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Halcyon   Listen
adjective
Halcyon  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to, or resembling, the halcyon, which was anciently said to lay her eggs in nests on or near the sea during the calm weather about the winter solstice.
2.
Hence: Calm; quiet; peaceful; undisturbed; happy. "Deep, halcyon repose."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Halcyon" Quotes from Famous Books



... least until you were sure it was wanted. After that, of course, you could be so proud of it that you might become utterly shameless. She was afraid sometimes that she was the sort to be utterly shameless. Yet, for all her halcyon hours, there were little things that worried her. Wallie Sayre, for instance, always having to be kept from saying things she didn't want to hear. And Nina. She wasn't sure that Nina was entirely happy. And, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... "discovery" of the field by Mr. Peter Finnerty, old "Taeping," as Gordon's ex-marine engineer had been promptly nicknamed, arrived with his crushing battery, and then indeed were halcyon days for the Flat. From early morn till long past midnight, the little bar of the "Digger's Best" was crowded with diggers, packhorsemen and teamsters; a police trooper arrived and fixed his tent on the ridge overlooking the creek, and then—the ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke

... "Halcyon days"—how often is the expression made use of, how seldom do its users realise from whence they have ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang

... of those comets whose return is so accurately calculated and eagerly expected by the Florentine dealers in ancient art made his appearance in the Tuscan sky—no less than a buyer for the Louvre. Those were the halcyon days of the Empire, and money was plenty. Poor Bastianini's bust was brought out with all due mystery, duly admired by the infallible French connoisseur, and eventually purchased by him for the imperial collection for, I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... Those were halcyon days which followed for de Cosse and the lady his loyalty had won; days of sweet meetings and tender partings—of a union of souls which even death was powerless to dissolve. When they could not meet—and de Cosse's duties often kept him from her side—letters ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... West; And felt sweet Peace her softest balm infuse, Into his once too world-disturbed breast: There did he find a deep and quiet rest: The mockbird sang his vespers, while the star Shone sweetly o'er the rippling river's crest; There no rude sound the halcyon calm did mar, And Grief was absent still, ...
— Lays of Ancient Virginia, and Other Poems • James Avis Bartley

... to forego, and contented ourselves with exploring the old hostelry, close and faint of atmosphere and of a smell at once mouldy and dusty. The room that was called Nelson's, for no very definite reason, and the room in which the ministry used to have their whitebait dinners in the halcyon days before whitebait was extinct in Greenwich, pretended to some state but no beauty, and some smaller dining-rooms that overhung the river had the merit of commanding a full view of the Isle of Dogs, and in the immediate foreground—it ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells

... and I would hold them: the halcyon breakfast, the queer hat, the pebble in her small shoe, the gold bag with the broken chain—the bag! Why, it was in my pocket at ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... fully. Our halcyon days must end, I fear, as all such days do eventually, and we must meet the more prosaic side of life. Let us hope it will assume a pleasing form. I am loth to hand in my resignation as Dominie Exactus, however," he ended ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are; A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar Some heavenly solstice, hushed and halcyon, Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone; Whose eyes the sungates of the soul unbar, Being of its furthest fires oracular, The evident heart of all life ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... Life be a flower, Light, facile, and free, Be the grasp that would hold it; From a halcyon sea Let the breezes that stir it Blow thoughtlessly; No breath of care should chill it, Nor sad foreboding thrill it, For honey-dew lies hid Beneath a fragile lid, And ardent clutch will ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... a period of halcyon weather. A kinder, more discerning and more helpful chief than Edmund Yates no aspiring young journalist ever had. He was as genial and as quick to recognise honest effort as Dawson himself, and he knew ten times better what he wanted, and a thousand ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray

... vegetarianism, scientifically practised, is a cure, and better, a preventative, for many physical, mental, and moral obliquities that trouble mankind, and if only a knowledge of this fact were to grow and distil itself into the public mind and conscience, there would be halcyon days in store for future generations, and much that now envelops man in darkness and in sorrow, would be regarded as a nightmare ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... apart; much of the Arctic and Antarctic circles; vast areas of mountain land and frozen marsh; secluded reserves of forest, and innumerable unfrequented lines upon the sea. Some are dangerous and laborious routes; some merely desolate; and there are even some sea journeys that one may take in the halcyon days as one drifts through a dream. Upon the seas one must go in a little undecked sailing boat, that may be rowed in a calm; all the other journeys one must do afoot, none aiding. There are, about ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... held, anciently, that a nation's architecture was the exponent of its national character, growing with and out of its social, civil, and religious peculiarities, and modified by climate, habit, and taste. In those early ages, the halcyon days of the art, men built with a purpose, built what they wanted in a natural and appropriate way, and—built successfully. So true was this, that to this day, most of their relics proclaim their own origin, just as fossils determine the relative positions ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... It was a halcyon day, worthy of its motto, "Peace on earth, good-will to men." The air was electric, the sun overflowing with jolly shine, the river smooth and sheeny from the hither bank to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various

... is known as "the field of honor," Tiltock kept the lieutenant in his eye, and took him finally aside and demanded a meeting in the name of Utie. The naval officer answered that he had simply relieved a lady from a drunken boy; but Tiltock, in the dramatic way common to halcyon old times, refused to accept either "drunken" or "boy" as terms appropriate to "the code," and pressed for an answer. In five minutes the naval officer replied, through his naval companion, that having ascertained Mr. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... O'Brien (then enthusiastic about a Repeal of the Legislative Union) said that the picture of Irish misery drawn by Lord John Russell was the result of forty-seven years of union with England. Halcyon days were promised to Ireland at the time of the Union, but he called on the House to contrast the progress of Ireland from 1782 to the Union, with the state of Ireland since. He expressed his opinion that the loss in potatoes, considering the value of offal for pigs and the rise ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke

... laundress, of a gentleman residing at the capital. Their master had the happy eccentricity of getting more amiable with every rum-toddy; and as he never for any length of time discontinued rum-toddies, the days of Sol and Nancy at Judge Q.'s were halcyon. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... the moment of completest anguish. When our resolutions are taken with determined firmness, they engross the mind and close the void of misery. Yes, my friend, save the pang of sympathy, I am happy. These are my halcyon days. Let us taste them together. We shall mutually heighten their relish. Let us rescue some moments of rational enjoyment from the wreck of impetuous time. Friendship shall smooth the rugged path of science, and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... formerly a broker in New York and to whose firm I had given a good deal of business in the old days. He is now connected with the Chicago branch of one of the trusts. He returned my letter after writing across it in red ink: "Had you not held your head so d—n high in your halcyon days, I might respond. You should look to ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell

... by Alfred's conquests, the Irish enjoyed the halcyon days remembered as those of Malachy with the collar of gold (which he had torn from the neck of a conquered Dane), and those of Brien Boromhe, or Boru, the great Brien, in whose reign ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... So wound my spirit, that on all I cast An envied thought who rest in darkness find. My heart Love prostrates, Fortune more unkind No comfort grants, until its sorrow vast Impotent frets, then melts to tears at last: Thus I to painful warfare am consign'd. My halcyon days I hope not to return, But paint my future by a darker tint; My spring is gone—my summer well-nigh fled: Ah! wretched me! too well do I discern Each hope is now (unlike the diamond flint) A fragile mirror, with ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... arraignments that took place—the constant hunt after Indian delinquency, in which Ministers joined no less keenly than the Opposition—and then compare all this with the tranquillity that has reigned, since the halcyon incubation of the Board of Control over the waters,—though we may allow the full share that actual reform and a better system of government may claim in this change, there is still but too much of it to be attributed ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... I can tell you what that bird was—a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon of the ancients, about which so many tales are told. It lives on fish, which it catches in the manner you saw. It builds in holes in the banks, and is a shy, retired bird, never to be seen far from the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various

... not only of revealing Thought, but also of so beautifully hiding from us the want of Thought! Paper is made from the rags of things that did once exist; there are endless excellences in Paper.—What wisest Philosophe, in this halcyon uneventful period, could prophesy that there was approaching, big with darkness and confusion, the event of events? Hope ushers in a Revolution,—as earthquakes are preceded by bright weather. On the Fifth of May, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... we knew on the day of my ordination, and in those halcyon moments of our first housekeeping! To be the confidential friend in a hundred families in the town,—cutting the social trifle, as my friend Haliburton says, "from the top of the whipped-syllabub to the bottom of the sponge-cake, which is the foundation,"—to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various

... on the honest man's account. He has been here these two hours—courting the mother for the daughter, I suppose—yet she wants no courting neither: 'Tis well one of us does; else the man would have nothing but halcyon; and be remiss, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... of calm between the storms; halcyon days, as they have well been named, in which genius had sufficient freedom in determining its own direction to devote itself with all its strength to ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... mentions, she asked that Charles Kemble might be presented to her, when the gentleman had the opportunity of making his "best genteel-comedy bow." Now it was on the younger generation of the Kembles that the Queen bestowed her gracious countenance. These were halcyon days for society as well as for the stage, when, in Mrs. Oliphant's words, "the Queen was in the foreground of the national life, affecting it always for good, and setting an example of purity and virtue. The theatres to which she went, and ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

... replied, "is a savoury and nourishing dish, the 'poor man's steak' I believe it is commonly called. When I was younger, Mrs. Wilkins, they were cheaper. For twopence one could secure a small specimen, for fourpence one of generous proportions. In the halcyon days of youth, when one's lexicon contained not the word failure (it has crept into later editions, Mrs. Wilkins, the word it was found was occasionally needful), the haddock was of much comfort and support to me, a very present help in time of trouble. In those days a kind friend, without intending ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... not as thyself alone, But as the meaning of all things that are; A breathless wonder, shadowing forth afar Some heavenly solstice hushed and halcyon; Whose unstirred lips are music's visible tone; Whose eyes the sun-gate of the soul unbar, Being of its furthest fires oracular;— The evident heart of all ...
— The House of Life • Dante Gabriel Rossetti

... away! From cares exempt, he dwells in perfect peace. His heart is light as boy's on holiday. He walks abroad and joys in his release. The cat is gone, the frisky mouse doth play. The fox remote, walk forth the wandering geese. So he, delivered, thinks his troubles past, O halcyon days!—if they could ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... 'tis a horrible hallucination To grudge our hymns their halcyon harmonies, When in just homage our rapt voices rise To celebrate our heroes in meet fashion; Whose hosts each heritage and habitation, Within these realms of hospitable joy, Protect securely 'gainst humiliation, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various

... homely, but thoroughly genial, and quite the monopoly of their race. They insist on the whole of Christmas week for a holiday. 'Missus' must manage how she can. To insist on chaining them down in the kitchen during that halcyon time would stir up blank rebellion. Dancing and music are their favourite Christmas recreations; they manage both with a will. In the city suburbs there are many modest little frame-houses inhabited by the blacks; ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... succeeded Christmas were a period of halcyon peace for Valentine and Charlotte. The accepted lover came to the villa when he pleased, but was still careful not to encroach on the license allowed him. Once a week he permitted himself the delight of five-o'clock ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon

... On halcyon wings our moments pass, Life's cruel cares beguiling; Old Time lays down his scythe and glass, In gay good-humour smiling: With ermine beard and forelock gray, His reverend part adorning, He looks like Winter turn'd to May, Night soften'd into Morning. How ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... in the press that were formerly kept behind the closed doors of the home. The details of a dinner or a social company at the fireside become the topics for the gossip of strangers. I sometimes think that the young people of the present day lose much of the romance that used to belong to the halcyon period of courtship. In the somewhat primitive days of my youth, young lovers kept their own secrets, and were startled if their heart affairs were on other people's tongues; but now-a-days marriage engagements are matters of public announcement—not ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

... sweet love, with her luring smile, The mystic charm-light of halcyon hours, Shall no more with her witch'ry our souls beguile, As the leaves grow seer on Life's fading bowers, And the blushes are pale on its ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl

... to those in sorrow, Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough Year just awake 5 In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring, Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn To hoar February born, 10 Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kissed the forehead of the Earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, 15 And breathed upon the frozen mountains, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... fairies," said the grandmother, "two great fairies—the Fairy of the Water and the Fairy of the Woods. Ten years ago I had gone out at daybreak to catch the crabs asleep in the sand, when I saw a halcyon flying gently towards the shore. The halcyon is a sacred bird, so I never stirred for fear I should scare it away. And at the same time from a cleft in the mountain I saw a beautiful green adder appear and come gliding along ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook

... thanks for a future occasion; for I could not but feel, that being an officer of the Company, it was robbing me of a part of my pay under the pretext of an indulgence. Availing myself, however, of this ungenerous grant of freedom, I spent some halcyon days in the company of relatives most dear to me, and expected no interruption to my enjoyment until the time appointed for the embarkation: but a few days after I had joined my relatives in the vicinity of Montreal, ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean

... seventh and eighth centuries, when the arts were fostered in monasteries—the arts of gold-work and illuminated missals—'Ireland's halcyon days,' he said; a deep peace brooded, and under the guidance of the monks Ireland was the centre of learning when England was in barbarism. The first renaissance was the Irish, centuries before a gleam showed ...
— The Lake • George Moore

... Halcyon the days for Pietro Tobigli, extravagant the jocularity of this betrothed one. And, as his happiness, so did his prosperity increase; the little chestnut furnace became the smallest adjunct of his affairs; for he leaped (almost at one bound) to the proprietorship ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington

... many excursions toward the north and toward the south, in the halcyon weather that had seldom failed since the withdrawal of the nebula, they arrived at the place (or above it) which had stood during centuries for ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... such predominance as to dwarf into inefficiency her religion of culture. It was exquisite misery to conceive, as, from inner observation, she so well could, some demand of life which would make her ideals appear the dreams of bygone halcyon days, useless and worse amid the threats of gathering tempest. An essentially human apprehension, be it understood. The vulgarities of hysterical pietism Emily had never known; she did not fear the invasion of such ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing

... is scarce a goose to be seen in the whole county of Nice. Wild-ducks and teal are sometimes to be had in the winter; and now I am speaking of sea-fowl, it may not be amiss to tell you what I know of the halcyon, or king's-fisher. It is a bird, though very rare in this country about the size of a pigeon; the body brown, and the belly white: by a wonderful instinct it makes its nest upon the surface of the sea, and lays its eggs in the month of November, when the Mediterranean is ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... civilisation arose which preserved for Europe arts and letters when Christendom was plunged in darkness. The children of Ishmael rewarded the children of Israel with equal rights and privileges with themselves. During these halcyon centuries, it is difficult to distinguish the follower of Moses from the votary of Mahomet. Both alike built palaces, gardens, and fountains; filled equally the highest offices of the state, competed in an extensive and ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli

... Which, like thee, to those in sorrow Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow To the rough year just awake In its cradle on the brake. The brightest hour of unborn Spring Through the winter wandering, Found, it seems, the halcyon morn To hoar February born; Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth, It kiss'd the forehead of the earth, And smiled upon the silent sea, And bade the frozen streams be free, And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... nine, were divided from a strenuous and successful manhood by so dark a gulf as to concentrate all the powers of recollection upon them with a desperate kind of intensity. It was the realization of a childish ambition conceived in that halcyon era which drew him to Gadshill, and he returned again and again to the contemplation of his earliest dreams and imaginings. He wrote from Gadshill of his old nurse—the original, it can hardly ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin

... their rounded cheeks, the dewy light of hope in their trusting eyes, exulting confidence in their springing step, themselves blithe and radiant with the glory of the dawn. Today, and here, we meet ourselves. Not to these familiar scenes alone—yonder college-green with its reverend traditions; the halcyon cove of the Seekonk, upon which the memory of Roger Williams broods like a bird of calm; the historic bay, beating forever with the muffled oars of Barton and of Abraham Whipple; here, the humming city of ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... enough to him, for here flocked the people to see the Discoverer. If they heard his voice they were happy; if some bolder one had a moment's speech with him that fortunate went off with the air of, "My children's children shall know of this!" There returned in this springtide travel sunniness, halcyon weather, bright winds of praise. The last health of the present body was his upon this journey. Health and strength harked back. All noted it. Jayme de Marchena held it for the leap of the flame before sinking, before leaving the frame of this world. But his sons and Don Bartholomew cried, ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... Bob and Sue, who have ice-cream, Life is a glowing, halcyon dream, While Tom stands empty by; And says, "Gee! fellers, ain't it prime? Say, I had ice-cream too, one time, And it was ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells

... she was changed into a bird,—the kingfisher,—and, floating over the sea, she still calls for the lost Ceyx in tones full of plaining and tears. And "whensoever she makes her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon's weather—days distinguishable among all others ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... of it as an alien Priory, but immediately handed it over to William Forester, the then Prior, with the stipulation that in the event of a war with France the King should receive a sum of money equal to that which in time of peace would be paid to the Abbey of St. Denis. With halcyon days like these the Priory set about rebuilding what had been destroyed, and works were undertaken—much of which is standing ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury - with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire • H. J. L. J. Masse

... late in June in the ninth year of King Edward VII's reign—that halcyon period when nobody who was anybody felt particularly happy, because no such person had actually experienced what unhappiness was. Certainly Mrs. Delarayne had not, unless she had shown really exceptional fortitude and ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici

... the lady to this compliment, "that hemlocke wheresoever it bee planted, will be pestilent [and] that the serpent with the brightest scales shroudeth the most fatall venome." Is there anything more certain? But that does not prevent the halcyon from hatching when the sea is calm, and the phoenix from spreading her wings when the sunbeams shine on her nest. This is what the husband remarks, and, guided by the onyx, the alexander, &c., after a mock ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... the Blucher and the York, and three light cruisers, the Kolberg, the Graudenz, and the Strasburg. They were mainly fast vessels and the battle cruisers carried eleven-inch guns. Early in the morning they ran through the nets of a British fishing fleet. Later an old coast police boat, the Halcyon, was shot at a few times. About eight o'clock they were opposite Yarmouth, and proceeded to bombard that naval station from a distance of about ten miles. Their range was poor and their shells did no damage. They then turned swiftly for home, but on the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... city of the South; but the halcyon days promised on the restoration of Virginia to royalty were never realized. The common people were made worse for the change, and only the favorite ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... grief, already felt too long! Nor let my words import more blame than needs. The tumult rose and ceased: for Peace is nigh Where wisdom's voice has found a listening heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms, The halcyon hears the voice of vernal ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons

... were shared together; and they soon became friends like brothers. About the same time, as has before been related, Paul had given freedom to General Kosciusko and his compatriot Niemcivitz. And still, after the death of that mysteriously-destined sovereign, a halcyon sky seemed to hold its bland aspects over Russia's Sclavonian sister people, ancient Sarmatia. But ere long the scene changed, and the "seething-pot" of a universal ambition, the crucible of nations, grasped by the hand of Napoleon, began again ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... that our sires and grandsires kept stations on that same road, and many an escaped bondsman looking back from his safe asylum in Canada called them "blessed." Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine was in the halcyon days of "Fugitive Slave Law" lovers. If John Wesley considered Slavery the "sum of all villainies," I wonder what terse definition he would have given to this the vilest enactment that ever rested on our Statute Book. ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe

... of burlesque romance—with artists, scholars, students innumerable, all in their own departments capable of satisfying a youth's curiosity, by explaining to him the particular virtues of books discussed, or of antique works of art inspected. During those halcyon years, before the invasion of Charles VIII., it seemed as though the peace of Italy might last unbroken. No one foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which were about to be poured forth upon her plains and cities through the next half-century. Rarely, at any period of the world's history, ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... the inner ones with a night-key, and made her way to what had been the back parlor of the house. In that densification of population which proceeds so incessantly on Manhattan Island this old house, like many another, was modernly compelled to hold more people than it had been meant for in the halcyon days when Second Avenue was a fashionable thoroughfare. The second floor of the house had been let, without board, to a gentleman and his wife, and the rooms above to single gentlemen. The parlor floor and the basement were made to accommodate the mother and her two daughters with their ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... the preference to the present Summer season that has but recently commenced, a season so rich in enjoyment. For now Unceasing are the charms of halcyon days, When the cool bath exhilarates the frame; When sylvan gales are laden with the scent Of fragrant Patalas; when soothing sleep Creeps softly on beneath the deepening shade; And when, at last, the dulcet calm of eve Entrancing steals o'er every ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... ancient falchion, Which once flashed as freedom's star! Till sweet peace—the bow and halcyon, Stilled the stormy strife of war. Listen! now thy country's calling On her sons to meet her foe! Sweet is love in moonlight bowers! Sweet the altar and the flame! Sweet the spring-time with her flowers! Sweeter far the ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... he now resumes his old Reinsberg Program of Life; probably with double relish, after such experiences the other way; and prosecutes it with the old ardor; hoping much that his History will be of halcyon pacific nature, after all. Would the mad War-whirlpool but quench itself; dangerous for singeing a near neighbor, who is only just got out of it! Fain would he be arbiter, and help to quench it; but it will not quench. For a space of Two Years or more (till August, 1744, Twenty-six Months in all), ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... they must be up and away, not wait till it should be too late. She, too, saw how many lovers plan under the June honeymoon to sail away after a year or two and see the great world, and, when they wearily die, know that it will still be a year or two before they can flee to the halcyon isles. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... soon have ceased to think of ghosts. Ghosts, forsooth! When all around me vibrated with the sounds of girlish laughter, and the summer sunshine, sparkling on the golden curls of my child-wife, saw itself reflected a millionfold in the alluring depths of her azure eyes. In halcyon days like these who thinks ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... wicked a doctrine." To the ancients all beyond the region they had traversed was an unknown land, clothed in darkness, crowded with mystery and allurement. Across the weltering wastes of brine, in a halcyon sea, the Hindu placed the White Isle, the dwelling of translated and immortalized men.8 Under the attraction of a mystic curiosity, well might ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... nights of uproar, men in armour rolling and resounding down the stairs of heaven, the rain hissing on the village streets, the wild bull's-eye of the storm flashing all night long into the bare inn- chamber - the same sweet return of day, the same unfathomable blue of noon, the same high-coloured, halcyon eves - and above all, if he had anything like as good a comrade, anything like as keen a relish for what he saw, and what he ate, and the rivers that he bathed in, and the rubbish that he wrote, I would ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson

... humility that was hers kept April's heart sweet, she was sometimes in danger of becoming slightly tete montee. But she always pinched herself in time, with the reminder that it was all only a dream from which she must awaken very soon. For the nineteen halcyon days of the voyage were speeding by and coming to an end. Hot, hard blue skies gleamed overhead, and at night came the moon of Africa, pearl-white instead of amber-coloured, as it looks in Europe. Strange stars appeared, too, bigger, more lustrous, than the stars of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... acquiescence also results in the acceptance of hopes as things not be struggled for but rested in as a substantial portion of the divine order of our lives. In autumn come for spirits rightly attuned these pellucid halcyon ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... it marked her as a dependent. But the stern fact remained that she needed the money, even the paltry fifty dollars a month, as she had never needed anything in life. If she refrained from spending a dollar for several years, she could hardly clear herself of the accumulated bills from her halcyon days of hope. ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... fled those halcyon days. The storm began; From pole to pole the doubling thunder ran. Yet still with patient toil I saw thee urge Thy fearless passage o'er the gloomy surge; Still Faith discern'd the harbour of repose, And panting Hope look'd ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker

... From such halcyon dreams they were startled one morning, at daybreak, by a savage yell, and jumped for their rifles. The yell was repeated by two or three voices. Cautiously peeping out, they beheld, to their dismay, several Indian warriors among the trees, all armed ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... day the Sistine chapel and its paintings were kept to the last; and Watts, high though his expectations were, was overwhelmed at what he saw. 'Michelangelo', he said, 'stands for Italy, as Shakespeare does for England.' So the four years went by till in 1847 this halcyon period came to an end. The Royal Commission of Fine Arts was offering prizes for fresco-painting, and Watts felt that he must put his growing powers to the test and utilize what he had learnt. This time he chose for his subject 'Alfred inciting the English to resist the Danes ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... society—she felt like singing. Was there ever such a dawn? Did ever song of birds sound so like the voice of eternal youth? Whence had come this air like the fumes from the winepresses of the gods? And the light! What colors, what tints, upon mountain and valley and halcyon lake! And the man asleep in the next room—yes, there WAS a Joshua Craig whom she found extremely trying at times; but that Joshua Craig had somehow resigned the tenancy of the strong, straight form there, had resigned it to a man who was the living expression ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... my soul With more unrest, and Hebe-like, the bowl Of festal comfort for a moment raise To my poor lips, and then avert thy gaze? Wouldst make me mad beyond the daily curse Of thy displeasure, and in wrath disperse That halcyon draught, that nectar of the mind, Which is the theme I ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay

... Copyright in the more halcyon days of my "Proverbial" popularity, when, as reported (see the New York World on p. 124), a million and a half copies of my book were consumed in America, I should have been materially rewarded by a royalty of something like a hundred thousand pounds: but the bare fact is that all I have ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... bound to maintain the compact into which they had voluntarily entered, the obligation, if any one State chose to repudiate it, could not be legally enforced. Their ideal was a Union based upon fraternal affection; and in the halcyon days of Washington's first presidency, when the long and victorious struggle against a common enemy was still fresh in men's minds, and the sun of liberty shone in an unclouded sky, a vision so Utopian perhaps seemed capable of realisation. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson

... ability and Royal favour that I took his place as Secretary of State, thus becoming all but the supreme ruler of Spain. I do not believe that there was ever in Spain a Minister so highly favoured by the reigning Prince, so powerful as I became. Not Eboli himself in his halcyon days had been so deeply esteemed of Philip, or had wielded such power as I now made my own. All Europe knows it—for it was to me all Europe addressed itself for affairs ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... repose from strife and sorrow, towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are continually travelling. Obliquely we were nearing the sea upon our left, which also must, under the present circumstances, be repeating the general state of halcyon repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moonlight, in the first timid tremblings of the dawn, were now blending: and the blendings were brought into a still more ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... bear me on to one I've loved From Boyhood's thoughtlessness to Manhood's thought, In all the changes of our lives, unmoved— That young affection no regret has brought: Beloved one! when I seem Fortune's slave, Reckless and wrecked upon the wayward wave, Bright Hope, the Halcyon, rises o'er the sea, Calming the troubled wave—bearing ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas

... its yearning engage All vigorous passion that lives in the breast, While tearful remembrance of tottering age Finds halcyon harbors of comforting rest; Let silver of years with the ardor of youth Be going again through the temple of joy, While palms of amusement and laurels of truth Encircle the hearts of ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller

... Theatre, had the curtain risen on his father's Brutus reclining in a Queen Anne chair, attired in a flowing wig and a flowered dressing-gown, a costume which in the last century was considered peculiarly appropriate to an antique Roman! For in those halcyon days of the drama no archaeology troubled the stage, or distressed the critics, and our inartistic grandfathers sat peaceably in a stifling atmosphere of anachronisms, and beheld with the calm complacency of the age of prose an Iachimo in powder and patches, a ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... thanked the office clerk, and in a louder and more fervent voice she thanked Heaven. The two invitations, already sealed and addressed, were immediately dispatched; in due course they were both accepted. The house party of the halcyon hours, as the prospective hostess called ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... this information reached me; but it is necessary for you to know that the Interprovincial Loan & Savings Company is vitally interested in the recovery of this money, or at least in the identity of the thief. And when we speak of the Interprovincial in these halcyon days we speak of J. Cuthbert Nickleby, its astute president. A thing like this could never have happened if Nat Lawson had been ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... The halcyon days of autumn, that seemed like the last sweet smiles of summer, had come, when one day Albert packed a valise and boarded the early morning train for Maine. An insidious longing to see the girl that had been in his thoughts ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... her, the cool deliberation which marked his exit—offered a picture of calm stoicism just on the point of tumbling over the precipice of destruction not to be equalled—not, at least, since those halcyon dramatic days when Osbaldiston leased ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 30, 1841 • Various

... short halcyon days of his opening independence, however, he was able to make himself the centre of such a world as he would have loved to live in. He was not, of course, generally popular, either at college or at home; nor yet in town, except among that small set in whose midst he inevitably found ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... she, Dona Fernandez, were but ten years younger! But the chosen birds of Venus, the white doves of matrimony, were not destined to hover over her head a second time. Tears of longing and vexation dimmed her eyes as she thought of the golden, halcyon days of youth that would never return. At any rate, Felipe and Chiquita must not meet until after she had warned the latter. Blanch must be used as a foil ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... For two halcyon months Yuki San lived in a dream. The ample compensation Merrit insisted upon making for the hospitality extended to him more than met the modest needs of the little household, and once again, as in the earlier days, they went on jolly excursions, visited ...
— Little Sister Snow • Frances Little

... had much immediate satisfaction in the intimacy which these relations created. He was getting in the thin edge of the wedge, and would calculate as he went home to Ponder's End how long it must be before he could ask his friend to propose him at some West End club. On one halcyon summer evening Lopez had dined with him at Ponder's End, had smiled on Mrs. Parker, and played with the hopeful little Parkers. On that occasion Sexty had assured his wife that he regarded his friendship ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... weaving at break of day, Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . . Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, We weave the robes of ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu

... my first crop of filberts from my experimental garden here in town and my bushes at Halcyon Frunut Gardens (this is the name of my nut farm) are growing nicely and some have catkins for next year's crop. The filberts that I have just harvested were borne from three Cosford bushes of the French strain. I have some German strain that I received from Mr. McGlennon ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... Pr'ythee soon, Even in the passing of thine honey-moon, Visit my Cytherea: thou wilt find Cupid well-natured, my Adonis kind; And pray persuade with thee—Ah, I have done, All blisses be upon thee, my sweet son!"— Thus the fair goddess: while Endymion Knelt to receive those accents halcyon. 930 ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... attacking the Duke of Newcastle and the Earl of Bute. But beyond all this, he meant something more, which gives the real spice to his writings. It was something not quite easy to put into formulas; but characteristic of the vague discomfort of the holders of sinecures in those halcyon days arising from the perception that the ground was hollow under their feet. To understand him we must remember that the period of his activity marks precisely the lowest ebb of political principle. Old issues had been ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... extremely fat, and are supposed by some of our epicures to be equal to the famous Ortolans of Europe. Their note at this season is a single chuck, and is heard overhead, with little intermission from morning till night. These are halcyon days for our gunners of all descriptions, and many a lame and rusty gun-barrel is put in requisition for the sport. The report of musketry along the reedy shores of the Delaware and Schuylkill is almost incessant, resembling a running fire. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... of the bursting spray, O halcyon bird, That wheelest crying, crying, on thy way; Who knoweth grief can read the tale of thee: One love long lost, one song for ever heard And wings ...
— The Iphigenia in Tauris • Euripides

... anchorage under a small island and stayed for the night, and I shot a large fruit-pigeon new to me, which I have since named Carpophaga tumida. I also saw and shot at the rare white-headed kingfisher (Halcyon saurophaga), but did not kill it. The next morning we sailed on, and having a fair wind reached the shores of the large island of Waigiou. On rounding a point we again ran full on to a coral reef with our mainsail up, but luckily the wind had almost died away, and with a good deal of ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... called upon to forget that there is much that is inspiring and delightful in the commencement of the year. The time-honored custom of our metropolis has made it a point of peculiar radiance; a halcyon period, when heart's-ease would seem to be the general feeling, and smiles the social insignia. Then the visit is exchanged between friends whom perhaps the departed year had somewhat alienated; old associations are revived, and cordialities ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... looked at him with swimming eyes, then held out two trembling hands. He took them, helped her to her feet, and before releasing them, bent and touched them with his lips. Then side by side and in silence they traveled on through the halcyon calm ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... halcyon broods through the Sabbath-days of winter, and, looking from her nest, sees the waves of a summer calm and brightness,—now while she meditates, with the eggs under her wings, of a fast-approaching time when she shall teach her song to the little ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... the river in its boldest course," she wrote, "interspersed by halcyon isles on which Nature has lavished all her prodigality in tree, vine, and flower, banked by noble bluffs three hundred feet high, their sharp ridges as exquisitely definite as the edge of a shell; their summits adorned ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... land that is happy and fair, Set gem-like in halcyon seas; The white winters visit not there, To sadden its blossoming leas, More bland than the Hesperides, Or any warm isle of the West, Where the wattle-bloom perfumes the breeze, And the bell-bird builds ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... for a man to have a companion of sperrit, same as I have, that keeps a' drivin an a drivin at him, and makes him be up an doin. An now, I declar, if I ain't gittin to be a confirmed wanderer agin, same as I was in the days of my halcyon an shinin youth. Besides, I have a kine o' feelin as if I'd be a continewin this here the rest of all ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille

... furore among the musical public of that day as would an opera from Gounod or Verdi in the present. The principal airs were sung throughout the land, and published as harpsichord pieces; for in these halcyon days of our composers the whole atmosphere of the land was full of the flavor and color of Handel. Many of the melodies in these now forgotten operas have been worked up by modern composers, and so have passed into modern ...
— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... And many a halcyon day he lived to see Unbroken, but by one misfortune dire, When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she Was gone-and Gertrude climbed a widowed ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper

... halcyon days at Echo Lodge in the golden prime of August. While there she incidentally contrived to hurry Ludovic Speed in his leisurely courting of Theodora Dix, as related duly in another chronicle of her history.(1) Arnold Sherman, an elderly friend of the Irvings, was there at the same ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the land with its drone of priests and its temples, in which scarce a worthy disciple of the learned patriarchs of ancient days is to be found. Received with open arms, persecuted, patronized, smiled upon, tolerated, it with the last phase of its existence, has reached, not the halcyon days of peace and rest, but its final stage, foreshadowing its decay from rottenness and corruption."[40] So also, in a like report, agree many witnesses. The common people of China are ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... strown beneath your prow, Like carpets for a victor's feet; You call slow zephyrs to your brow, In listless luxury complete: Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship; Oh, might his pinion touch ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... pride. Oh! follow, follow, follow, Come quickly unto her, Her body is more sweet Than cassia or myrrh, She is whiter than the moon, She is stranger than death, Stronger than the new moon Which the waters draweth. More lovely are her words More lovely is she Than the flight of white birds O'er a halcyon sea. She took the stars for toys— Her magic was so strong— Murmurs of earth and the noise Of green seas for a song. She leant down on the sill And called across the sea. ... Oh! follow, follow, follow, Come quickly unto me...." A voice cried over ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... intervention proved successful. Kazmah's charges became more modest, and Rita no longer found it necessary to deprive herself of hats and dresses in order to obtain drugs. But, nevertheless, these were not the halcyon days of old. She was now surrounded by spies. It was necessary to resort to all kinds of subterfuge in order to cover her expenditures at the establishment in old Bond Street. Her husband never questioned her outlay, but on the other hand it was expedient to ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... by the poets, is the bird called the King Fisher. It was believed by the ancients that while the female brooded over the eggs, the sea and weather remained calm and unruffled; hence arose the expression of Halcyon days. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various

... in the state of Israel in spite of the halcyon days it enjoyed under Jeroboam II. From the indirect results of war, from changes in the tenure and in the culture of the soil, from defective administration of justice, the humbler classes had much to suffer; they found that the times were evil. ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... mine own folly of stubborn pride had known so little of content and the deep and restful joy of it; here, I say, greatly tempted am I to dwell and enlarge upon these swift-flying, halcyon days whose memory Time cannot wither; I would paint you her changing moods, her sweet gravity, her tender seriousness, her pretty rogueries, her demureness, her thousand winsome tricks of gesture and expression, the vital ring of her sweet ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... life on the Eighth Circuit in the mind and fancy of Mr. Lincoln yet lingered there, even in the most responsible and glorious days of his administration; over and over again has the great President stolen an hour ... from his life of anxious care to live over again those bygone exhilarating and halcyon days ... with Sweet or me."—Henry C. Whitney in ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... were thus immovable with pieces of crested plate, which he had neither the temerity to use nor the hardihood to melt or sell. He could but gloat over them behind locked doors, as I used to tell him, and at last one afternoon I caught him at it. It was in the year after that of my novitiate, a halcyon period at the Albany, when Raffles left no crib uncracked, and I played second-murderer every time. I had called in response to a telegram in which he stated that he was going out of town, and must ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung

... Principal of St. Leonard's College, his frequent absences being made possible by the fact that though he had much to do with the government and regulation of the University of St. Andrews, he was not actively employed in giving instruction. But after this we float at once into a halcyon time. It was in the end of 1569 or beginning of 1570 that he was appointed the governor of the King, and in this capacity and amid peaceful surroundings more appropriate to his character than the rage of politics, the old scholar becomes more distinctly visible ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... glorious as Belinda's hair? Yet, if his name you'd eternize, And must exalt him to the skies; Without a star this may be done: So Tickell mourn'd his Addison. If Anna's happy reign you praise, Pray, not a word of halcyon days: Nor let my votaries show their skill In aping lines from Cooper's Hill;[2] For know I cannot bear to hear The mimicry of "deep, yet clear." Whene'er my viceroy is address'd, Against the phoenix I protest. When poets soar in youthful strains, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... town of Grovebury. The six weeks by the sea seemed a kind of oasis between the anxious period of the war that was past and gone, and the new epoch that stretched ahead in the future. To Ingred they were halcyon days. To have her father and brothers safely back, and for the family to be together in the midst of such beautiful scenery, was sufficient for utter enjoyment. She did not wish her mind to venture ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil

... out of those so halcyon skies Chill blasts of disillusion blow When I observe with pained surprise The state of things in Mexico; And "Why," I ask, "in Heaven's name, Can't 'God's own country' (U.S.A.) go And, by the right none else may claim, Put it across ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 26, 1920 • Various

... carried them back to many scenes connected with past experiences; and they lived again in the various happenings marking those halcyon days. ...
— Motor Boat Boys Down the Coast - or Through Storm and Stress to Florida • Louis Arundel

... space Down some frore Arctic of the aerial ways: And now, back warping from the inclement main, Its vaporous shroudage drenched with icy rain, It swung into its azure roads again; When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you Lit, a white halcyon auspice, ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson

... month of August, and the city of *****, a fair is annually held, in which, during those halcyon days of prosperity, my father was an active trafficker. Thither the neighbouring gentry, yeomanry, and dealers in general, repaired, as the best mart in the county, at which to expend their money. It was fifteen miles ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... now nutting in the copse or gathering brier roses in the lanes; setting out our strawberry feast under the great elm-tree on the lawn or picking up fir-cones in the Redmond avenue. Spring flowers and autumn sunsets—bright halcyon days of my youth made glorious ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients. If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have no ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... peaceful class-room of the far North. A towsled woman or child drifted now and then into the meson shop to buy a Mexican cent's worth of firewood. The woman who kept the shanty fonda down the street boasted of having lived nineteen months in California in her halcyon days, but was obliged to borrow enough of me in advance to buy the ingredients of the scanty supper she finally prepared. By eight the corral was snoring with arrieros and I ascended ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... and happiness spread a soft glow of enchantment over ship and sail, sea and sky, so vivid, so far reaching, that it even touched and tinted the distant shores of that far off, rock bound coast of Alaska. Smooth seas, lovely weather and favoring winds speeded the voyagers: those halcyon days flew swiftly by. Almost before they dreamed it possible the vessel came to anchor in the port that marked the end of the voyage. Safely landed, my father reported at once at the office of The Alaska Mining Company, only a few miles distant. There he commenced his five years of management for ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson

... coming to consider, back to a mere three words she had begun by using about Charlotte Stant. She simply "cleared them out"—those had been the three words, thrown off in reference to the general golden peace that the Kentish October had gradually ushered in, the "halcyon" days the full beauty of which had appeared to shine out for them after Charlotte's arrival. For it was during these days that Mrs. Rance and the Miss Lutches had been observed to be gathering themselves for departure, and it was with that ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... his home "Halcyon House," and what a suitable and lovely name for one in his business, and one who had settled here after his service in the Revolution. For the halcyon was a fabled bird, whose nest floated upon the sea. It had ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... halcyon days of youth,—after the sap was gathered, and the fuel piled high beside the arch, then it was that we sat down by the blazing fire and watched it burn; heaped on the logs, filled up the kettle, and again ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various

... Cardenas in 1650, to about 1720, was the halcyon period of the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. During that time things went on in the missions after the fashion I have attempted to describe. The people passed their time in their semi-communistic labour, sweetened by constant prayer; ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... Marpessa daughter of Euenus, and of Ides the man then living. He it was who took his bow and faced King Apollo himself for fair Marpessa's sake; her father and mother then named her Alcyone, because her mother had mourned with the plaintive strains of the halcyon-bird when Phoebus Apollo had carried her off. Meleager, then, stayed at home with Cleopatra, nursing the anger which he felt by reason of his mother's curses. His mother, grieving for the death of her brother, prayed the gods, and ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... Billy was during one of my engagements at the Palace Theater, New York. He was then soliciting orders for some photograph firm, the halcyon days of his big money having faded to a memory. But he had been a good showman and his was one of the best liked working acts in the Curio, as ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini

... timepiece on the ranch he recognized a menace, and not until Lawrence had cornered the market and the whole collection was safely locked in his trunk did he breathe easily. This required two days, during which the young people at the ranch enjoyed themselves thoroughly. They were halcyon days for the Yale man, for Fresno was universally agreeable, and seemed resigned to the fact that Helen should prefer his rival's company to his own. Even when Speed had regretfully dragged himself off to bed in the evening, the plump tenor amused ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach

... expose herself to the weather as did her mother, there was nothing feeble about her, nor was she averse to action. Life at Ardkill Cottage was dull, and therefore she also was dull. Had she been surrounded by friends, such as she had known in her halcyon school days at Paris, she would have been ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... parishioners: Thou marriest every year The lyrique lark, and the grave whispering dove, The sparrow, that neglects his life for love, The household bird with the red stomacher; Thou mak'st the blackbird speed as soon As doth the goldfinch or the halcyon.' ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... instructed even Christian students in their synagogue. Jews took care of vacant benefices for the king. In the reign of Henry I. the Jews began to make proselytes, and monks were sent to several towns to preach against them. Halcyon times! With the reign of Stephen, however, began the storms, and, with the clergy, the usurper persecuted the Jews, exacting a fine of L2,000 from those of London alone for a pretended manslaughter. The absurd story of the Jews murdering young children, to anoint Israelites or to raise ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... the highest situations in the State? And that, meandering through the tempting sinuosities of ambition, the purchaser will find the margin strewed with roses, and his head quickly crowned with those precious garlands that flourish in full vigour round the fountain of honour? On this halcyon sea, if any gentleman who has made his fortune in either of the Indies chooses once more to embark, he may repose in perfect quiet. No hurricanes to dread; no tormenting claims of insolent electors to evade; no tinkers' wives to kiss.... ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford

... news of the outside world during the last twelve years. All this Jefferson Hope was able to tell him, and in a style which interested Lucy as well as her father. He had been a pioneer in California, and could narrate many a strange tale of fortunes made and fortunes lost in those wild, halcyon days. He had been a scout too, and a trapper, a silver explorer, and a ranchman. Wherever stirring adventures were to be had, Jefferson Hope had been there in search of them. He soon became a favourite with the old farmer, who spoke eloquently of ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle

... solidarity and a fine enthusiasm. There had been just sufficient new blood infused into it to counteract the jealous humours and to minimise the weariness of spirit of those older members who had served in the halcyon days of Parnell and had gone through all the squalidness and impotence of the years of the Split. Had the Party been rightly handled, and led by a man of strong will and inflexible character, it could have been made the mightiest ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan

... relegated to the condition of life which he would otherwise have filled a little earlier. He has been wounded, but not killed, or even maimed. But he who has a little success, who succeeds in earning a few halcyon, but, ah! so dangerous guineas, is drawn into a trade from which he will hardly escape till he be driven from it, if he come out alive, by sheer hunger. He hangs on till the guineas become crowns and shillings,—till some sad record of his ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope

... For the halcyon days of peace, prosperity, and progress can hardly be assumed as yet, and not even the most distant and self-contained Dominions can afford to ignore the menace of blood and iron. No power, indeed, is likely ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... the concern," said Watson, "and take to stagging in Surrey." This was supposed to be the bitterest piece of satire that could be uttered in regard to the halcyon country in which ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... Those halcyon days were too serene to last long. When his honour the Laird of Gandercleugh, with his wife and three daughters, the minister, the gauger, mine esteemed patron Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, and some round dozen of the feuars and farmers, had been consigned to immortality by Tinto's brush, ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... lingered, by unseen hands fast bound, My willing fancy captive to the magic of sweet sound, And eagerly I listened to the whispering voices tell Of happy days of childhood, and the tear unbidden fell, As were pictured to the mind again the halcyon scenes of yore, And loved ones that no more I'll meet till ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy

... rule,—I have only sought to help and to comfort. But sixty-eight years of life weigh heavily on the faculties,—I cannot wear the sword and buckler of energetic manhood. I am old—old!—and to a certain extent, incapacitated for useful labour. Hence I almost grudge my halcyon time spent among simple folk,—time made sweet by all the surroundings of Nature's pastoral loveliness;—the sorrow of the wider world knocks at my heart and makes it ache! I feel that I am one of those who stand by, idly watching the Master's second ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... gratified, not completely, but enough to remove grounds for lover's fretfulness. He passed idyllic days in halcyon weather. Often she would send her gondola to fetch him from the Grand Hotel, where he was staying. Now and then, most graciously audacious of princesses, she would come herself. On such occasions he would sit awaiting her with beating heart, juvenis fortunatus nimium, ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... Prussia. They clutched eagerly, however, at his proposal that Prussia should form a league of the North German States, and made overtures to the two most important States, Saxony and Hesse-Cassel. During a few halcyon days the King even proposed to assume the title Emperor of Prussia, from which, however, the Elector of Saxony ironically dissuaded him. This castle in the air faded away when news reached Berlin at the beginning of August that Napoleon was ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... without a sou in the locanda at Venice," said Mistigris. "And I had to get from Venice to Rome by painting portraits for five francs apiece, which they didn't pay me. However, that was my halcyon time. I don't ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... know, a great number of worthy people, both in this country and Japan, who regard the expenditure on an Army and Navy as entirely unproductive, and look forward to the halcyon days when all such expenditure shall cease and the taxation now devoted to these purposes shall be diverted to more worthy objects. I am afraid, as the world is at present constituted, there is no prospect of such a, in some respects, ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... as with a garment to enfold, And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew, And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake, Seeming delight to take In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay, From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay. Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light, With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright, Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight; And like a Vallombrosa, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various



Words linked to "Halcyon" :   golden, genus Halcyon, Greek mythology, happy, family Alcedinidae, Alcedinidae, bird genus



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