"Billow" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three servants and A tutor, the licentiate Pedrillo, Who several languages did understand, But now lay sick and speechless on his pillow And, rocking in his hammock, longed for land, His headache being increased by every billow; And the waves oozing through the port-hole made His berth a little damp, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... So did the dance. Wave followed on ripple, sea on wave, and on the sea the foaming, far-flung billow. Limb after limb, the whole supple body of the blind dancer came into play; yet there was no visible tension. Never dead, never hard, but limp,—as limp as flowing, rushing water,—she whirled and swayed through all the emotions until, at the highest pitch ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain
... drizzled, it hiss'd and it whirl'd, And it bubbled like water when mingled with flame, And columns of foam to the heaven were hurl'd, And billow on billow tumultuously came; It seem'd that the womb of the ocean would bear Sea over sea ...
— The Song of Deirdra, King Byrge and his Brothers - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... thunder-shower. For a moment, precious as an aeon, she held her hands upon me—then slowly opened her eyes. Out of them flashed the living soul of my Athanasia. She closed the lids again slowly over the lovely splendour; the water in which we stood rose around us; and on its last billow she floated away through the winding passage of the cave. I sought to follow her, but could not. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... blinded and bewildered with the urgency of his own case, to see her as she really was. He remembered now,—something that he had never thought about before,—the little toss of her hair, up from her forehead, which was different from the way other girls wore their hair. It made a little billow there, that was like her free spirit. Yes, she had always had a free spirit. Perhaps it was the claim of ownership he had made, which had repelled her so strongly. As well set up a claim of ownership over those stars ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... wild and low Ever, o'er the curved shells, Wanders with a fitful flow As the billow sinks or swells. Now, to faintest whispers hushing, Now, in louder cadence gushing, Wakens from their pleasant sleep All the tuneful Nereid-throng, Till their notes of wreathed song Float in magic streams along, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 581, Saturday, December 15, 1832 • Various
... had been left standing an enormous dry pine, that towered so up high above the surrounding forest as to have long served as a landmark for the hunters and fishermen, in setting their courses through the woods or over the lake. Here the fiery billow, as if governed by the human tactics of a military assault, paused, parted, and swept by on either side, till it had inclosed the elevation; when suddenly it shot up from every side in an hundred converging tongues of flame, which, soon meeting ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... secret place they found in one of those, Where the cleft shore sea in his bosom takes, And 'twixt his stretched arms doth fold and close An ample bay, a rock the haven makes, Which to the main doth his broad back oppose, Whereon the roaring billow cleaves and breaks, And here and there two crags like turrets high, Point forth a port to ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... thee, my baby, the night is behind us, And black are the waters that sparkled so green. The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us At rest in the hollows that rustle between. Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow; Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease! The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... crush out all life and hope and send him into helpless bankruptcy, with the poor consolation that, though legally responsible, he was not morally bound to pay other people's debts. But Scott's own sanguine carelessness had been partly to blame for the Ballantyne failure; and he faced the billow as it suddenly appeared, bowed to it in grief but not in shame, and, while not pretending to any stoicism, instantly resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the repayment ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... beach, the bathers, by hundreds dash in; and diving under the swells, make straight for the outer sea, pausing not till the comparatively smooth expanse beyond has been gained. Here, throwing themselves upon their boards, tranquilly they wait for a billow that suits. Snatching them up, it hurries them landward, volume and speed both increasing, till it races along a watery wall, like the smooth, awful verge of Niagara. Hanging over this scroll, looking down from it as from a precipice, the bathers halloo; ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... through the boiling zig-zag current, now avoiding great, jagged rocks by a hair's-breadth, now bounding like a deer over a smooth incline, now plunging into a seething white billow; and, when at last they swept round into the quiet bay at the foot of the cataract, Dan leaped up, and waving his paddle on high uttered a wild war-whoop learned long ago in the swamps of the Oro. There was an answering cheer from the group of men ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... the retreating wave as you dare, and then, with a walking stick or an umbrella, or your finger, if nothing better is to be had, write your name, or draw a hideous spook on the wet sand. You have to be quick about it, too; for just as you are putting the finishing touches to the work, another great billow is sure to come tearing at you, with a wide, deep hollow of emerald green, and foaming crest, looking like molten silver in the moonlight. Crash! it falls on the beach; and a long rush of foam slides up the sand as you scamper out of reach, not always without a wet shoe or two. Now the water has ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... tree which grew from it have been dressed many times in its summer robe of green, and it was, doubtless, flourishing when the "Mayflower" left the English Channel. When she was slowly making her way from billow to billow, through the then almost unknown sea, bearing some of the most brave and liberty-loving men and women the world, at that time, could produce; when the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers were beating high with hopes of liberty and escape ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... A mighty billow flings its cloud of foam over the faces of Claude and the shrinking girl by his side, and blinds them with salt spray. But high as the tide is, the Chair is still above its reach, and although the wave may sprinkle them, it cannot swallow them up. Only they are deafened ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... of the office—it is easily imagined; it will not be easily forgotten by those of us who witnessed it. Next morning we had left Boshof and its green streets behind, and were winding along the road, the line of patrols sweeping like a long billow over the hills before and on each side of us. We paused for a night at Zwaartzkopjesfontein, went on the next morning to Mahemsfontein; whence, having received orders from Lord Roberts to halt, we fell back ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... river yell and rave They had no power above the wave, But they heaved the billow before the prow, And they dashed the surge against her side, And they struck her keel with jerk and blow, Till the gunwale bent to the rocking tide. She wimpled about to the pale moonbeam, Like a feather that floats on a wind-tossed stream; And momently athwart ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... England preserved peace with all foreign states during the rage of this political tempest. Her attitude was morally sublime. The waves rose, and the hurricane raged around her, but she towered above the billow and the tempest, her crown bright with the glory which the sun of liberty shed upon it. The stranger who found a refuge and a home within her borders, might well offer to her the tribute which the poet Moore ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... circuitous route; and now driven in fury before the raging tempest, on the high and giddy waves. The awful voice of the storm howls through the rigging. The laboring masts seem straining from their base; the dismal sound of the pumps is heard; the ship leaps, as it were, madly from billow to billow; the ocean breaks, and settles with engulfing floods over the floating deck, and beats with deadening weight against the staggered vessel. I see them, escaped from these perils, pursuing their all but desperate undertaking, and landed at last, after five months' passage, on the ice-clad ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... forecastle was filled with water, and the helpless little band were driven to the deck, where they clustered round the foremast. Presently, even this frail support was loosened from the hull, and rose and fell with every billow. It was plain to all that the final moment drew swiftly nigh. Of the four seamen who still stood by the passengers, three were as efficient as any among the crew of the Elizabeth. These were the steward, carpenter, ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... wandered along the roads, or into the little winding valleys, their sides covered with a fleece of gorse blossoms, the strong sweet odor of which intoxicated her like the bouquet of wine, while the distant sound of the waves rolling on the beach seemed like a billow rocking her spirit. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... billow swells! The God! the God! his boast: A boast how vain! what wrecks abound! Dead bards stench ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... but the men behaved steadily and well; and through it we went, dancing along like a cork in a mill-pond; at last one huge roller caught us, all hands gave way, and we were hurried along on the top of the swelling billow, which then suddenly fell under us and broke; in a moment after we had grounded, and although still upwards of two hundred yards from the shore, we all jumped out to haul the boat up, but ere we could move our heavily laden whaler beyond a few yards breaker ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... grey dawn so misty-looking and indistinct, that it was difficult to decide the question. The captain himself was not certain. "However, we shall soon be able to settle the matter," he observed, as the Barbara, now on the summit of a mountain billow, was about to glide down the steep incline. Down, down, we went—it seemed that we should never be able to climb the opposite height. We were all looking out for the strangers, expecting to settle the disputed point. "Where are they?" burst ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... its deep vista upon the waters. They were now sparkling in the crimson flush from a sky more than usually brilliant. Both sky and ocean were blent in one; the purple beam ran out so pure along the waves, that every billow might now be seen, every path and ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Not to have perished was their only hope. Far as from Leucas point the placid main Spreads to the horizon, from the billow's crest They viewed the dashing of th' infuriate sea; Thence sinking to the middle trough, their mast Scarce topped the watery height on either hand, Their sails in clouds, their keel upon the ground. For all the sea was piled into the waves, ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... men bowling o'er the billow, Or him, less wise, Who chose rough bramble-bushes for a pillow, And ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... sigh he opened the box. A billow of white dust came from it. The box fell apart and the pieces, like disintegrating gelatine, began to melt away. A printed card, made of the same unstable material, ...
— Impact • Irving E. Cox
... Sadly to greet her,— Moon in her silver light, Stars in their glitter. Then sank the moon away Under the billow. Still wept the maid ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... flood, swash; spring tide, high tide, full tide; bore, tidal bore, eagre^, hygre^; fresh, freshet; indraught^, reflux, undercurrent, eddy, vortex, gurge^, whirlpool, Maelstrom, regurgitation, overflow; confluence, corrivation^. wave, billow, surge, swell, ripple; anerythmon gelasma [Gr.]; beach comber, riffle [U.S.], rollers, ground swell, surf, breakers, white horses, whitecaps; rough sea, heavy sea, high seas, cross sea, long sea, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... tossing the light boat in a majestic flood of angry water, whitened by foam, and beaten into waves, where it rounded the rocky edge of the island. Across this tumbling surge streamed the glorious sunlight, gilding each billow into beauty, while in the midst of it, bearing swiftly down toward us, came that strange thing that had so startled Madame. What in the name of nature it might prove to be, I could not hazard—it had the appearance of some queer, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... get back—she was imprisoned on the island. She had crossed over at almost the last moment possible. The sea now quite covered two or three of her stepping-stones; fierce surf broke over the rest with each advancing billow, and rendered the task of jumping from one to the other impracticable even for a strong and sure-footed man, far more for a slight girl of Cleer's ...
— Michael's Crag • Grant Allen
... the bed; but just as she was about to reply the laboring man in the next room slammed his door, and went thundering down the stairs. In an instant Mrs. Makebelieve bounded from her bed; three wide twists put up her hair, eight strange billow-like movements put on her clothes; as each article of clothing reached a definite point on her person Mary stabbed it swiftly with a pin—four ordinary pins in this place, two safety pins in that: then Mrs. Makebelieve kissed her daughter sixteen times ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... now He felt the fire-light feed upon his brain, And started with intensity of pain, And wash'd him in the sea; it only brought Wild reason, like a demon, and he thought Strange thoughts, like dreaming men—he thought how those Were round him he had seen, and many rose His heart had hated; every billow threw Features before him, and pale faces grew Out of the sea by myriads:—the self-same Was moulded from its image, and they came In groups together, and all said, like one, "Be cursed!" and vanish'd in the ...
— The Death-Wake - or Lunacy; a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras • Thomas T Stoddart
... fills with a lighter azure; the star swoons, and the sun peers over the crest. It ascends. Its rays plunge into the pool of darkness still upon the meadow; they pierce it, at first separately as with rapier thrusts, and then finally billow down into it in a cascade of molten gold. The shadows flee; the sunlight strikes the cabin; and Charles-Norton Sims appears ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... carry vases, which figure for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the ground, and the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic swell. At any moment it might be a hundred feet away from you, climbing the next billow. At any moment a window might open, and some old admiral thrust forth a cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old admirals sail the sea no longer; the old ships of battle are all broken up, and live only in pictures; but this, that was a church before ever they were thought upon, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... call loudly for our zeal. The groans of the lost gather strength as they ascend the pit. The voice of heaven, from angels, saints, and God, urge us onward in the discharge of duty. Oh, the wreck is on the billow; hasten with the means of safety. The plague-spot is in the camp; offer the incense of atonement. And let all your efforts be put forth in faith, and under a deep impression of the truth of Cecil's memorable words: "Faith is the master-spring of a Minister," as well as of ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... backed by the resources of a great country and the staying qualities of a great mind. What would have been the outcome of Charles's career if pitted against almost any other monarch of Russia that one could name it is difficult to imagine. But pitted against Peter the Great he was like a foaming billow hurling itself against ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... "Bounding billow, cease thy motion, Bear me not so swiftly o'er; Cease thy roaring, foamy ocean, I will tempt ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... "Stonewall" Jackson, with ten thousand at his back; And Longstreet, too, and gallant Hill, and Rhodes, and brave Huger,[1] And he whose name is worth a host, our bold, devoted Lee; And back to where the lordly James his scornful billow rolls, The recreant foe is fleeing ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... even there the ceaseless thunder of the surge is in his ears, and the roar of the surf under the broken reef will not let him be quiet; "keep back but twelve feet from me," is his last prayer, "and there billow and roar as much as thou wilt."[29] But even the grace of a tomb was often denied. In the desolation of unknown distances the sailor sank into the gulfs or was flung on a desert beach. Erasippus, perished with his ship, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... never behold the surf Lit by the sun into gold, Curl and glitter and gleam, In a ring-like billow rolled, But I think of another ring, A simple, delicate band, That in the night of our troth I placed ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... vigorously, though harshly, expressed, respecting sublime poetry 'in genere'; but in reading Homer I look about me, and ask how does all this apply here. For surely never was there plainer writing; there are a thousand charms of sun and moonbeam, ripple, and wave, and stormy billow, but all on the surface. Had Chapman read Proclus and Porphyry?—and did he really believe them,—or even that they believed themselves? They felt the immense power of a Bible, a Shaster, a Koran. There was none in Greece or Rome, and they tried therefore by subtle allegorical accommodations to conjure ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the mountain-cleft Was the Troglodyte concealed; And the roving Nomad left, Desert lying, each broad field. With the javelin, with the bow, Strode the hunter through the land; To the hapless stranger woe, Billow-cast on that ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... earing up to the peak. Though the waves rushed by the vessel with the velocity of the fleetest steeds, and demolished everything that obstructed their career, our craft appeared to defy their fury, and sprung from billow, to billow with the playful ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... and towns, tiny as children's toys—then the azure gleam of the sea and the boats dancing like bits of cork upon it,—then finally the plainer, broader view, wherein the earth with its woods and hills and rocky promontories appeared to heave up like a billow crowned with varying colours,—and so steadily, easily down to the pattern of grass and flowers from the centre of which the Palazzo d'Oro rose like a little white house for ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... im-moral way in which elections used to be conducted!)—I felt it was safe for me to wing my flight to fresh scenes and pastures new!—not that I wanted any "new pastures," having been a grass-widow for some time;—but having had enough of the "rolling billow"—(by the way, the rolling "Billow" at Stockbridge didn't roll fast enough)—I yearned for the silvery smoothness of Father Thames, so started for Henley with my faithful Eulalie—(I really must change her name, it sounds like a Swiss joedel); but, oh! my ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892 • Various
... miles over in many places, and twenty miles in other places, with wonderful eddies and strong currents, many great islands, and divers shoals, and many dangerous rocks; and besides upon any increase of wind so great a billow, as we were sometimes in great peril of drowning in the galley, for the small boats durst not come from the shore but when it ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... sun is going down behind the line of distant buttes, throwing long shadows out across the grassy upland. Every crest and billow of the prairie is bathed in crimson and gold, while the "breaks" and ravines trending southward grow black and forbidding in their contrasted gloom. Far over to the southeast, in dazzling radiance, two lofty peaks, still snow-clad, gleam against the summer sky, and ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... the Turkish fleet: For do but stand upon the foaming shore, The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds; The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous main, Seems to cast water on the burning Bear, And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole; I never did like molestation view On ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... between, The tow'ring waves, which bend with hoary brow, Then dash impetuous to the deep below. With broader sweepy base, in gather'd might Majestic, swelling to stupendous height, The mountain billow lifts its awful head, And, curving, breaks aloft with roarings dread. Sublimer still the mighty waters rise, And mingle in the strife of nether skies. All wildness and uproar, above, beneath, A world immense of danger, dread, ...
— Poems, &c. (1790) • Joanna Baillie
... all its horrors is not akin to them and was never meant to be. Rather should their footsteps lead them where the bobolink sings as he circles over a green meadow, and the blue water lilies stoop to kiss the brook that ripples through it; or where the fields of grain bend and billow in the summer breeze; or the old mill-wheel splashes, while the white flowers in the pond above smile in the sunlight. If the patient reader will but follow their lives a little further, only peace and happiness and all the gentle voices ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... breaking over the Downs. Coming ashore later, on a giant roller, the wave burst into awful masses of towering foam, so high above and around the lugger that for an instant she was out of sight, overwhelmed, and the crowds cried, 'She's lost!' but upwards she rose again on the crest of the following billow, and with the speed of an arrow flew to the land on this mighty ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... circumstanced now, to what I was then. Instead of a frail cockle-shell, that threatened to be capsized by every billow that approached it, and that would scarcely hold two persons comfortably, I was master of a well-built ship's-boat, that would hold half a dozen with ease, and except in very rough weather, was as safe ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... sooner are the winds at point to rise, Than either Ocean's firths begin to toss And swell, and a dry crackling sound is heard Upon the heights, or one loud ferment booms The beach afar, and through the forest goes A murmur multitudinous. By this Scarce can the billow spare the curved keels, When swift the sea-gulls from the middle main Come winging, and their shrieks are shoreward borne, When ocean-loving cormorants on dry land Besport them, and the hern, her marshy haunts Forsaking, mounts above the soaring cloud. Oft, too, when wind is toward, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... immortal Julius! He hath comforted us in our grief, in our great woe! He hath given us verses sweeter than honey, more melodious than the cymbals, more fragrant than the rose, more pure than heaven's azure! Bear him in triumph; surround his inspired head with a soft billow of incense; refresh his brow with the waving of palm branches; lavish at his feet all the spices ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... one long sentence, each member of which adds a fresh touch to the tragic picture. The monotonous repetition of 'and,' 'and,' 'and,' gives the effect of an endless succession of the wares of sorrow, pain, and contumely which broke over that sacred head. We shall do best simply to note each billow as it breaks. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... shoulder of the drift she went around to the foot of the steep eastern side and there, in the lee of the billow that curled high above her, she tried to dig with her hands a tiny hole. At every movement that displaced a handful of sand, a dry golden flood poured down from above, covering instantly the mark she had made. With sudden, energy the young woman exerted all her strength, ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... her eye wandered about the vacant room, it fell upon a white and tempestuous ocean of counterpane, an ocean breaking into strange movements of wave and crest and billow. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... escape from the noise and traffic of the city, Freshwater Bay affords a delightful retreat. During the bright days of summer the sea breaks in gentle murmur on the sand and shingle of the beach, but in winter when lashed by S.W. Gales "it tumbles a billow on chalk and sand." The roar of the ocean can be heard for miles inland. The esplanade shown in the picture has been destroyed by the breakers. Temporary repairs have been effected, but a fierce controversy is still raging as to the ultimate ...
— Pictures in Colour of the Isle of Wight • Various
... Hugged in the clinging billow's clasp, From sea-weed fringe to mountain heather, The British oak with rooted grasp Her slender handful holds together; - With cliffs of white and bowers of green, And Ocean narrowing to caress her, And hills and threaded ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... down, to the sea gate at the end of a warm, still, foggy day. There in the deepening twilight we drifted without a sign of a world around us—till in from the ocean there came a deep billow, then another and another, and as our small craft darted off to one side a gigantic gray shadow loomed through the fog with four black towers of smoke overhead, lights gleaming from ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... the sky-line, in the north-east this time, another column of smoke was lifting its first billow over the tree-tops. "Oh, Dick!" she exclaimed, in beautiful alarm, ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... miles from land are we, Tossing about on the roaring sea— From billow to bounding billow cast, Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast. The sails are scattered abroad like weeds; The strong masts shake like quivering reeds; The mighty cables and iron chains; The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,— They strain and they crack; ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... following those who were descending to the village. They soon came in sight of the inn, which was, however, scarcely visible, so small did it look, a black speck at the foot of that enormous billow of snow, and when they opened the door Sam, the great curly dog, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... or more in front of the island, and in the opposite direction from the other fire, another great billow of smoke arose spirally into the air. The people and animals who had been fleeing toward the creek, which they thought contained water, but which was dry, all turned and came running toward the island grove. Even the ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... reach over, catch in front of the line, kindle a new fire, and again be overleaped by a new tongue of fire, so that the whole line became a belt of flames, and appeared to be rolling along in a huge billow of fire, three or four rods across, ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... thick, yellow billow of it pouring into our shell hole.... I couldn't get my mask on fast enough ... and here I am, Gray, wondering, but really knowing.... Are you stopping at ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... had been right in fearing the effect this knowledge would have upon him. It stung his pride, wounded his heart, and forever marred his faith in love and friendship. As the truth broke over him, cold and bitter as a billow of the sea, she saw gathering in his face the still white grief and indignation of an outraged spirit, suffering with all a woman's pain, with all a man's intensity of passion. His eye grew fiery and stern, the veins rose dark upon his forehead, the lines about the mouth showed hard and ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... Why now blow winde, swell Billow, And swimme Barke: The Storme is vp, and all is ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... we hollow'd his narrow bed And smooth'd down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... encounter. Ah, but ye that extrude from the ocean your helpless faces, Ye over stormy seas leading long and dreary processions, Ye, too, brood of the wind, whose coming is whence we discern not, Making your nest on the wave, and your bed on the crested billow, Skimming rough waters, and crowding wet sands that the tide shall return to, Cormorants, ducks, and gulls, fill ye my imagination! Let us not talk of growth; we are still in ...
— Amours de Voyage • Arthur Hugh Clough
... road was bad, a steep, rocky path, with loose, rolling stones. When we came to the Ice Sea, the young lady, as was natural, took the guide's hand, and I, the last of the caravan, strode cautiously along, my alpenstock in my hand, over the slippery, billow-like ice. But soon it began to split up into deep crevasses, and farther on we came to places where the path you had to follow was no wider than a few hands' breadth, with yawning precipices in ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... anklets of green jade with which her two little bare feet were loaded, as if to help them to stand firm. And a soft broad band of gold ran right round her just below her lovely breast, that lay held in its gold cup like a great double billow made of the creamy lather of the sea, prevented from escaping as it swelled up by the delicious dam formed by the curve of her shoulders meeting the soft bulge of the upper part of her rounded arms, which ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... beat and shouted round their little prison-isle, each billow leaping as if possessed by a separate demon. The absurd horror of the situation overwhelmed him. He dared not attempt to carry her ashore, for she might spring from his grasp into the flood. He could not leave her to call for help; and what if nobody came till she lost her mind from terror? Or, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... anything else in nature. I love great plains too, but I like them best because they are like the sea when they billow under the breeze." ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... the stairs. Just as Alexis flung himself before the Princess, the new-comer caught the young man's outstretched arm and wrenched something from his hand. The next second he had hurled it into a far corner where stood the great fireplace. There was a blinding sheet of flame, a dull roar, and then billow upon billow of acrid smoke. As it cleared they saw that the fine Italian chimneypiece, the pride of the builder of the House, was a mass of splinters, and that a great hole had been blown through the wall into what had been the dining-room.... A figure was sitting on the ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... strikes full on the sail and raises the waves up to heaven. The oars are snapped; the prow swings away and gives her side to the waves; down in a heap comes a broken mountain of water. These hang on the wave's ridge; to these the yawning billow shows ground amid the surge, where the sea churns with sand. Three ships the south wind catches and hurls on hidden rocks, rocks amid the waves which Italians call the Altars, a vast reef banking ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... deck, and that there was only one way of escape. Thrusting his slim figure between the beams of the open-work, where no full-grown man could have passed, he held on with all his strength. Crash came the great billow against the side, making the whole ship quiver from stem to stern; but Austin remained unhurt. The next moment he was ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... A billow of heartsick desolation surged over her. Alone—always alone. And still alone. And always ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... the trick is in the skill of the oarsmen in holding the boat on the pitch of the billow so that in its rush it takes you with it. The native boys do the feat standing on a plank. I was tempted to try this myself, but of course made ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... I exclaimed, when the huge billow showed itself through the night, rushing towards the mole. The smith stuck his crowbar between two great stones. To this he held on with one hand, and threw the other arm round Agnes's waist. I, too, had got my oak firmly fixed, held on with one hand, and threw the other arm round ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... in the cunningly-wrought chest the raging blast and the stirred billow and terror fell upon her, with tearful cheeks she cast her arm around Perseus and spake, 'Alas, my child, what sorrow is mine! But thou slumberest, in baby-wise sleeping in this woeful ark; midst the darkness of the brazen rivet thou shinest and in the swart gloom sent forth; thou heedest not ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... palm-trees scattered over the chalky cliffs of the littoral; a fortress-like bungalow with balconies and a flat roof, an elephant standing at its entrance, and a native boat on the crest of a foaming billow. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... {268} Recovering again just in time, I saw another wave send the dingey once more on board with a crash, and splinters flew up, so we thought she was smashed, but it was the jigger-boom that was broken by the collision. The very next billow broke the dingey's painter of strong canoe rope, but much worn. Away floated the tiny cockleshell, and it was very soon hid in ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... us rest on the oar, And vex not a billow that sighs to the shore:— For sacred the spot where the starry waves meet With the beach, where the breath of the citron is sweet. There's a spell on the waves that now waft us along To the last of our ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the daily rainstorm, usually about noon, was a remarkable sight. Immense fan-shaped, thunderous-looking clouds would come rolling up, billow upon billow, travelling at great speed and accompanied by terrific wind. A flash of lightning and a crashing peal of thunder and the deluge began, literally a deluge. The rainfall averaged about 180 inches in seven months. At Cherrapunji, in the Kassia Hills, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... it a firm grip, sighing hard the while, and then there was silence for a time, as the gig rocked easily in the darkness, while the thunderous roar of the breakers grew less violent; and, instead of being deluged with spray as every billow curved over, there was a sensation as of shelter and warmth which pointed to the fact that the boat must have drifted behind rocks as into some channel; but the intense darkness ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... hundred years ago! But the mystery lightens for whomsoever learns that the substance of Self is older than the sun. He finds that music is a Necromancy;—he feels that to every ripple of melody, to every billow of harmony, there answers within him, out of the Sea of Death and Birth, some eddying immeasurable ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... peaks rise around, on which the eye can admire the sternness of everlasting crags and the equal permanence of delicate and feathery snow. Then there is the sense of seclusion from the haunts and cares of men, of being upheld on the immense billow of the Sierra, at an elevation near the line of perpetual snow, yet finding the air genial, and the loneliness clothed with the charm of feeling the sense of the mystery of the mountain heights, the part of a chain that ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... scarce appearing ahead, before it was glittering under the lugger's bottom. Occasionally a pursuing sea cast the stern upward, as if about to throw it in advance of the bows; but le Feu-Follet was too much accustomed to this treatment to be disturbed, and she ever rose on the billow, like a bubble, and then the glancing arrow scarce surpassed the speed with which she hastened forward, as if to ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... recording the manifold caprices of a tender, yet ambitious nature, in which the mind and heart were unceasingly dupes of each other. It would be like an attempt to follow the devious path of the light foam and laughing sparkle of the billow— ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the heroic Stanley—the foam-crest on the war-billow—dashed on in advance. Twelve thousand steadily-moving infantry under the luckless McCook, poured down the Franklin turnpike, miles away to the right; twelve thousand more streamed down the Murfreesboro pike on the left, with the banner of the over-weighted ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... knowledge of the state of the lake, though, save in momentary glances, it was invisible beneath the black pall of cloud and rain, for waves came surging in, making the boat rise and fall, while from time to time quite a billow rushed beneath the drooping boughs, which partially broke its force ere it struck against the side of the boat with a heavy slap and sent its crest over the covering ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... the billow, Or hermit ray of evening sky, Like ripplings round a weeping willow Are tears ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... rising and falling, swelling and vanishing forever, other melodies are heard in the gorges of the lateral canyons, while the waters plunge in the rapids among the rocks or leap in great cataracts. Thus the Grand Canyon, is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... boat drew nearer and nearer to the foaming lines of surf. Presently they were in the welter of white. Once when the little craft went completely out of sight behind a monster swell, Loll, watching from the cabin top, shouted in alarm, but yelled again in delight as it rose high on the same billow. ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... a continuation of the national road; there is a narrower one below, which used to be called the Rue de la Paille, because the cottages lining it were formerly all thatched with cane straw; and there is one above it, edging the cane-fields that billow away to the meeting of morne and sky. There is nothing of architectural interest, and all is sombre,—walls and roofs and pavements. But after you pass through the city and follow the southern ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... said: and with a baleful smile The vassal knight reel'd off— Like a huge billow from a bark Toil'd in the deep sea-trough, 55 That shouldering sideways in mid plunge, Is travers'd by a flash. And staggering onward, leaves the ear With ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
