"Couchant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... received from the red hands Of that gigantic Empire, insolent Spain, spurred fiercer resentments up like steeds Revolting, on the curb, foaming for battle, In all men's minds, against whatever odds. On one side of the throne great Walsingham, A lion of England, couchant, watchful, calm, Was now the master of opinion: all Drew to him. Even the hunchback Burleigh smiled With half-ironic admiration now, As in the presence of the Queen they met Amid the sweeping splendours of her court, A cynic smile that seemed to say, "I, too, Would fain regain ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... followed him through a scene of melancholy interest. Beside the mast, within a shattered palisade, lay huddled the vast corpse of the Mylodon of Patagonia, couchant amidst his fodder of chopped hay. The expression of the huge animal was placid and urbane in death. He was the victim of the ceaseless curiosity of science. Two of the five-horned antelope giraffes of Central Africa lay in a confused heap of ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... and on the upper battlements, the figures of two soldiers as sentinels: beneath, in a large square, King James I. is represented standing in gilt armour, at whose feet are a lion and unicorn, both couchant, the first the supporter of England, and the other for Scotland. On the west side of the gate is the figure of Fortune, finely gilded and carved, with a prosperous sail over her head, standing on a globe, overlooking the city. Beneath it is the King's arms, with the usual motto, ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... official character—why not add embellished? Cruickshank could scarcely produce anything so laughable. It is, apparently, a spirited attempt to imitate the hieroglyphic which formed one of the ornaments to Moore's Almanack; Britannia is seated in the centre, with the lion couchant (Whiggish) at her feet; her arms are extended, scattering little flying children to some elephants on the left; and, on the right, to a group of gentlemen, some of whom, at all events, are not enclosed ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... It was smooth and free from rubbish. A gray vault glimmered above their heads in the torchlight. The walls showed strange and grotesque forms in bas-relief, similar to those of the first gallery: here a couchant lion, so distinctly outlined that it seemed as if it must have been chiselled by human art; an Indian sitting in a posture of woe, with his face buried in his hands; an Arctic hunter wrestling with a polar bear; the head of a turbaned Turk; and, most wonderful of all, ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... d'Anjou, Duke of Bar and Lorraine, was imprisoned with his children. In the museum, which possesses many treasures in painting and sculpture, we saw the magnificently carved tombs of Philippe le Hardi and Jean Sans-Peur. Here, with angels at their heads and lions couchant at their feet, the effigies of these Dukes of Valois rest, surrounded by a wealth of sculpture and decoration almost unequalled. It would be well worth stopping over night at Dijon if only to see the magnificent tombs ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... anything he dares,—the man to do the deed, if it must be done, and with the martyr's temper and purpose. Nature obviously was deeply intent in the making of him. He is of imposing appearance personally,—tall, with square shoulders and standing; eyes of deep gray, and couchant, as if ready to spring at the least rustling, dauntless yet kindly; his hair shooting backward from low down on his forehead; nose trenchant and Romanesque; set lips, his voice suppressed yet metallic, suggesting deep reserves; decided mouth; ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... and found it delicious, soft and mellow as summer moonlight. While I sipped it the big Newfoundland, who had stretched himself in a couchant posture on the hearth-rug ever since Cellini had first entered the room, rose and walked majestically to my side and rubbed his head caressingly against the folds of ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... from the limpid dawn to the tiny image of a lion couchant on a small blue enameled shield which he used as a ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... came to the high, lonely ridge, the dwarf forest, the huge, couchant bulk of Spy Rock. There, on the back of it, with his right arm hanging over the edge, was the outline of Edward Keene's form. It was as if some monster had seized him and flung him over its shoulder ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... or bronze wedges, inserted the way of the natural strata of the stone. Very frequently the stone was roughly blocked out before being actually extracted from the bed. Thus at Syene (Asuan) we see a couchant obelisk of granite, the under side of which is one with the rock itself; and at Tehneh there are drums of columns but half disengaged. The transport of quarried stone was effected in various ways. At Syene, at Silsilis, at Gebel Sheikh Herideh, and at Gebel Abufeydeh, the quarries ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... no female sphinxes in Egypt. The sphinx was called Neb, i. e., the lord. The lion-couchant had either a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees, hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate: toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub me a new name: ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... high seas, Adam (being both captain and magistrate) married us forthwith, and because I had no other, I wed my Damaris with my signet ring whereon was graven the motto of my house, viz: a couchant leopard and the words, "Rouse me not." And who so sweet and grave as my dear lady as she made the responses and hearkened to Adam, and he mighty impressive. For witnesses we had Master Penruddock the surgeon and Godby, and now, my lady retiring, we must crack a bottle, ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... louder blast Shook beam and rafter as it passed, The merrier up its roaring draught The great throat of the chimney laughed. The house dog on his paws outspread Laid to the fire his drowsy head, The cat's dark silhouette on the wall A couchant tiger's seemed to fall; And, for the winter fireside meet, Between the andirons' straddling feet The mug of cider simmered slow, And apples sputtered in a row. And, close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... concerning his ancestors; and Stapylton soon had their history at his finger-tips. He could have correctly blazoned every tincture in their armorial bearings and have explained the origin of every rampant, counter-changed or couchant beast upon the shield. ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... cross the "bowling green," but swung to the right toward Pier I, and took the path between old Castle Garden and the sea wall at the point where one of the fire patrol boats was resting, steam up and hose nozzles pointed, lance couchant wise. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... our route; and paths, over which I had almost feared to walk my horse, were now passed in a quick continuous gallop. We soon reached the scene of my encounter with the huntress. The dog still kept sentry over the game. Couchant by the body of the bighorn, he only growled as the cavalcade swept past. No one stopped to relieve him, of his charge. On a war expedition the chase is universally neglected. Even its spoils are spurned. Hunger is supposed to beget prowess, as it sharpens the ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... of a couchant dog gnawing the thigh bone of a man is graven the weird inscription, cut deeply in the stone, as if for all future generations to read and ponder ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... pleasant, as he said,—the room was glowing with light, the boys in a knot about the fire; some sitting, some standing, one or two couchant upon the rug. Sam was the spokesman just then—the rest listening, interrupting, applauding; the flashing firelight shewing such different faces! such varied indications!—they looked like a little Congress ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... which done, Told him he was a gentleman of note, And that he had a very glorious coat. "Prithee, what is 't?" quoth he, "and take your fees." "Sir," says the herald, "'tis two rampant trees, One couchant; and, to give it further scope, A ladder passant, and a pendent rope. And, for a grace unto your blue-coat sleeves, There is a bird i' ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... shore, as the wind was off land, a common occurrence on these lakes at night. On turning the point of red sandstone rock, which the Indians call Pug-ge-do-wau (Portage), the Porcupine Mountains rose to our view, directly west, presenting an azure outline of very striking lineaments—an animal couchant. As night drew on, the water became constantly smoother; it was nine before daylight could be said to leave us. We passed, in rapid succession, the Mauzhe-ma-gwoos or Trout, Graverod's, Unnebish, or Elm, and Pug-ge-do-wa, or Misery River, in Fishing Bay. Here ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... the charm of life that nothing is final,—not even death itself? In this strange existence, with its great and rapid transitions, happy events are always imminent. One may be performing her own menialities to-day, and to-morrow, in an ambassador's carriage, be folded in a fur robe with couchant lions upon it; to-day be quartered in a single attic, to-morrow be treading the tapestries of her own drawing-rooms. Thus the golden Fate turns and keeps turning; it is only when, through frigidness or fear, we refuse to revolve with it, that there ensues the discord ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Ariadne kneeling at his side; His arm was thrown around her slender waist, His head lay in her bosom, and she held A cup, a little distance from his lips, And teased him with it, for he wanted it. A pair of spotted pards where sleeping near, Couchant in shade, their heads upon their paws; And revellers were dancing in the woods, Snapping their jolly fingers evermore! But all is vanished, lost, for ever lost, For I have broken my divinest cup, And trod its fragments ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... favourite show-place, winning perhaps more attention than it deserves in comparison with other places near it; but the rocky and turf-clad headland, with its traces of a far-distant past, is really very beautiful, reaching like a couchant beast into the waves that are sometimes of the purest blue, sometimes white with seething foam. There was an old chapel on the neck of the promontory, and near are remains of some rude granite huts. The popularity of the place ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... the sunlight poured, revealing a wondrous and awe-inspiring object of which the base was surrounded by billowy vapours, a huge, couchant animal fashioned of black stone, with a head carved to the likeness of that of a lion, and crowned with the uraeus, the asp-crested symbol of majesty in old Egypt. How big the creature might be it was impossible to say ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Hermon's snowy peak rising high above. It was accounted for, however, by the golden crosses of the kingdom of Jerusalem waving above the watch-tower, that rose like a pointing finger above the keep, in company with a lesser ensign bearing a couchant hound, sable. ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... thirty throats of couchant cannonry— Ranked in a hollow curve, to close their blaze Upon the advancing files—wait silently Like to black ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... young mistress's face. Next, he took note of her pointed finger, which she waved in a sort of comprehensive curve embracing the table-cloth with its appetising display of eatables; and then, as if he had made a mental list of all left in his charge, he laid down in a couchant position at the head of the table, if such it could be called, with his nose between his paws, along which his eyes were ready to take aim at any intruder, saying, in their fixed basilisk stare, "Now, you just ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... supposed the early dogs of this breed had been trained to night slaughter and savageness alone, and that it was a case of atavism, a recurrence of hereditary instinct. It interested me vastly, and I resolved to make him the most perfect of watchdogs. I trained him to lie couchant, and to spring upon and tear a stuffed figure I would bring into the basement. I noticed he always sprang at the throat. 'Hard lines,' thought I, 'for the burglar who may ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... o'er the Stygian strait "Panurge" and "Bito," "Tramp" and "Mike," In couchant conclave watch the gate, Till comes the last successive tyke, Acknowledged with the countersign: "Your master was ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... outrageous, Zebedee had as much as he could do to keep all his young hands loyal. All their solid interest lay (as he told them every morning) in sticking to the Springhaven flag—a pair of soles couchant, herring salient, and mackerel regardant, all upon a bright sea-green—rather than in hankering after roll of drum and Union-Jack. What could come of these but hardship, want of victuals, wounds, and death; or ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... etait un roi d'Yvetot Pen connu dans l'histoire, Se levant tard, se couchant tot, Dormant fort bien ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... fountains with lofty jet, and proud swans in the reservoirs. I would like to have you walking in that thick forest growth; there is no underbrush; I can see from one side to the other. After a long walk, you come to the noble portals, guarded by lions couchant, and just beyond is the spot where Louis XVI. was guillotined. I do not believe there is a nobler view in Europe than now opens to the spectator. There before me is the Obelisk of Luxor, which was brought from Egypt, and now stands in the Place de la Concorde, its history, its ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... wood, the saline indication of the sea-ware. On the rocky edge of the islet at one part showed the white fringe of the waves now more peaceful; to the north brooded enormous hills, seen dimly by the stars, couchant terrors, vague, vast shapes of dolours and alarms. Doom stood long looking at them with the flame of the candle blowing inward and held above his head—a mysterious man beyond Montaiglon's comprehension. He stood behind him a pace or two, shivering ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... of this novel may be traced to a fact of a fortnight's sojourn on the western shore of lake Champlain in the summer of 1891. Across the water in the State of Vermont I had constantly before my eyes a majestic mountain form which the earlier French pioneers had named "Le Lion Couchant," but which their plainer-minded Yankee successors preferred to call "The Camel's Hump." It really looked like a sleeping lion; the head was especially definite; and when, in the course of some ten years, I found the scheme for a story about a summer hotel which I had long meant to write, this ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... things took place. We are apt to forget, as well, the extraordinary brightness, the colour, the glitter and gleam that belonged to those times when every man went dressed in some gay livery wearing the colours and the crest of his lord. Who rides there, the hart couchant—the deer at rest—upon his helm? A Knight belonging to the Court: one of the Knights of King Richard the Second. Who march with the bear and ragged staff upon their arms? They are the Livery of the Earl of Warwick. The clash and gleam of arms and armour ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... encircled with a girdle of green woods and an outer girdle of blue sea. I know of nothing more wild than that gray waste of boulders; it is a natural Salisbury Plain, of which icebergs and ocean-currents were the Druidic builders; in that multitude of couchant monsters there seems a sense of suspended life; you feel as if they must speak and answer to each other in the silent nights, but by day only the wandering sea-birds seek them, on their way across the Cape, and the sweet-bay and green ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... saw the whole party free from the walls of the city, and entering upon the open ground. Arthur's Seat, like a couchant lion of immense size—Salisbury Crags, like a huge belt or girdle of granite, were dimly visible. Holding their path along the southern side of the Canongate, they gained the Abbey of Holyrood House, and ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... handsome addition to the garden, irrespective of its historical associations. The chalet is of dark wood varnished, and has in the centre a large carving of Dickens's crest, which in heraldic terms is described as: "a lion couchant 'or,' holding in the gamb a cross ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... chance was too good to be lost; he sacrificed his oratorical longings on the altar of party purpose, and limited his speech to a mere statement of his motion. Off flew on the wings of Hansom a youthful member, more trusty than the trusted Undy, to the abode of the now couchant Treasury Argus. Morpheus had claimed him all for his own. He was lying in true enjoyment, with his tired limbs stretched between the unaccustomed sheets, and snoring with free and sonorous nose, restrained by the contiguity of no Speaker's elbow. But ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... of the Parish Church he paused, recalling something. Low and square-towered, couchant in the moonlight behind its railings, the Parish Church guarded under its long flank its ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... mortgage?" asked Rose Mary in the gently hushed tone that she always used in speaking of this ever couchant enemy of their peace. ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... canoe with a cat couchant in the bow, a young invalid comfortably reclining amidships and a husky youth in the stern started down the river and into the salt-water lakes. The first day's run was a short one and the camp was made on a bit of high ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!" The God, dove-footed, glided silently Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed, The taller grasses and full-flowering weed, Until he found a palpitating snake, Bright, and cirque-couchant ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... me once for an experience of my own at the Piper's Knowe, on which any man, with a couchant ear close to the grass, may hear fairy ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Two lions couchant, seated on wide pedestals beneath a company of noble trees, were the only visible inhabitants of the dwelling. There was a sweep of gardens: terraces that picked their way daintily down the cliffs toward the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... which time it is said this remarkable pulpit was put up; and notwithstanding its great age, which appears to be 832 years, it is still in good condition. At the foot of the steps is a large figure, intended to represent a lion couchant, but carved after so grotesque a fashion, as to puzzle the naturalist in his attempts to determine its proper classification. In other respects the ornamental sculpture about the pulpit is neat and appropriate, and presents a curious ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 348, December 27, 1828 • Various
... man, In this bad world, when mists and couchant storms Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith Above the clouds that threat him, to the fields Of ether, where the day is never veil'd With intervening vapours, and looks down Serene upon the troublous sea, that hides The ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... like couchant lions, Their cannon through the night, Holding their breath, had watched, in grim ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... the sides panelled and adorned with shields of arms and bears the figure of an earlier Sir Thomas Markenfield, clad in armour of the period between Poitiers and Agincourt, and wearing a very curious collar of park palings with a stag couchant in front, possibly (as has been suggested) a badge of adherence to the party of Lancaster. The figure of Lady ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon - A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric • Cecil Walter Charles Hallett
... I tremble with horror when I think of what is crawling toward us, with noiseless steps; couchant, silent, treacherous, pardlike; scarce rustling the dry leaves as it moves, and yet with bloodshot, glaring eyes and tense-drawn limbs of steel, ready for the fatal spring. When comes it? To-night? To-morrow? A ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... rampant; a longhorn steer regardant; two sad-eyed, unbranded calves couchant—one in each corner of the shield to kind of balance her up; gules, several clumps of something representing sagebrush; and possibly a rattlesnake coiled beneath the sagebrush and described as "repellent" and holding in his open jaws a streaming motto reading, ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... he mused. "We have seen what we came out to see, and what more have we a right to demand? The dear people rampant, the respected mayor quiescent, but biding his time, Cobbens couchant but fanged, the President raised to a sublime apotheosis. It is always a pleasure—is it not?—to witness transcendent ability, even if it be in the line of practical politics. The perfection of each thing ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... had in vulgar cares That belong to common household affairs— Nocturnal annoyances such as theirs, Who lie with a shrewd surmising, That while they are couchant (a bitter cup!) Their bread and butter are getting up, And the coals, confound them, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... begged to hev it taken off his hands, that he might save his circulashen before it wuz everlastinly too late. And finally we come to wun, the seal uv wich wuz a coat-uv-arms—bull dog rampant, bowie-knife couchant, supported by trottin horses, on a field uv green cloth. It wuz from Hon. John Morrisey, who hed jest ben elected to Congress ...
— "Swingin Round the Cirkle." • Petroleum V. Nasby
... les vend a Lyon, &c." Folio. At the end is the date of 1525, over the printer's device of a lion couchant, and a heart and crown upon a shield. It is a small folio, printed in a neat and rather brilliant ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... have a bend OR in the dexter base, a saltire MURREY in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron VERT in a chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field AZURE, with the nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, SABLE, with his bundle over his shoulder ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... giant Sachem, good as great, Reigned in and over our Bay State. So huge was he, his realm so small, He could not exercise at all, Except by taking to the sea. [For which he had a ticket free, Granted by Neptune, with the seal, A salient clam, and couchant eel]. His pipe was many a mile in length, His lungs proportionable in strength; And his rich moccasins,—with the pair, The seven-league boots would not compare. Whene'er siestas he would take, Cape Cod must help his couch to make; ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... suis la Pit, cette fille si chre, 20 Qui t'offre de ce roi les plus tendres soupirs. Du feu de ton amour j'allume ses desirs. Du zle qui pour toi l'enflamme et le dvore La chaleur se rpand du couchant l'aurore. Tu le vois tous les jours, devant toi prostern, 25 Humilier ce front de splendeur couronn, Et confondant l'orgueil par d'augustes exemples, Baiser avec respect le pav de tes temples. De ta gloire anim, lui seul de tant de rois S'arme pour ta querelle, ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... Though hushed War's couchant tigers in their lair The tranquil time to one brings not repose— A voice was whispering to his soul—"Despair! The gods will give the triumph to thy foes." Can sleep, with leaden hand, our eyelids close When throng distempered fancies, and depart, And thought a shadow on ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... his vivid renditions of lions and tigers, and Mr. Slater has here his "Christopher Columbus," Mr. Potter Palmer, of Chicago, lending the "Giaour and Pacha." Gericault is represented by but one picture, a noble couchant lion, but in addition to the "Suicide," there are several other Decamps, notably the magnificently colored "Turkish Butcher's Shop," which, with a splendid Rousseau, the "Forest of Fontainebleau," comes ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... who erected a handsome monument to his father's memory. The monument is an elevated tomb, with the Earl's arms and those of his lady in the front in the angles, and with an inscription in the centre. It has his effigy in armour, with an ermined mantle, his feet leaning against a lion couchant. On his left is his lady in black, with an ermined mantle and a coronet. Both have their hands held up as in prayer. On a projecting plinth in front is the figure of his second son, the Earl of Northampton, ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... was at length aroused by our arrival at the gates of the Canaples park. Seeing them wide open, we rode between the two massive columns of granite (each surmounted by a couchant lion holding the escutcheon of the Canaples) and proceeded at an ambling pace up the avenue. Through the naked trees the chateau became discernible—a brave old castle that once had been the stronghold of a feudal race long dead. Grey it was, and attuned, that day, ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... on the contrary side of the fire to that where the goat's flesh lay, and fell to kicking the fire about at a great rate, which being made of dry wood, caused innumerable sparks to fly about us; but the beasts still approaching in a couchant manner, and seizing the ribs of the goat and other bones (for we had only cut the flesh off), and grumbling and cracking them like rotten twigs, Glanlepze snatched up a fire-brand, flaming, in each hand, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock
... gentlemanly, as members of that Church—in any article but this I should, from mere habit, say sect—usually are. This is due to his memory; for, by all I heard, when he changed his religion he ceased to be Lucas couchant, and became Lucas rampant, fanged and langued gules. (I looked into Guillim[58] to see if my terms were right: I could not find them; but to prove I have been there, I notice that he calls a violin a violent. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... begg'd like one both blind and lame; "My only friend, my dear," said she, "You see 'tis mere necessity Hath sent me to your house to whelp: I die if you refuse your help." With fawning whine, and rueful tone, With artful sigh, and feigned groan, With couchant cringe, and flattering tale, Smooth Bawty[3] did so far prevail, That Music gave her leave to litter; (But mark what follow'd—faith! she bit her;) Whole baskets full of bits and scraps, And broth enough ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... by three stout boys, who guided her by a most circuitous route across Bruntsfield Links, that she might gain a moonlight view of the couchant lion of Arthur's Seat. They amused her the whole way home with tales of High-school warfare. On reaching the garden-gate she was half surprised to hear the unwonted cheerfulness of her own laugh. The sunshine she daily strove ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Up to whose raised hand the seas Leap, playful lions, or with head and main Across their paws lie couchant—it is pain To see thee whose heart beats are God's decrees, And vital breathings are infinities, Now check thy heart and hold thy breath to gain The smile and plaudit of a depths with bane In finger tips, ...
— Freedom, Truth and Beauty • Edward Doyle
... rendoit bien la pareille: Car se couchant sur l'oreille, Finement il aguignoit Quand quelqu'une le poingnoit: Lors d'une habile soupplesse Happant la mouche traistresse, La serroit bien fort dedans, ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... in the energies of the will, but in the qualities of the nervous organization, lies the dread arbitration of—Fall or stand: doomed thou art to yield, or strengthened constitutionally to resist. Most of those who have but a low sense of the spells lying couchant in opium have practically no sense at all; for the initial fascination is for these effectually defeated by the sickness which Nature has associated with the first stages of opium-eating. But to that other class whose nervous ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... it for the reception of the ladies. It was a cumbrous vehicle, whose faded linings and tarnished hammer-cloth, together with its panels of changing color, denoted the want of that art which had once given it luster and beauty. The "lion couchant" of the Wharton arms was reposing on the reviving splendor of a blazonry that told the armorial bearings of a prince of the church; and the miter, that began to shine through its American mask, was a symbol of the rank of its original owner. The ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... beauty to the octagon of S. Gottardo, or in the string-courses of strange beasts and reptiles that adorn the church fronts of Pavia. They called to their aid the mandorlato of Verona, supporting their porch pillars on the backs of couchant lions, inserting polished slabs on their facades, and building huge sarcophagi into their cloister alleys. Between terra-cotta and this marble of Verona there exists a deep and delicate affinity. It took the name of mandorlato, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... Saxonland, where public opinion is opposed to everything that has the faintest shade of Magyarism, that I felt in the state of Victor Hugo's hero, of whom he said, "Son orientation etait changee, ce qui avait ete le couchant etait le levant. Il s'etait retourne." The transition was certainly curious, but I confess to getting rather tired of the mutual recriminations of political parties; respecting each other's good qualities, they ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... it, opposite my place of rest, Two figures faced each other, large, austere; A couchant sphinx in shadow to the breast, An angel standing in the moonlight clear; 10 So mighty by magnificence of form, They were not dwarfed beneath ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... secret society may do so without fear of publicity, as the names will not be given out. The only means of distinguishing a fellow-member will be a tiny gold emblem, to be worn in the lapel, representing the figure (couchant) of Spain's most touted animal. The motto will be "Nimmermehr," which is a German translation of the Spanish phrase ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... though I had seen it several times before, filled my mind with admiration and interest. Viewed from this situation, it certainly, if it resembles any animate object in nature, has something of the appearance of a terrible couchant lion, whose stupendous head menaces Spain. Had I been dreaming, I should almost have concluded it to be the genius of Africa, in the shape of its most puissant monster, who had bounded over the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... some gigantic or some angelic life into those colossal sockets. He would perhaps have put vast winged statues of bronze, folding their wings, and grasping the iron rails with their hands; or monstrous eagles, or serpents holding with claw or coil, or strong four-footed animals couchant, holding with the paw, or in fierce action, holding with teeth. Thousands of grotesque or of lovely thoughts would have risen before him, and the bronze forms, animal or human, would have signified, either in symbol or in legend, whatever might be gracefully ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... ill at ease. The lady was fair, as we have said, and delicate; everything about her was fine and refined; her hand in his looked like a rose lying among carrots, and when he kissed it, he looked as a cow might do on finding such a flower among her food. She was graceful as a couchant goddess and, moreover, as self-possessed as Venus must have been when ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope |
