyes of many. No single reporter of the doings in Sherwood Forest built up the Robin ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... her; but she seemed very happy. All the while she was rubbing the clothes over the wooden washboard, or wringing them out with her hands, she would be singing old-fashioned songs, such as Jimmy and Nancy, Auld Robin Gray, and another one beginning "In Springfield mountain there did dwell." ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various

... in the orchard. I went thither and I think it was four robins' nests which I found in as many different apple trees, one with three, two with four and one with five blue eggs. Is there anything prettier than the eggs of a robin, in ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... swift to be stemmed, This day Cary got the second ducking of the trip—a very good record in view of the roughness of the work and the smallness of the boats. During this and the day previous an otter, a crow and a robin were seen. As a rule the river was almost entirely deserted by ...
— Bowdoin Boys in Labrador • Jonathan Prince (Jr.) Cilley

... for y'rself?" continued the priest, giving me full benefit of the mischievous spirit working in him. "He, who bearded the foe in his den, now meeker than a lambkin, mild as a turtle-dove, timid as a pigeon, pensive as a whimpering-robin that's lost his mate——" ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut

... building her mud nest than the preacher writing his sermon. I had rather see the big moth emerge from her cocoon—fresh and untouched as a coin that moment from the die—than the most fashionable "coming out" that society ever knew. The first song sparrow or bluebird or robin in spring, or the first hepatica or arbutus or violet, or the first clover or pond-lily in summer—must we demand some mystic password of them? Must we not love them for their own sake, ere they will seem worthy of ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... away until the next evening. When he came back he had a peaceful air, but sometimes peace is not attained without effort and we have to struggle to keep it. When he had helped to unharness Robin and had given him some hay, had changed his cassock and unpacked his box, from which he took a dozen little packages of things bought on his visit to the city, it was the very time that the birds assembled in the branches to tell each other about the day. There had been a shower and the ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... in his eyes when he watches a bird at its song. They are ablaze with evil. He becomes a sort of Jack the Ripper at the opera. People tell us that we should not blame cats for this sort of thing—that it is their nature and so forth. They even suggest that a cat is no more cruel in eating robin than we are cruel ourselves in eating chicken. This seems to me to be quibbling. In the first place, there is an immense difference between a robin and a chicken. In the second place, we are willing to share our chicken with the cat—at least, we ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the withered leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various

... notes of the wood-robin and the thrush there came the faint and distant notes of the quarter hour striking on the college library. It was Leslie who heard it. Howard was still too far upon the heights to think of earthly duties ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... coat, eat the same dinner, repeat the same polite commonplaces, and be forgotten at last under the same epitaph. Forests have been the natural refuge of outlaws from the earliest time, and among the most respectable persons there has always been an ill-concealed liking for Robin Hood and the whole fraternity of the men of the bow. Truth is above all things characteristic of the dwellers in Arden, and it must be frankly confessed at the beginning, therefore, that the Forest is given over entirely to outlaws; those who have committed some grave offence against the ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... nice little man, very like a bird himself, with pointed features and kind, bright eyes; when he wore a dash of red in his neck-cloth the resemblance to a robin was striking. The children applied to him when any of their pets were ill, and had the utmost confidence in his opinion and treatment. The most difficult cases were successfully managed by him; he had even saved the life of Agatha's jack-daw ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton

... a nest unlike the robin's nest. Each is qualified in its own work. We know that these birds would be sorely handicapped, and would probably be downright failures in providing nests in season for eggs, if each were required to work to plans and specifications of the other ...
— Industrial Progress and Human Economics • James Hartness

... with the storm; the partridge, like a russet link extended over from autumn to spring, preserving unbroken the chain of summers; the hawk with warrior-like firmness abiding the blasts of winter; the robin [Footnote: A white robin, and a white quail have occasionally been seen. It is mentioned in Audubon as remarkable that the nest of a robin should be found on the ground; but this bird seems to be less particular than most in ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... them; that her old friends came to see her rarely since her marriage, as, for some reason unaccountable to Katrina, they seemed not to like her husband. We waited until we were out of sight of the house, and then seated ourselves gloomily on a wayside rock under a sheltering tree. A robin, perched on a branch above our heads, burst into mocking song. The sun still shone; I wondered ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan

... what he really was, a most ardent favourer of the Netherland cause, wrote at once to congratulate him on the change in her Majesty's demeanour. "The Queen is in very good terms with you now," he said, "and, thanks be to God, well pacified, and you are again her 'sweet Robin.'" ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... present time, as well as from tradition. Some of these heroes have excited the admiration of large districts by their wisdom, others by their courage or their superior dexterity with the spear and bow, like William Tell and Robin Hood, but the memory of these must soon have been obliterated for want of literature. The man who had joined Harold was a poet and a musician. He was an improvvisatore, composed verses on the incidents ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... with low swingin' branches, with no bare brown feet to press on 'em on the way up to the robin's nest overhead—empty barns, ruins, weedy gardens, long, lonesome stretches of paster and ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... and pewees and big-eyed moose-birds were aflutter with the excitement of home planning; partridges were feasting on the swelling poplar buds—and then, one glorious sunset, he heard the chirruping evening song of his first robin. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... the man, "there never was a jumper like you. Break-Neck will keep, we'll find some more walls first." He crossed the road and entered a rough pasture. It was a day of such abounding life one could pity the worm the robin pulled. For on such a day everything seemed to have the right to live and be happy. The crows sauntered across the sky, care free as hoboes. Under foot the meadow turf oozed water, the shad-bush petals ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various

... this author is of considerable interest to us. He was a good natural melodist, as the examples in Coussemaker's "Adam de la Halle" show. He is also the author of the earliest comic opera of which we have any account, the play of "Robin and Marion." We shall speak of this later, in connection with the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews

... birds) there will be 2048 robins, instead of the original sixteen; as this increase is quite impossible, so we must conclude either that robins do not rear nearly half their young or that the average life of a robin when reared is from accident not nearly seven years. Both checks probably concur. The same kind of calculation applied to all vegetables and animals produces results either more or less striking, but in scarcely a single instance ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... you mind the picture-books I used to bring you home, and the story of the Cock Robin you used to like so well to hear, and the skip-jack you played with, and the big doll that mammy made for you, and ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... with the summer scents floating in and the out-of-doors sounds,—a woman's voice calling a child afar off, the lowing of cattle, the rhythmic whetting of a scythe-blade, the echoing strokes of an axe, the mellow fluting of a robin,—all coming to him a little muted, as if he were no longer ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson

... merry song, Robin Ploughboy," called the goose-girl who tended the farmer's geese in the next field; and she leaned on the fence that divided the two, and sang with him, for she was as happy a lass as ever lived in the ...
— The Story-teller • Maud Lindsay

... Dr. Robin MacRae called this afternoon to make the acquaintance of the new superintendent. Please invite him to dinner upon the occasion of his next visit to New York, and see for yourself what your husband has done. Jervis grossly misrepresented ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... Sherwood Forest; and there, in the land of Robin Hood, where snow never falls, where rains never slant through the shuddering leaves, the jocund foresters met to sing and drink October ale. There came Little John and Will Scarlet and Alan-a-Dale in glittering garments, with smooth, ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland

... was a Prebendary, and because he was born on the day before St. Hugh's Feast. And then I really remember nothing more of him for a time, except for a scene in the nursery on some wet afternoon when the baby—Robin as he was at first called—insisted on being included in some game of tents made by pinning shawls over the tops of chairs, he being then, as always, perfectly clear what his wishes were, and equally clear that they were worth attending to and ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... teachers aforesaid, (represented typically in another part of this errorless book by Mr. Blattergowl,) are not, whatever else they may have to answer for, answerable for these names. The names are of the children's own choosing and bestowing, but not of the children's own inventing. "Robin" is a classically endearing cognomen, recording the errant heroism of old days—the name of the Bruce and of Rob Roy. "Bobbin" is a poetical and symmetrical fulfillment and adornment of the original phrase. "Ailie" is the last echo of "Ave," changed into the softest Scottish Christian name ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... the barley, Spake these words in saddened accents: 'Woe is me, my life hard-fated, Badly have I brewed the liquor, Have not brewed the beer in wisdom, Will not live within its vessels, Overflows and fills Pohyola!' "From a tree-top sings the redbreast, From the aspen calls the robin: 'Do not grieve, thy beer is worthy, Put it into oaken vessels, Into strong and willing barrels Firmly bound with hoops of copper.' "Thus was brewed the beer or Northland, At the hands of Osmo's daughter; ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... this invitation will rejoice to accompany Shawondasee, the South-Wind, when he sends northward the robin, bluebird, and swallow. They will also wish to go with Kabibonokka, the North-Wind, as he paints the autumn woods with scarlet and sends the snowflakes through the forests. They will be glad to be a child with Hiawatha, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... last night, and I was trying to hum it this morning, in bed; I was, upon my honour. Gollop, my doctor, came in at eleven (for I'm a sad invalid, you know, and see Gollop every day), and, 'gad! there I was, singing away like—a robin." ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... with household bread, stale, he at once began: "How are you going down to Robin Hill? You going to take Irene? You'd better take her. I should think there'll be a lot that'll want ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... dead and buried," they answered; and of another: "Christopher? He wore away from very weakness. And Robin went a sen'night ago with a quartain fever. This is no land ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson

... morning, Norman reported his reasoning, it was that a man must walk about with somebody on Commemoration week, and that it was a comfort to do so with ladies who wore their bonnets upon their heads, instead of, like most of those he met, remind him of what Cock Robin said to Jenny Wren ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... hemlock. It is the solemn call of the owl, as he sits among the limbs, looking out from between the branches with his great round grey eyes. Listen again and you will hear the voice of the catbird, the brown thrush, the chervink, the little chickadee, the wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred other nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing among ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... believe me, when I assure you, that for many nights after this last experience, I did not go to my room at all. I used to sit up for a while in the drawing-room after you had gone up to your bed; and then steal down softly to the hall-door, let myself out, and sit in the 'Robin Hood' tavern until the last guest went off; and then I got through the night like a sentry, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... since that thin barrier remains impassable until the whole is in ruins,—a purity recognized in the household proverb of "An apple, an egg, and a nut." Then, its range of tints, so varied, so subdued, and so beautiful,—whether of pure white, like the Martin's, or pure green, like the Robin's, or dotted and mottled into the loveliest of browns, like the Red Thrush's, or aqua-marine, with stains of moss-agate, like the Chipping-Sparrow's, or blotched with long weird ink-marks on a pale ground, like the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... gay city could not afford to linger long on Egdon Heath. That she would behold face to face the owner of the awakening voice within the limits of such a holiday was most unlikely, unless she were to haunt the environs of his mother's house like a robin, to do which ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... had looked into that carriage you would have seen it packed comfortably as a robin's nest in blossom time. There was my pink dress floating round me in rosy billows; there was Cousin E. E.'s corn-colored moire antique swelling like a balloon on her side; and there was Cousin Dempster rising like a black exclamation ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens

... had become more solid, and in places was touched with frost. Already had the snow begun to fall and the branches of the trees were covered with rime like rabbit-skin. Already on frosty days the robin redbreast hopped about on the snow-heaps like a foppish Polish nobleman, and picked out grains of corn; and children, with huge sticks, played hockey upon the ice; while their fathers lay quietly on the stove, issuing forth at intervals ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... manifestly the product of other skies. They affect us like translations; the very fauna and flora are alien, remote; the dog's-tooth violet is but an ill substitute for the rathe primrose, nor can we ever believe that the wood-robin sings as sweetly in April as the ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling

... of hyacinth in your eyes, And the freshness of June iris in your hands, And the rapture of gardenias in your bosom. But your voice is the voice of the robin Singing at dawn amid new leaves. It is like sun-light on blue water Where the south-wind is on the water And the buds of the flags are green. It is like the wild bird of the sedges With fluttering wings on a wind-blown reed Showering lyrics over the sun-light ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... day," Miss Ruth answered. "This morning I heard their cheerful twitter before a ray of light had penetrated to my room; and a welcome sound it was, for it told me the long night was over. One dear little fellow sang two or three strains before he succeeded in waking any body; then a robin joined in, in a sleepy kind of way; then two or three wrens, and then a cat-bird; and, last of all, my little weather-bird, which, from the topmost branches of the elm-tree, warbled out to me that it was a pleasant day. Oh, what a sweet ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... sleeping-room comes to mind, a creation of Moscheles. Floor covered with white bearskin rugs, furnished with a delicate tint of robin's-egg blue. Toilet table strewn with every imaginable luxury in old ivory and silver. Panels in the wardrobe and doors filled with paintings by Burne-Jones, ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke

... more posies here, on this one side of the house alone, than mother had in her whole yard," he said, after a little. "Let's see—I know that one: that's columbine, isn't it? And that's London pride, and that's ragged robin. I don't know ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... set up a great twitter. Anybody could see that he was frightened. And one of Jolly Robin's sons, perched in an apple tree near the stone wall where Mr. Chippy lived in a wild grapevine, wondered what could be ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... two stout ships, but, as so often happened, trouble began to ferment amongst the crew. A large number of these had been more or less forced to "go a-pyrating," and were anxious to avoid the consequences, so they decided to send a round-robin—that is, a petition—signed by all with their names in a circle so that no rogue could be held to be more prominent than any other, to ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... said Pledge: "that I never saw three boys imitate guilt better. If they hadn't done it, I should like to ask them why they quaked in their shoes whenever they met me, and why they sent me a round robin, asking me not ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed

... members of the forest blended their shades with the permanent colors of the pine and hemlock; and even the buds of the tardy oak were swelling with the promise of the coming summer. The gay and fluttering blue-bird, the social robin, and the industrious little wren were all to be seen enlivening the fields with their presence and their songs; while the soaring fish-hawk was already hovering over the waters of the Otsego, watching with native voracity for ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... and hearing are all inferior. If he were suited to the conditions he could smell an enemy; he could hear him; he could see him, just as the animals can detect their enemies. The robin hears the earthworm burrowing his course under the ground; the bloodhound follows a scent that is two days old. Man isn't even handsome, as compared with the birds; and as for style, look at the Bengal ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... "I found a robin under the flooring of the last shack," said Blythe in his usual simple way. "His wing was dragging open. I closed it up and carried him in my hand like you said about carrying a bird. I held him till the doctor came, and he said the wing wasn't broken, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... appearances (always for the bedazzlement of the people opposite, and therefore always vulgar), I believe I should have enough left over to buy a radish to eat with my bread; and if the weather were fine, and I could eat it under a tree, and give a robin some crumbs in return for his cheeriness, would there be another creature in the world so happy? ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim

... throw Greenwich Village omniscience overboard and admit privately to himself that people like Peter can be both human and interesting even if they do live in the East Sixties instead of Macdougal Alley when a page comes in discreetly for Johnny Chipman. Johnny rises like an agitated blond robin who has just spied the very two worms he was keeping room for to top off breakfast. "Well" he says to the world at large. "They're only fifteen ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet

... with the leek. But April the 23rd is not a time of roses that we can pluck them as we pass, nor can we claim St George as a compatriot—Cappadocius nostras. We have, to be sure, a few legendary heroes, of whom King Arthur and Robin Hood are (I suppose) the greatest; but, save in some Celtic corners of the land, we have few fairies, and these no great matter; while, as for tutelary gods, our springs, our wells, our groves, cliffs, mountain-sides, either never possessed them or ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall,[335-3] the whole story down to the Robin Redbreast; till a foolish person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... activity and bursts of energy. In his exhaustive work on the blood Hayem has given a summary of the results of the investigations of chemists and physiologists on the differences in the composition of the blood in the two sexes. Contrary to the assertion of Robin, Hayem finds that the white blood-corpuscles are not more numerous in women than in men, and he also states that the number of haematoblasts is the same in the two sexes. All chemists are agreed, however, that the number of red corpuscles is greater in men than in women. ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... night, well, and pleased with the cottage, which they call Robin's Nest. But we were saddened by the loss of a trunk—the most valuable one—containing some heavy spoons, forks, and other plate, saved from the wreck at Burlington; my wife's velvet cloak, satin ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... pour remonter les batteaux, machines pour—a great many things which you would like to see I am sure over my father's shoulder. And my aunt would like to see the new staircase, and to see a kitcat view of a robin redbreast sitting on her nest in a sawpit, discovered by Lovell, and you would both like to pick Emmeline's fine strawberries round the crowded oval table after dinner, and to see my mother look so much better in the ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... recollects hearing the MS. Journal of this John Benbow read; and that it afforded to his mind a strong confirmation of the truthfulness of Drury's Madagascar. He adds the following curious particulars anent our subject:—"Robin Drury," he says, "among those who knew him (and he was known to many, being a porter at the East India House), had the character of a downright honest man, without any appearance of fraud or imposture. He was known to a friend of mine (now living), who frequently called upon him at his house ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 196, July 30, 1853 • Various

... windows, two pedestals, surmounted by busts of Mademoiselle Clairon and Mademoiselle Dangeville, stood, one on each side of the great regulator—made by Robin, clockmaker to the king—which dominated the bust of Moliere—after Houdon—seeming to keep guard over all this gathering ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa

... coal-black tribute to ceremony has discredited me with some, who argue that I am not a plain man because I do not prefer to dine in the same old pepper-and-salt. Verily the only bits of warm color in my wardrobe have been a robin's-egg-blue neck-tie, which I have never dared to wear except once at a wedding, and a pair of pajamas reserved for very occasional jaunts on yachts and sleeping cars. And now that I had the doctor's orders to take more exercise, I had been on the point of selecting an ordinary, plain, pepper-and-salt ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... not, were the outlaws his tyranny had driven to the forests, the forerunners of the Robin Hoods and Little Johns of later days, whose exploits against the Norman race awoke the enthusiasm of so many minstrels ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... the body of a sleeping robin. An owl, lodged in the fork of a tree, moved not as the men passed. It, too, was whelmed ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... the programme looked like a round robin sent out by a Turnverein bowling club, but I suppose if they were baked in the oven until translated they would mean something soft and soothing like a ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... the man wha first did shape That vile, wanchancie thing—a rape! It maks guid fellows girn an' gape, Wi' chokin dread; An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape, For ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... these young citizens. It was towards happy Christmas-tide that "the Governor's amiable and admired lady" (as she was styled in the local newspaper) sent out notes for her first children's party. At the top of the note-paper was a very red robin, who carried a blue Christmas greeting in his mouth, and at the bottom—written with A.D.C.'s best flourish—were the magic words, A Christmas Tree. In spite of the flourishes—partly perhaps because of them—the ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... WARNER has received countless expressions of regret on his retirement from first-class cricket. Among these he values not least a "round robin" from the sparrows at Lord's, all of whom he knows by name. In the score-book of Fate is this entry ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various

... The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... notes; there the red flamingo watches by the shore of the lagoon, the waters dyed by the reflection of his scarlet plumage. It would require a volume to describe the vegetable and animal kingdom of Cuba, but among the most familiar birds are the golden robin, the bluebird, the catbird, the Spanish woodpecker, the gaudy-plumed paroquet, and the pedoreva, with its red throat and breast and its pea-green head and body. There is also a great variety of wild pigeons, blue, gray, and white; the English ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... bothered about robins just now. I assure you all the best Christmas stories begin like this nowadays. We may get to a robin later; I cannot say. ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... path shaded by great low-branching cottonwoods. The last rays of the setting sun sent golden bars through the leaves. The grass was deep and rich, welcome contrast to sage-tired eyes. Twittering quail darted across the path, and from a tree-top somewhere a robin sang its evening song, and on the still air floated the freshness and ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... pitiful!—pitiful the wretch whose hardihood has involved him in cruel and unusual great gloss and unsheltered tailed coat. Any man in his overcoat is wrapped in his castle; he fears nothing. But to this hunted creature, naked in his robin's tail, the whole panorama of the Avenue is merely a blurred audience, focusing upon him a vast glare of derision; he walks swiftly, as upon fire, pretends to careless sidelong interest in shop-windows as he goes, makes play with his unfamiliar cane ...
— Harlequin and Columbine • Booth Tarkington

... where rainbow foliage crowns the swamp, I hear in dreams an April robin sing, And memory, amid this Autumn pomp, Strays ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... 10 the session convened. The outlook was encouraging but the enemies had been busy and the very next day a "round robin" signed by 63 members of the House was sent to the General Assembly of Tennessee, where a bitter fight on ratification was in progress, which said: "We, the undersigned, members of the House of Representatives ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various

... morning he drew up by the roadside to listen to some lyrical robin on an apple-bough, or to make friends with the black- belted Durham cows and the cream-colored Alderneys, who came solemnly to the pasture wall and stared at him with big, good-natured faces. A row of them, with their lazy eyes and pink tongues ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... it is in England. It was not so harmonious, and sounded always as if the birds were singing in a foreign tongue. Some resemble the lark, and, indeed, there are several of that family; two have notes not unlike those of the thrush. One brought the chaffinch to my mind, and another the robin; but their songs are intermixed with several curious abrupt notes unlike any thing English. One utters deliberately "peek, pak, pok"; another has a single note like a stroke on a violin-string. The mokwa reza gives forth a screaming set of notes like our blackbird when ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... and her husband till there is peace again in the land, which we will both earnestly pray for. And you must remember, my child, that you are to pass for Maud's own son, and that you are to call her mother, and her husband, Robin, the shepherd, father. I have already explained to you what would be the terrible consequences should ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... began to strike a definite musical note. It first caught the eye and ear of its public by presenting the popular new marches by John Philip Sousa; and when the comic opera of "Robin Hood" became the favorite of the day, it secured all the new compositions by Reginald de Koven. Following these, it introduced its readers to new compositions by Sir Arthur Sullivan, Tosti, Moszkowski, Richard Strauss, Paderewski, ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok

... into that sleep which God gives to his beloved, and when he awoke it was the dayshine. The light streamed in through the eastern windows, there was a robin singing on his window sill, and there was no trouble in his heart but what he ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... coming in from abroad, they espied a little robin with a great spider in his mouth; so the Interpreter said, Look here. So they looked, and Mercy wondered; but Christiana said, What a disparagement is it to such a little pretty bird as the robin-redbreast is, he being also a bird above ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... name as the writer of "Auld Robin Gray" is familiar to every one who knows that most pathetic ballad, spent five years with her husband at the Cape (1797-1802). Her journal letters to her sisters are most amusing, and full of interesting observations.[11] After ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... doubtfully at his own hand, rough and gnarly, then taking hers as he would have handled a robin's egg, waggled ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... Englishmen. Do the work that's nearest, Though it's dull at whiles, Helping, when we meet them, Lame dogs over stiles; See in every hedgerow Marks of angels' feet, Epics in each pebble Underneath our feet; Once a year, like schoolboys, Robin-Hooding go, Leaving fops and fogies ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... human form is the theme, the aim must of course be to give its typical perfection. No naturalist describes the defects of his specimens, though it may happen that all are imperfect. Comparatively few persons ever saw our robin in the plumage in which it is always described. Only in early spring, not very commonly then, is the black of the head and tail seen pure. But no one hesitates to call this the true color. The sculptor does not reproduce the peculiarities of his model, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... are in the old spirit, but are somewhat mournful echoes of the past. They remind us of the robin's winter song—"Hark to him weeping," say the country folk, as they listen to the music which retains the sweetness but has lost what Wordsworth calls the gushes of the summer strains. There is still an ode to Venus; its prayer not now "come to bless thy worshipper"; ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... up, the Squire had moved to a log close beside her. The March sun was pouring down upon them, and there was a robin singing, quite undisturbed by their presence, in a holly-bush near. The Squire's wilful countenance had never seemed to Elizabeth more full of an uncanny and even threatening energy. Involuntarily she withdrew ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... at the corner watching! I sent them word that I should come to-night: The birds all know it, for they crowd around, Twittering their welcome with a wild delight; And that old robin, with a halting wing— I saved her life, three years ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... pasted on the wall, Of Joan of France, and English Moll, Fair Rosamond, and Robin Hood, The Little Children in the Wood, Now seemed to look abundance better, Improved in picture, size, and letter; And high in order placed, describe ...
— The Battle of the Books - and Other Short Pieces • Jonathan Swift

... such a good-for-nothin' as you was should have come to be a rich man. For there wasn't nothin' to be made of you. You would never sit still to wind more than a hank of yarn at a time, that you wouldn't. Off you went to your tomtit boxes an' your robin redbreast snares—they was all you cared about. Isn't it ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... visit was followed by another passionate vow that she would never marry. Then within three weeks she wrote again, telling of her engagement to Robin Lethbridge. ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair

... girls go up to the top of the hill and sit down on your sleds," said Dick. "Or, better still, go into the barn, like the robin in the song, and keep warm. Then I'll look for your ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Grandpa Ford's • Laura Lee Hope

... heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson

... I begin our riding lessons on Wednesday next. We have got pretty dark-brown habits and red velvet waistcoats, and shall look like two nice little robin-redbreasts on horseback; all I dread is that she may be frightened to death, which might militate against her ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... hand—humph, humph, you go to see fashions, you are the king's jester, your name is Robin Mutton! Do you see this same ram? His name, too, is Robin. Here, Robin, Robin, Robin! Baea, baea, baea. Hath he not a ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... do with a child of eight years is shown by a poem written by Louisa at that age. The family were then living in Concord, in the house which, in "Little Women," is celebrated as "Meg's first home." One early Spring day, Louisa found in the garden a robin, chilled and famished, and ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... Canada Mayflower had exchanged its feathery white bloom; and the ruby drops of the twisted stalk hanging like jewels along its bending stem. On the three-leaved table which once carried the gay flower of the wake-robin, there was a scarlet lump like a red pepper escaped to the forest and run wild. The partridge-vine was full of rosy provision for the birds. The dark tiny leaves of the creeping snow-berry were all sprinkled over with delicate drops of spicy foam. There were few belated raspberries, ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... enough of a woman physically to bully the tiny grandmother when she wished to. Her face was now prettily suffused with color due to her resentment, and her blue eyes moist with unshed tears. She glanced into the small front chamber which had been decorated with a pink paper and robin's-egg blue paint. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... Gen. (as he sent me word) were still gone on in the prosecution of them, and saith, that except 150 horse in one body, he heares they are fled by 16 or 18 in a company, all the country over. Robin Montgomery was come out of Sterling, with 4 or 5 regiments of horse and dragoons, but was put to a stand when he heard of the issue of this businesse. Straughan and some other officers had quitted some 3 weeks or a month before this businesse, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... state: Queen ELIZABETH II (since 6 February 1952), represented by Governor General James B. CARLISLE (since NA 1993) head of government: Prime Minister Lester Bryant BIRD (since 8 March 1994); Deputy Prime Minister Robin YEARWOOD cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; governor general chosen by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister; following legislative elections, the leader ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the city and neighborhood of Boston. Their hearts were open to the tender influence of buds and blossoms, the fresh springing grass and the bubbling brook. They watched the birds of various plumage; the oriole, who hung his basket nest from the pendant branches of the elm, the robin redbreast who built close in the thick branches of the firs, and the sparrow who was contented with a less prominent nest, as he picked up hairs from the stable or from ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... thickly inhabited with old Virginia families, who were loyal and true to the Southern cause. These people received Mosby's men into their houses as their guests, and neither danger nor want could tempt their betrayal. Robin Hood's band sought safety in the solitudes of Sherwood Forest, Marion's men secreted themselves "in the pleasant wilds of Snow's Island" and other South Carolina swamps, but the Partizan Rangers of Virginia ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... land: Lowland Scotland—particularly the Lothians—and the English bordering counties, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Cumberland; with Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire, in which were Barndale and Sherwood Forests, Robin Hood's haunts. It is not possible to assign exact dates to these songs. They were seldom reduced to writing till many years after they were composed. In the Middle Ages they were sung to the harp by wandering ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... minstrels and minstrelsy. "Chevy Chase," of which Sir Philip Sidney said it would move him like the blast of a trumpet, is one of the most ancient; but, according to Hallam, it relates to a totally fictitious event. The ballad of "Robin Hood" had probably as little origin ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Miss Daisy broke out in such a wild, merry laugh, that an early robin, perched on a tree beside the window, ceased chirping, ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... hat?" Hervey inquired. "I bet you can't sit on this without holding on. Were you in the swamp? This is my friend, Mr. Hood—Robin Hood—sometimes I call him Lid instead of Hood. Call him cap if you want to, he doesn't care," he added, ...
— Tom Slade's Double Dare • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... among foreign birds, and the linnet and bobolink, among American birds, are familiar examples of the first class; the common robin and the veery of the second; the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, and the mocking-bird, of the third; and the blue-bird, the pewee, and the purple martin, of the fourth class. It may be added, that some birds are nearly periodical in their habits of singing, preferring the morning and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various









Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com




Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar