Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

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




Swan   Listen
noun
Swan  n.  
1.
(Zool.) Any one of numerous species of large aquatic birds belonging to Cygnus, Olor, and allied genera of the subfamily Cygninae. They have a large and strong beak and a long neck, and are noted for their graceful movements when swimming. Most of the northern species are white. In literature the swan was fabled to sing a melodious song, especially at the time of its death. Note: The European white, or mute, swan (Cygnus gibbus), which is most commonly domesticated, bends its neck in an S-shaped curve. The whistling, or trumpeting, swans of the genus Olor do not bend the neck in an S-shaped curve, and are noted for their loud and sonorous cry, due to complex convolutions of the windpipe. To this genus belong the European whooper, or whistling swan (Olor cygnus), the American whistling swan (Olor Columbianus), and the trumpeter swan (Olor buccinator). The Australian black swan (Chenopis atrata) is dull black with white on the wings, and has the bill carmine, crossed with a white band. It is a very graceful species and is often domesticated. The South American black-necked swan (Sthenelides melancorypha) is a very beautiful and graceful species, entirely white, except the head and neck, which are dark velvety seal-brown. Its bill has a double bright rose-colored knob.
2.
Fig.: An appellation for a sweet singer, or a poet noted for grace and melody; as Shakespeare is called the swan of Avon.
3.
(Astron.) The constellation Cygnus.
Swan goose (Zool.), a bird of India (Cygnopsis cygnoides) resembling both the swan and the goose.
Swan shot, a large size of shot used in fowling.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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





"Swan" Quotes from Famous Books



... torches, the music, the Masque—a sort of play without words in which every one wore the most wonderful and beautiful dresses, and the Queen herself took a part dressed all in gauze and jewels and white swan's feathers—all these things were like a dream to Dickie, and through it all the words kept on saying themselves to him very gently, very quietly, and ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit

... is that the significant features of all villages are whiskers, iron dogs upon lawns, gold bricks, checkers, jars of gilded cat-tails, and shrewd comic old men who are known as "hicks" and who ejaculate "Waal I swan." This altogether admirable tradition rules the vaudeville stage, facetious illustrators, and syndicated newspaper humor, but out of actual life it passed forty years ago. Carol's small town thinks not in hoss-swapping but in cheap motor cars, telephones, ready-made clothes, ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... my friend. Dijon and I have sat by the hour, and gazed upon that company of images. The severe, the frisky, the classical, the Louis Quinze, were there—from Joan of Arc in her soldierly cuirass, to Leda with the swan; nay!—and God forgive me for a man that knew better!—the humorous was represented also. We sat and gazed, I say; we criticised, we turned them hither and thither; even upon the closest inspection they looked quite like statuettes; and yet ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

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

... operas, songs, and instrumental music. (1658-1695).—Rosy Bowers: One of Purcell's most celebrated songs. "'From Rosie Bowers' is said to have been set in his last sickness, at which time he seems to have realized the poetical fable of the Swan and to have sung more sweetly as he approached nearer his dissolution, for it seems to us as if no one of his productions was so elevated, so pleasing, so expressive, and throughout so perfect as this" (Rees's ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning

... the trees there as it comes through, and I get the echoes of them. Sometimes I hear the men's voices, and then I know what it is. It's the old Norsemen going out over the sea to look at their tracks again. Bless you, I've heard them talk about the Swan's bath. Sometimes the dead ladies come and whisper, and I know they're walking in the woods all ...
— The Romance of the Coast • James Runciman

... was very quiet and the White Swan, usually full at this hour, was almost deserted, but if any doubts as to the identity of the prisoner lingered in his mind they were speedily dissipated by the behaviour of the few customers who crowded to the ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... as the barges which bore the youthful bride and her newly-appointed suite floated nearer; the great festal barges carved with bas-reliefs from classic story, were all of white and silver, their sails of satin, plumed with roses, and from each prow the figure of a glorified swan flashed rosy light from eyes of ruby: and every rower in white and silver plying his silver oar, wore the arms of Cornaro blazoned on his sleeve, with a sash of the colors ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... say to this. He just toed the ground with his toe, and finally said, "We'd rather stand on the barl, Mr. Rutledge." I knew what he meant. It wouldn't be like Tom Sawyer to go inside. And the sheriff laughed and said, "Well, I'll swan, have it your way. But mind you, I'm going to hide and hear what is said, for I want to hear what he says about all this devilish work. But if you tease him or say anything out of the way, I'll stop it ...
— Mitch Miller • Edgar Lee Masters

... of the sea, before he brings them to the mothers. The latter point out these blocks to their little sons and daughters, telling them how once they were laid upon them by the stork to get dry." The great blocks of granite that lie scattered on the coast of Jasmund are termed Schwansteine, "swan-stones," and, according to nursery-legend, the children to be born are shut up in them. When a sister or brother asks: "Where did the little swan-child"—for so babies are called—"come from?" the mother replies: "From the swan-stone. ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

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

... tenfold by much practice, her fingers instantly closed upon it, but, not a muscle belonging to any other part of her betrayed the intrusion of a foreign body: I do not believe her heart gave one beat the more to the next minute. She passed graceful on, her swan's-neck shining; and Leopold hastened out to one of the windows of the ball-room, there to feast his eyes upon her loveliness. But when he caught sight of her whirling in the waltz with the officer of dragoons whose name he had heard coupled with hers, and saw her flash on him the ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

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

... those swan-white, sky-blue, rose-pink maidens who in every town and on every plantation from Memphis to Charleston, from Richmond to New Orleans, despatched their billets by the forlornly precarious post only when they could not send them by the "urbanity" of such or such a one! ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable

... O Tantlatch, that the wild goose and the swan and the little ringed duck be born here in the low-lying lands. It be known that they go away before the face of the frost to unknown places. And it be known, likewise, that always do they return when the sun is in the land and ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London

... passed; and Swan Day was to all appearance no nearer his return to the land of his birth than when he first trod the deck that bore him away from it. He was still on the first round of the high ladder to fortune. Thus far he had wrought diligently ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... other small craft were rolling lazily on the gentle swell. Further out still lay a great merchant-ship, high ended, deep waisted, painted of a canary yellow, and towering above the fishing-boats like a swan among ducklings. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... his beard; the latter was so thick as to make a handful, even for one of his hands. "Well," he said, somewhat apologetically, "you see, Martha, it's like this: IF you sold them Development shares of yours—and I swan I can't think of anything else you own that would sell for just that money—IF you sold 'em, I say, I'd like to know how you done it. I've got four hundred shares of that stock I'd like to ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln

... fit for a king was lowered, and eight or ten sailors, richly dressed, took their places at the oars. A man, whose long white hair hung about his shoulders in snowy profusion, and whose beard, white as the swan's down, came to his breast, descended to the boat ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... the bark On a breeze to the northward free. So shoots through the morning sky the lark, Or the swan through the summer sea. Merrily, merrily, goes the bark— Before the gale she bounds; So darts the dolphin from the shark, Or the deer before the hounds. McGLADSTONE stands upon the prow, The mountain breeze salutes his brow, He snuffs the breath ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 25, 1890 • Various

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

... fingers across the harp. At the first ringing note of the music they felt the vessel stir. Orpheus thrummed away briskly and the galley slid at once into the sea, dipping her prow so deeply that the figurehead drank the wave with its marvelous lips, and rising again as buoyant as a swan. The rowers plied their fifty oars, the white foam boiled up before the prow, the water gurgled and bubbled in their wake, while Orpheus continued to play so lively a strain of music that the vessel seemed to dance ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... honey, with learning like to that of the god Thoth, with wit like a razor's edge, with teeth like pearls, with majesty of bearing like to that of the king himself, with fingers like rosebuds set in pink seashells, with motion like that of an antelope, with grace like that of a swan floating upon water, and—I don't remember the rest, ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... of mahogany and satinwood veneer, and the large ones were often in three sections, the center section standing farther out than the two sides. The glass was covered with a graceful design in moldings, and the pediments were of various shapes, the swan-neck being a favorite. ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... the gravestone of Preben Swan and his wife!" exclaimed an old man, who by his age might appear the grandfather of everybody in the room. "To be sure, they were among the last that were buried in the old convent churchyard—the grand old couple! Everybody knew them, everybody loved them; they were ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... at which not a few of the fast fellows excel, is that of imitating upon a key-bugle various animals, in an especial manner the braying of an ass: when the fast fellows drive down to the Trafalgar at Greenwich, the Toy at Hampton Court, or the Swan at Henley upon Thames, the bugle-player mounts aloft, the rest of the fast fellows keeping a lookout for donkeys; when one is seen, a hideous imitative bray is set up by the man of music, and his quadrupedal brother, attracted by the congenial sound, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... (1910) 5016. The village is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway, by the Buffalo, Lockport & Rochester electric railway, and by the Erie Canal. In Albion are the Western House of Refuge for Women (a state institution established in 1890), a public park, the Swan Library, and the county buildings, including the court house, the jail and the surrogate's office; and about 2 m. to the S.E. is the beautiful Mount Albion Cemetery. Albion is the centre of the Medina sandstone industry, and lies in the midst of a good farming region, of which it is the principal ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... mirror, and to look at myself, just as I am, white as snow and straight as a fir, with my long, fine, hair, like a cloak of black silk. When I spread abroad the black stream of it, with both hands, I am like a white swan with black wings." ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... is like the snaw drift; Her throat is like the swan; Her face it is the fairest That e'er the sun shone on,— That e'er the sun shone on; And dark blue is her ee; And for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me doune ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... came the report of a gun in response to Harris's flag signal. Bills were paid at once, and the Harrises took carriage down to the landing. As the "Hallena" glided in between the piers, she was as graceful as a swan, or as Leo expressed it, "as ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton

... she has prepared herself," Rastignac said, turning to de Marsay. "What a virginal toilette; what swan's grace in that snow-white throat of hers! How white her gown is, and she is wearing a sash like a little girl; she looks round like a madonna inviolate. Who would think that you had ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac

... on the poop to Bramble, who, as usual, had his short pipe in his hand; and I certainly was pleased when I saw what a beautiful craft we had helped to capture. She sat like a swan on the water, and sailed round and round us ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... alone responsible for a vicious national habit which, for aught any one knows to the contrary, may be a growth of comparatively modern times, we call to mind the Horatian poetaster, who began his account of the Trojan war with the fable of Leda and the swan. ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... name of that old fellow," said Mr. Maxwell, abruptly, "who had a beautiful swan that came every day for fifteen years, to bury its head in his bosom and feed from his hand, and would go ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... been drawn by the housemaid, and he now opened them. It was a frosty moonlight night, and the lawn lay white and crisp, marked with fantastic shadows. The others looked grave and pale, Emily was in a thick white shawl and hood, with a swan's down boa over her black dress, a somewhat ghostly figure herself, but we were in far too serious a mood for ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the princely Hoch Gall and the Gross Lengstein Glacier, shone like molten silver against the intense blue sky, whilst the Schnebige Nock rose pure and isolated across the narrow valley, suggesting to one of the party the simile of the swan-breasted maiden of Northern mythology. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... as they wound out of the wood which here and there clothed its banks, occasionally dipping into the water. On the loft, attached to the glebe-house of the Protestant pastor of the parish, the eye rested upon a pond as smooth as a mirror, except where an occasional swan, as it floated onwards without any apparent effort, left here and there a slight quivering ripple behind it. Farther down, springing from between two clumps of trees, might be seen the span of a light and elegant arch, from under which the river gently ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... "I swan," he said. "Ef that ain't jest the thing I have been awantin' for the past twenty year. What'll ye sell me the hull plant ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... next season we took the trail en route to Cheyenne, Wyoming, with two thousand head of fine Texas steers for the Swan Brothers, 20 miles northwest of Cheyenne. Nothing of unusual importance happened on this trip aside from the regular incidents pertaining to driving such a large herd of cattle on the trail. We had a few stampedes and lost a few cattle, arriving in Cheyenne we ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love

... Character and Comedy Old Lamps for New The Hambledon Men The Open Road The Friendly Town Her Infinite Variety Good Company The Gentlest Art The Second Post A Little of Everything Harvest Home Variety Lane The Best of Lamb The Life of Charles Lamb A Swan and Her Friends London Revisited A Wanderer in Venice A Wanderer in Paris A Wanderer in London A Wanderer in Holland A Wanderer in Florence The British School Highways and Byways in Sussex Anne's Terrible Good Nature The Slowcoach ...
— A Boswell of Baghdad - With Diversions • E. V. Lucas

... that can sometimes make a swan?' said Ethel, slyly touching her father's spectacles; 'but with you both, there's always a something to attract the embellishing process; and between Harry and Aubrey, Dr. Spencer and Sir Matthew, we could hardly fail to have heard ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... mill dam, Hey Edinbruch, how Edinbruch, Oh father, father, in our mill dam, Stirling for aye: There's either a lady, or a milk-white swan, Bonny Sanct Johnstonne that ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... zenith. A dazzling light was spread through the air, along the whitish hills strewed with cylindric cactuses, and over a sea ever calm, the shores of which were peopled with alcatras,* (* A brown pelican, of the size of a swan. (Pelicanus fuscus, Linn.)) egrets, and flamingoes. The splendour of the day, the vivid colouring of the vegetable world, the forms of the plants, the varied plumage of the birds, everything was stamped with the grand character of nature in the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... until the Christian Brothers came, a few years afterwards, that this was changed. I shall always be grateful to that noble body of men, not only for the religious but for the national training they gave. We had Brothers Thornton and Swan—the latter since the Superior ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir

... sweet! when I do look on thee, In whom all joys so well agree, Sweet, think not I am at ease, For because my chief part singeth; This song from death's sorrow springeth: As to swan in last disease: For no dumbness, nor death, bringeth Stay to true love's melody: Heart and soul do ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney

... white' was at one time, from this point of view, not probable but certain; though we now know it to be false. It would have been an indecorum to call it only probable as long as no other-coloured swan had been discovered; not merely because the quantity of belief amounted to certainty, but because the number of events (seeing a swan) and the number of their happenings in a certain way (being white) were equal, and therefore the evidence amounted to 1 or certainty." But, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... Somerville, who had been strongly advised not to take a gun lest he should shoot himself or his horse or his companions, was content to take the field with a small pocket-pistol, which he crammed to the muzzle with a compound of ball and swan-shot. ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... the blackness or the brightness of the listener's soul and becomes a thousand melodies instead of one. What does the moaning monotony of a Korean love-song mean to the westerner, or what does the Swan song mean to the Korean? Only God knows. We can never translate one nation into the language of another; our best is only an interpretation, and we must always meet the criticism that we have failed with the reply that we had never hoped to succeed. We are forever explaining ourselves even in our ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... carried also on such biers as we might lightly make there, and with them three that were so grievously hurt that they might not go afoot, these we left at Carlstead: they were Tardy the Son of the Untamed, and Swan of Bull- meadow, both of the Lower Dale, and a Woodlander, Undoomed to wit. But the dead were Iron-shield aforesaid, and Wool-sark, and ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... Thomas Peyton, we must remember, had married Dorothy's eldest sister; she died many years ago, and Sir Thomas married again, in 1648, one Dame Cicely Swan, a widow, whose character ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry

... the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, 275 Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight:—'Thou hast a home, 280 Beautiful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... Alley] Bull Alley is now converted into a good-sized street, called Stamford Road, which has a public-house (the Rising Sun) on one side, and a bookseller's shop on the other. Here, for a few years, was a turnpike, which has been recently removed and placed lower down the road, adjoining the Swan Tavern and Brewery, Walham Green, established 1765. [Picture: No. 4, No. 3 Stamford Villas] Houses are being built in all directions opposite several "single and married houses," with small gardens in front and the rear, known as STAMFORD VILLAS, where, at No. 2, resided, in 1836 and 1837, ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... three meals a day and think you have belted in the universe! Go listen to the sea lapping rock and bone to her oblivious mill, and know your hearts shall sleep as sand within her shells! By the dead worlds that drift in yonder void, and long have sung the swan-song of their deities, this too shall pass, and ere it passes flesh shall learn its impotence! Grey stalkers from the past shall clutch the throat of days! All wrongs shall rise and gather ...
— Semiramis and Other Plays - Semiramis, Carlotta And The Poet • Olive Tilford Dargan

... should Jove but find my fair, He would fall in love, I swear, And to his old tricks repair: In a cloud of gold descending As on Danae's brazen tower, Or the sturdy bull's back bending, Or would veil his godhood's power In a swan's form for one hour. Oh, the joys of this possessing! How unspeakable the blessing! How divine ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... the famous traveller,—said to have been radically cured of the gout by a Turkish aga in Egypt, who gave him the bastinado because he would not look at the head of the bashaw of Cairo. But Fizes was right after all in his swan-prescription, for poor Smollett's cure was anything but a radical one. His health soon collapsed under the dreary round of incessant labour at Chelsea. His literary faculty was still maturing and developing. ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... credit given them for this interesting machine, which so closely approximates to the Ferranti. One of their alternating dynamos has been built, and was shown at the Aquarium Exhibition. It works well, and is capable of supporting 300 Swan lights, while in size and appearance it resembles the Ferranti machine in a very striking manner. Drs. Muirhead and Hopkinson have also designed a magneto-electric alternating current machine; but as it closely ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various

... for a plain carriage, with four horses, came at a foot's pace towards the door of the Doctor's house, and the old women, now more at their ease, gave the Doctor to understand, that the gentleman thought the accommodation of the Swan Inn totally unfit for his lady's rank and condition, and had, by their advice, (each claiming the merit of the suggestion,) brought her here, to experience the hospitality of the west room;—a spare apartment, in which Doctor Gray occasionally accommodated such patients, as he desired ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott

... a swan-like death than to live on as a butcher's daughter," said Sophia, and sarcasm was only a ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... of the table Faustina reclined gracefully in a crimson velvet easy-chair. The siren was beautifully dressed in the pure white that her sin-smutted soul, in its falsehood, affected. Her robe was of shining white satin, trimmed with soft white swan's- down; fine white lace delicately veiled her snowy neck and arms; white lilies of the valley wreathed her raven hair and rested on ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... and the Wisdom Being, rising from the grass, came to the place, but before casting himself into the flames he shook himself, lest perchance there should be any insects in his coat who might suffer death. Then, offering his body as a free gift, he sprang up, and like a royal swan, lighting on a bed of lotus in an ecstasy of joy, he fell on the heap of live coals. But the flame failed even to heat the pores or the hair on the body of the Wisdom Being, and it was as if he had entered a region of frost. Then he addressed the Brahmin in these words: "Brahmin, the fire that you ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... served himself, and took a chair by her side. They talked of the successful launching, of the beauty of the ship, sitting as gracefully as a swan upon the water, of the almost perfect likeness ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... This being the anniversary of the Tutelar Saint of Scotland, we had in addition to our usual dinner a roasted swan and a moose-nose, a rice pudding, a cranberry tart, and a ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... gray lava, the albatrosses gather some time during November, and prepare themselves nests. Selecting some space free from tussock-grass, the bird scrapes together a circle of dried grass and clay, in which it lays one egg about the size of a swan's, white, with a band of small brick-red spots round one end. But few naturalists have been able to visit these great breeding warrens, and none have determined how the albatross lives and feeds its young during its absence from the ocean. It is certain that ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... fabulous look, they all coincide in this, and alike convey this same purport, that he departed life without a struggle, while employed in his art, or something connected with it, and that, like an old swan of Apollo, he breathed out his life in song. The story also of the Lacedaemonian general, who having entrenched the burying-ground of the poet's ancestors, and being twice warned by Bacchus in a vision to allow Sophocles to be there interred, dispatched ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... were out of fashion. The Londoners went for amusement to the Bankside, or South Side of the Thames, where were the famous Paris Gardens, much used as a rendezvous by gallants; and there were the places for bear and bull baiting; and there were the theatres—the Paris Gardens, the Swan, the Rose, the Hope, and the Globe. The pleasure-seekers went over usually in boats, of which there were said to be four thousand plying between banks; for there was only one bridge, and that was crowded with houses. All distinguished visitors were taken over to see the gardens ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... yellow sands of Pagasai. And first came Heracles the mighty, with his lion's skin and club, and behind him Hylas his young squire, who bore his arrows and his bow; and Tiphys, the skilful steersman; and Butes, the fairest of all men; and Castor and Polydeuces the twins, the sons of the magic swan; and Caineus, the strongest of mortals, whom the Centaurs tried in vain to kill, and overwhelmed him with trunks of pine trees, but even so he would not die; and thither came Zetes and Calais, the ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... and love quarrels. In turn they drew after them strangers no one here had ever known before; the like of which Hyacinth, who knew his bestiary, had never seen even in a picture. The wild-cat, the wild-swan—the boy peeped on these wonders as they floated over the vale, or [158] glided with unwonted confidence over its turf, under the moonlight, or that frequent continuous aurora which was not the dawn. Even the modest rivulets of the hill-side felt that influence, and "lisped" no longer, but ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of that touching ballad, "Comin' thro' the Rye" (the soprano always sings "Comin' thro' the Rye" on an encore)—the Black Swan used to make it irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, "If a body kiss a body" there was ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

... that genius has yet idealized; that where Hawthorne's "David Swan" slept, or that which Thoreau found upon the banks of Walden Pond, or where Whittier parted with his childhood's playmate on Ramoth Hill. It is not heights, or depths, or spaces that make the world worth living in; for the fairest ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... chain upon the white swan's neck, What were it good for—save to break? And swans who wear and break a chain Swim never ...
— All Round the Year • Edith Nesbit

... of this city and country was Rajahansa, whose armies were formidable with countless elephants and horses, whose glory was unsullied as the moon in a cloudless sky, or the plumage of the swan, and whose fame was sung even by celestial minstrels. Though a terror to his enemies, he was beloved by all his subjects, and especially by the learned and pious brahmans, who were continually employed in prayers ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob

... we had moored close to a swan's nest, and, soon after George and I had gone, the female swan came back, and kicked up a row about it. Harris had chivied her off, and she had gone away, and fetched up her old man. Harris said he had had quite a fight with these two swans; but ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... all round; Eleseus brightened up, and got on finely. They flirted and joked and laughed, and were excellent friends. "When you took my hand just now it was like a bit of swan's ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun

... of the pier just as a great galley filled with men came foaming down the river. Constans could see that it was a war-vessel of the largest size, for there were full sixty oars on a side arranged in two banks. The figure-head was the representation of a black swan, and on the poop-deck stood the slight, graceful figure of a man wearing a plumed hat. Constans saw him remove the cigar from his lips as he turned to give an order. Instantly the port-oars held and backed, and the galley, ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen

... party now descended to the edge of the swamp. Here in the shallow water lay three boats, or rather rafts, constructed of bundles of bulrushes. They were turned up in front so as to form a sort of swan-necked bow, and in outline were exactly similar to the iron of modern skates. Upon each stood a native with a pole for pushing the rafts along, and three or four spears. These were of unusual shape, and the lads examined them with curiosity. They had broad short blades, and these were loosely ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... very longitude. 'Show me that duck,' says I, ironical. 'D'ye take us for fools?' says he; 'we ate the duck for supper.' 'That was like ye,' says I; 'if an angel brought your pardon down from heights celestial, you'd roast him, and sell his feathers for swan's-down; mebbe ye ate the writing? I know y' are a hungry lot.' 'The writing is in my cabin,' says he. 'Show it me,' says I, 'an' mebbe I'll believe ye.' No, the cuss would only show it to the Springbok; 'there's a reward,' says he. 'What's the price of ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... with Amberley, a Mecca for weekend anglers; it has a famous inn, the "Swan," and is a good halting place before proceeding westwards, in which direction our road now runs. A mile out of the town we take final leave of the Arun at Stopham Bridge, a fine medieval structure of many arches. The Rother ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... the thoughts That our bosoms upbore. Like a lily the touch Of each cold little hand. The loves of the stars We could now understand. O quivering air! O the crystalline night! O pauses of awe And the faces swan-white! O ferns in the dusk! O forest-shrined hour! O earth that sent upward The thrill and the power, To lift us like leaves, A delirious whirl, The masterful boy And the delicate girl! What child that strange night-time Can ever forget? His fealty due And his ...
— The Congo and Other Poems • Vachel Lindsay

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

... "Never! No. Not even to the farm. Here she received her wound; here all that you and I can do shall be done to save her. Ah, here's Harris, with the villain's things. Get the lady's boxes out, and put Mr. Severne's into the fly. Give the man two guineas, and let him leave them at the 'Swan,' ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

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

... philosopher tells us that blessings brighten as they take their flight. The flight of Congress may be regarded as a blessing. But Congressmen do not brighten. PUNCHINELLO listens in vain for the swan song of SUMNER, and looks longingly, without being gratified by the spectacle of the oratorical funeral pyre of NYE. Almost the only gleam of humor he discerns in his weekly wading through the watery ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various

... her a little, wistfully, yet courteously, as if her attention was attracted by something fresh and winning. She looked at the color, ebbing and flowing in the girl's cheeks; at her brows and lashes; at her neck, as white as swan's-down; and finally put out her hand with a sudden impulse and touched the knot of wavy bronze ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin

... be, whether by the same collection of a more dense body then the other, or at least, of the denser part of the other, there might not be imagin'd a reason of the apparition of some new fix'd Stars, as those in the Swan, Cassiope's ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke

... upon her the smile of beaming affection with which she always regarded her family. She was standing under the mistletoe in her light blue cloak and hood bordered with swan's-down, and her eyes shone like lamps in the bright ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... cliffs of Redwing speeding back, Like specters melting from a cloudy wrack, Melted from view in our dissolving track. Kaposia's village, clustered on the shore, With sound of snapping poles and tipis riven, Vanished like swan's-down by a tempest driven. Stung by our flight, the keen air smote us sore As ragged hailstones; on, still on, we strained, And fast and faster on the chase we gained, But neck and neck the fierce ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... Danite travelled on for many hours. The way was not easy. Sometimes where the trees were thin their legs were tangled knee-deep in a plant covered with minute white feathery blossoms, looking like white swan's-down shot through with green light, that carpeted miles of the ground; sometimes the trees had fallen so thickly that they had to clamber from log to log rather than walk; sometimes their way was a bog, and they were in danger of sinking deeper ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... I am the ugly duckling,' she would say, with tears in her eyes; 'but I shall never turn into a swan like Sara and Lesbia,—not that I want to be like them!'—with a little scorn in her voice. 'Lesbia is too tame, too namby-pamby, for my taste; and Sara is stupid. She laughs and talks, but she never says anything that people have not said a hundred ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... Swan flocks of lilies shoreward lying, In sweetness, not in music, dying; Hardback, and virgin's-bower, And ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... I seen, an' I'll swan to man that I did see the Monster of Devil Island, as folks round here call him. I'd been down to York Island in my pinkey, and was tryin' to git back here before night, but the wind died out jest at dark, an' I made up my mind I might as well hang up in Bold Island harbor as to spend ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... about 9000 feet. (Unlike the greater number of birds, the female humming-birds are generally as richly ornamented as the male.) It is named from the curious white puffs or ruffs—looking as if formed of swan's-down—on the legs. The head of the male, the sides of the neck, and back, are green, with a bronzed tint, except on the tail-coverts, where the green is pure, and of metallic brilliancy. The tail is black, with a purple gloss; the throat is of a shining, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... wild swan floats upon my breast; The sea-gulls to my waters sink; And stealing to my low green shores, The timid deer oft stoops to drink. The yellow jessamine's golden bells Ring on my banks their fairy chime; And tall flag lilies bow and bend, To ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson

... down before. Half the men were under water in a moment; but they had all, one after another, come up to the surface again for breath, when—tinkle, tinkle, babble, and gush! came the princess's laugh over the water from far away. There she was, swimming like a swan. Nor would she come out for king or queen, chancellor or ...
— The Light Princess and Other Fairy Stories • George MacDonald

... attacked by a swan on the banks of a lake, in the grounds of a relative of mine. She had to take to flight, and was met running along the path crying for aid, with the swan, its wings outstretched, ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... came on board to dinner, they informed me that the people continued to behave in the same inconsistent manner as in the morning; but more especially one man, whom Mr Edgcumbe was obliged to fire at, and believed he had struck with a swan shot. After that the others behaved with more discretion; and as soon as our people embarked they all retired. While we were sitting at dinner an old man came on board, looked into many parts of the ship, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... appearance, and, soaring into the air after them, it alighted into the water, and seeing its own reflection, was filled with amazement and wonder to find itself no longer an ugly duckling but—a swan. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... yeou tew say thet, an' I feel it, I swan," he finally stammered, as he managed to thrust out his brown hand, and take that of the boy which had been so impulsively ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... fever? Madame Gravois even had prepared some concoction which she poured out of a bottle, and which I took with the docility of a child. Monsieur Vigo had called, and there was a note. A note? It was a small note. I glanced stupidly at the seal, recognized the swan of the St. Gre crest, broke ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Michael Sun Heart Lion Swan Carbuncle Gabriel Gabriel Moon Left foot Cat Owl Crystal Camael Zamael Mars Right hand Wolf Vulture Diamond Michael Raphael Mercury Left hand Ape Stork Agate Zadikel Sachiel Jupiter Head Hart Eagle Sapphire (Lapis lazuli) Haniel Anael ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove

... ever fertile garden of poetic images, the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I always knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those flowery dykes of Battersea Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al

... continent—and done for Van Diemen's Land what it has done for the Isle of Wight—the shore line is broken and ragged. Viewed upon the map, the fantastic fragments of island and promontory which lie scattered between the South-West Cape and the greater Swan Port, are like the curious forms assumed by melted lead spilt into water. If the supposition were not too extravagant, one might imagine that when the Australian continent was fused, a careless giant upset the crucible, and spilt Van Diemen's land in the ocean. The coast navigation ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... am, and Suffolk am I call'd. Be not offended, nature's miracle, Thou art allotted to be ta'en by me. So doth the swan her downy cygnets save, Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings. Yet, if this servile usage once offend, Go and be ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]

... did betray my love, That toy of each Chryseis in the camp; And with him lies this captive soothsayer, His faithful leman and his sea-mate too. For what they did the pair have dearly paid. One there ye see, the other like a swan, When she had sung her dying melody, Fell in her paramour's embrace and lent Fresh relish to my ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

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

... thing, it was unlike Borrow to remain in debt, and it is incredible that he should have ridden away upon a horse purchased with another man's money, without any set purpose in his mind. Therefore the story of his employment at the Swan Inn, Stafford, where he found his postilion friend, and the subsequent adventures must be reluctantly sacrificed. They do not ring true, nor do they fit in with the rest of the story. That he experienced such adventures is highly probable; but it is equally probable ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... I say of the House-Cock, which treads any hen; and, then, contrary to the Swan, the Partridge, and Pigeon, takes no care to hatch, to feed, or cherish his own brood, but is senseless, though they perish. And it is considerable, that the Hen, which, because she also takes any Cock, expects it not, who is sure the chickens be her own, hath by a moral impression her ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton

... now recognized, thy ancient place as queen, And mistress of the house, once more thou dost resume, The long-time loosen'd reins grasp thou; be ruler here, And in possession take the treasures, us with them! Me before all protect, who am the elder-born, From this young brood, who seem, thy swan-like beauty near, But as a basely winged ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... which Clemence shortened her preparations for the night, one would have said that she must have been blessed with an unusually sleepy sensation. But when she lay in bed, with her head under her arm, like a swan with his neck under his wing, and almost in the attitude of Correggio's Magdalen, her eyes, which sparkled with a feverish light, betrayed the fact that she had sought the solitude of her bed in order to indulge more freely ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard

... contributes to the general happiness brings about contentment Succession, can the people of England alter the instances in Greek and Roman history where it was altered Sunday, the difference between, and weekdays Swan, Captain Sweet singers Swift, his attitude towards the Church of England, his position as a religious thinker his High Church leanings made evident his relation to the Whigs considered as a party man his letter to Pope his championship of the Church of England his sentiments with regard to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift

... many friends in the theatrical world, and I was immensely thrilled one evening at learning that after the performance of Lohengrin, Elsa and the Knight of the Swan were coming home to supper with us. When Elsa appeared on the balcony in the second act, and the moon most obligingly immediately appeared to light up her ethereal white draperies, I was much excited at reflecting that in two hours' time I might ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

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

... must be this way," Jenkins suggested. "There was a dozen of us usin' the same bit of lookin' glass, an' I swan I must have ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... made, when five plates were exposed over positions behind the enemy's lines with very imperfect results. Its great value as an aid to observation in trench warfare was, however, very apparent, fresh brains were brought to the task, Moore-Brabazon, Campbell and Dr. Swan, and by the end of the year better success was obtained, though positions even then had to be filled in by the observer with red ink. Experiments at home during 1915 led to a great improvement in lenses, and at the beginning of 1916 air photography was universal. At the Battle of the Somme ...
— Aviation in Peace and War • Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes

... expression of indescribable happiness which marks the features of Mdlle. de Cardoville, is added a certain resolute, cutting, satirical air, which is not habitual to her. Her charming head, and graceful, swan-like neck, are raised in an attitude of defiance; her small, rose-colored nostrils seem to dilate with ill-repressed ardor, and she waits with haughty impatience for the moment of an aggressive and ironical interview. Not far from Adrienne ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... did extremes ever meet in a more practical sense than in the American Museum. Commodore Nutt was the shortest of men; and at the same time the Museum contained the tallest of women. Her name was Anna Swan, and she came from Nova Scotia. Barnum first heard of her through a Quaker, who was visiting the Museum. This visitor came to Barnum's office, and told him of a wonderful girl, only seventeen years old, who ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... lateen sails of the gun-boat in advance were now plainly distinguishable from the rest, which were all huddled together in her wake. Down she came like a beautiful swan in the water, her sails just filled with the wind, and running about three knots an hour. Mr Sawbridge kept her three masts in one, that they might not be perceived, and winded the boats with their heads the same way, so that they might dash on board of her with a few strokes of the oars. ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... years ago in the north of England; and as a number of people were collected on the banks of the Tyne, whose waters had risen to an unusual height, a swan was seen swimming across the flood. On its back was a black spot, visible among its white plumage. As the swan came nearer, this was found to be a live rat. No sooner had the swan, after bravely breasting the foaming torrent, reached the ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... ambrosia from the Walhalla of topsyturvy is this Elsa with her "eyes hymeneally illumined" as she awaits her saviour. He appears and they are married. Alas! The pillow of the nuptial couch becomes a swan that carries off Lohengrin weary of the tart queries made by his little bride concerning love and sex and other unimportant questions of daily life. This Elsa is a sensual goose. She is also a stubborn believer in the biblical ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... Nova Cygni—the "new star in the Constellation of the Swan"—was first observed on the 24th November 1876 by Dr. Schmidt of Athens, who had examined that part of the heavens only four days before, and is sure that no such star was visible then. At its brightest it was a brilliant star of the third magnitude, but this only lasted ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... and painted, to adorn a new church at Panama. She brought also from Lima 800,000 pieces of eight to carry with her to Panama; but while she lay at Huanchaco, taking in her lading of flour, the merchants, hearing of Captain Swan's being at Valdivia ordered ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various

... as that proverbial bear that dreams of pears might accept an exceedingly mellow "swan-egg"—really liking the gift, but accustomed to have his pleasures and pains concealed under a ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... is the groundwork: good! All the field is stained with blood— Blood poured out for Helen's sake; (Thread, run on; and shuttle, shake!) But the shapes of men that pass Are as ghosts within a glass, Woven with whiteness of the swan, Pale, sad memories, gleaming wan From the garment's purple fold Where Troy's tale is twined and told. Well may Helen, as with tender Touch of rosy fingers slender She doth knit the story in Of Troy's sorrow and her sin, Feel sharp ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... depart; I charge you, stay! And were my voice a trumpet loud as fame, To reach the round of heaven, and earth, and sea, All nations should be summoned to this place, So little do I fear that fellow's charge: So should my honour, like a rising swan, Brush with her wings the falling drops away, And proudly plough ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... lame duckling might grow up into a wonderful swan, and munched his apple ruminatively. Neither happened to think of a certain incident, much discussed, in which that edible figured prominently. And he did ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller

... this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready to conduct ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

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

... He consented with reluctance, but, having done so, fitted the party out nobly for the voyage, charging the Polos with friendly messages for the potentates of Europe, including the King of England. They appear to have sailed from the port of Zayton (as the Westerns called T'swan-chau or Chin-cheu in Fo-kien) in the beginning of 1292. It was an ill-starred voyage, involving long detentions on the coast of Sumatra, and in the South of India, to which, however, we are indebted for some of the best ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... held I might have known that that broken muttering over the fire was the swan-song of Charlie Mears. But I thought it the prelude to fuller revelation. At last and at last I should cheat the Lords of Life ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... steamed farther and farther away, the church on the mountainous hill appeared to change in shape. Notre Dame de la Garde looked no longer like a building made by man, but like a great sacred swan crowned with gold, and nested on a mountain-top. There she sat, with shining head erect on a long neck, seated on her nest, protecting her young, and gazing far across the sea in search of danger. The sun touched her golden crown, and dusky cloud-shadows grouped far ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... the continent, so as to see whether behind the islands of the Nuyts Archipelago there might be a channel connecting with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and so cutting New Holland in half. They were then to sail west to "Terre Leeuwin," ascend the Swan River, complete the exploration of Shark's Bay and the north-western coasts, and winter in Timor or Amboyne. Finally, they were to coast along New Guinea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and return ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... in front of us. The elegant figure, like the figure of a black swan, was silhouetted suddenly against the glare of intermittent gaslight and then swallowed again in night. The intervals between the lights were long, and a fog was thickening the whole city. Our pace, therefore, had become ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton

... swan among a flock of geese," laughed Mildred Roper. "You've all grown really quite silly over Monica. I admire her very much myself, but I don't go and kiss her jacket when it's hanging in the vestibule, or beg her old torn exercises ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil

... excelled. I cared not much about the piano, but there was inspiration in the very sight of a harp. In imagination I was Corinna, improvising the impassioned strains of Italy, or a Sappho, breathing out my soul, like the dying swan, in strains of thrilling melody. Edith was a St. Cecilia. Had my hand swept the chords, the hearts of mortals would have vibrated at the touch; she touched the divine string, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... First the Swan gave a scream of warning. The Crane repeated the cry, and from the very middle of the lake the Loon, swimming low, took it up and echoed it back over ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman

... excitement, it has its dangers, in the daydream where wishes are fulfilled without effort. Power, glory, beauty and admiration are obtained; the ugly Duckling becomes the Swan, Cinderella becomes the Princess, Jack kills the Giant and is honored by all men; the girl becomes the beauty and heroine of romance; the boy becomes the Hero, taking over power, wealth and beauty as his due. The world of romance is largely the wish-world, ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... all the past had now answered its purpose, and like the scaffolding when the top stone of a building is brought forth with shouting, might be swept away and the world be none the poorer. And so he rejoices in the Christ that he receives, and sings the swan-song of the departing Israel, the Israel according to the Spirit. And that is what Judaism was meant to do, and how it was meant to end, in an euthanasia, in a passing into the nobler form of the Christian ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren



Words linked to "Swan" :   roll, sweep, swan's down, Cygnus columbianus, Cygnus buccinator, cast, cygnet, rove, take, coscoroba, cob, move, swan dive, Swan River everlasting, mute swan, family Anatidae, jazz around, affirm, swan-neck, range, drift, sail, Anatidae, black swan, Swan River daisy, swan song, locomote, roam, attest, err, vagabond, maunder, assure, stray, Cygnus atratus, assert, tundra swan, go, aver, swear, gad, Cygnus olor, ramble, wander, claim, whooper swan, tramp, swan orchid, protest, Bewick's swan



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com