"Croak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... are fleet, And with all his might he flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill. They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes, And they stunned his ears with the scallop stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh! but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree; —Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblin's spite, For he saw around in the sweet ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... hopes of all the flock. Had we not been perverse and careless grown, This dire event by omens was foreshown; Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, ) And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, ) Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. ) ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's croak. "Nothing to it, old man. Forget it, and ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... heaving, destructive ocean; and over it there goes for ever—black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight—the raven of his anxious thoughts, which finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future. Live in Christ, 'the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever'; and His presence shall make all your past, present, and future—memory, enjoyment, and hope—to be bright and beautiful, because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... to the wealthy; for his part he should blush to make a present here, rather than a repayment there, turning and, pointing to Callicles, the money-lender. Being still clamored upon and importuned, he told them this tale. A certain cowardly fellow setting out for the wars, hearing the ravens croak in his passage, threw down his arms, resolving to wait. Presently he took them and ventured out again, but hearing the same music, once more made a stop. "For," said he, "you may croak till you are tired, but you shall make ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... palms he drew her savagely to him. "Let's—let's go outside." His voice was little more than a croak. ...
— A Bottle of Old Wine • Richard O. Lewis
... for a score of years, working every day from the first croak of the raven, until the stars came out, Bimbo and his wife owned only three tan (3/4 acre) of terrace land. Sometimes a summer would pass, and little or no rain fall. Then the rivulet dried up and crops failed. It seemed ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... had preserved his polite attentiveness in a manner highly creditable to his upbringing, but this proved too much; his over-charged feelings burst from him in a hoarse croak, and he disappeared into the river with ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... fierce wolf's savage howl, The horrid hissing of the scaly snake, The awesome cries of monsters yet unnamed, The crow's ill-boding croak, the hollow moan Of wild winds wrestling with the restless sea, The wrathful bellow of the vanquished bull, The plaintive sobbing of the widowed dove, The envied owl's sad note, the wail of woe That rises from ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... attend him, As blust'ring bullies to defend him. At once the ravens were discarded, And magpies with their posts rewarded. Those fowls of omen I detest, That pry into another's nest. State lies must lose all good intent, For they foresee and croak th' event. My friends ne'er think, but talk by rote, Speak when they're taught, and so to vote. When rogues like these (a Sparrow cries) To honour and employment rise I court no favour, ask no place, From such, preferment is disgrace: Within my thatch'd retreat I find (What ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... breaking, and my frogs, though in the dark pocket of the coach, had found it out; and with one accord, all twelve of them had begun their morning song. As if at a given signal, they one and all of them began to croak as loud as ever they could. The noise their united concert made, seemed, in the closed compartment of the coach, quite deafening. Well might the Germans look angry: they wanted to throw the frogs, bottle and all, out of the window; but I gave the bottle ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... open, blew aside the gray fog-wall. It was not a minute, nor half that; but it was long enough for Happy Jack to see, clear and close, Blink pausing irresolutely upon the edge of a deep, brush-filled gulley. Happy Jack gave a hoarse croak of triumph and fired, just as the fog-curtain swayed back maddeningly. Happy Jack nearly wept with pure rage. Weary and Slim came up, and together they galloped to the place, riding by instinct of direction, for there was no longer any ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... James's ear, and he angrily turned round: 'Foul-mouthed raven, peace with thy traitor croak!' but ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... possession of me. I felt that my hair was rising, that my eyes were protruding, that my mouth was opened, and my tongue like leather. The turmoil within my brain was such that something must surely snap. I tried to scream and was vaguely aware of some hoarse croak which was my own voice, but distant and detached from myself At the same moment, in some effort of escape, I broke through that cloud of despair and had a glimpse of Holmes's face, white, rigid, and drawn with ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... hibernaculum; here it was prepared to pass the winter, with only a coverlid of wet matted leaves between it and zero weather. Forthwith I set up as a prophet of warm weather, and among other things predicted a failure of the ice crop on the river; which, indeed, others, who had not heard frogs croak on the 31st of December, had also begun to predict. Surely, I thought, this frog knows what it is about; here is the wisdom of nature; it would have gone deeper into the ground than that if a severe winter was approaching; so I was not anxious about my coal-bin, ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... have been raining. "Yes, that it has," said she; and she now related many pretty things out of Holberg's comedies, and about Waldemar and Absalon; but all at once she cowered together, and her head began shaking backwards and forwards, and she looked as she were going to make a spring. "Croak! croak!" said she. "It is wet, it is wet; there is such a pleasant deathlike stillness in Sorbe!" She was now suddenly a frog, "Croak"; and now she was an old woman. "One must dress according to ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... am going. Really I didn't think how it would bore you for me to come around here and croak ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... keep the flies from him, and he will remain almost immoveable through the day. He will put on a sad expression in the morning which will not change; he will give no trouble whatever, he will but sit still and croak."—Chap. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... the money-value of that which his dog bestowed upon me." So he took the price of the dish and a suitable gift; and, setting out, journeyed day and night, till he came to that city; he entered it and sought the place where the man lived; but he found there naught save ruins mouldering in row and croak of crow, and house and home desolate and all conditions in changed state. At this, his heart and soul were troubled, and he repeated the saying ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... on her heart seemed to grow lighter, and even to vanish altogether; but when she turned to go home by the shortest way, it returned. "Stop! stop!" and the words came quite clear, though they were like the croak of a frog, or the wail of a bird. "A grave! dig me ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Numidian crane, and, just beyond the river growths, some splendid oleanders gave an effective splash of scarlet to the surrounding greens and greys. In the waters of the marsh the bullfrogs kept up a loud sustained croak, as though they were True Believers disturbed by the presence of the Infidels. The N'fiss is a fascinating river from every point of view. Though comparatively small, few Europeans have reached the source, and it passes through parts of the country where ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... shook her head as if the silver lining of that cloud was hard to find; but she had no time to croak again, for just then Mr Laurie came in looking well ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... hate the noise they make," declared Bess. "It sounds like a dead, dark night. Why do they croak in the daytime?" ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... is larger than the other—no human being can doubt" sobbed the lady—"and surely your Divine Majesty cannot be aware that her hair reaches but to her waist, and that there is a brown mole on the nape of her neck? When she sings it resembles the croak of the crow. It is true that most of the Palace ladies are chosen for anything but beauty, yet she is the most ill-favored. And is it this—this bat-faced lady who is preferred to me! Would I had never been born: Yet even your Majesty's ...
— The Ninth Vibration And Other Stories • L. Adams Beck
... grunt, gruntle[obs3]; snort [pig, hog, swine, horse]; , squeak [swine, mouse]; neigh, whinny [horse]; bray [donkey, mule, hinny, ass]; mew, mewl [kitten]; meow [cat]; purr [cat]; caterwaul, pule [cats]; baa[obs3], bleat [lamb]; low, moo [cow, cattle]; troat[obs3], croak, peep [frog]; coo [dove, pigeon]; gobble [turkeys]; quack [duck]; honk, gaggle, guggle [obs3][goose]; crow, caw, squawk, screech, [crow]; cackle, cluck, clack [hen, rooster, poultry]; chuck, chuckle; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... it has rather an affected air of rurality, though very pretty. It is well shaded, under a shelter of large trees with dense foliage, and a miniature lake close by, the chosen residence of a few toads, has given it its attractive denomination. Lucky toads, who crawl and croak on the finest of moss, in the midst of tiny artificial islets decked with gardenias in full bloom. From time to time, one of them informs us of his thoughts by a 'Couac', uttered in a deep bass croak, infinitely more hollow than that of our ...
— Madame Chrysantheme Complete • Pierre Loti
... of them had slipped by since parting from Johnny Spreen. They were now in the heart of the swamp. All around them lay a solemn silence broken only by the splash of a bullfrog leaping from a bank, the gurgle of some water snake or the solemn croak of a bittern fishing near by, followed by the flap of its wings as it flew ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas
... forget my nocturnal visitors, the bull-frogs, who, sans facon, jumped about the room as if dancing a quadrille, not to my amusement but their own, making a most unmusical noise to the tune of something like, "Pay your debts, pay your debts, pay your debts." After the third croak they paused, probably to give time for everybody to become honest. I made daily excursions to the neighbouring quays, and picked up a quantity ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... sit here," he said, and taking Eve's hand, he went to a great baulk of timber lying below the wheels of a paper-mill. "Let me breathe the evening air, and hear the frogs croak, and watch the moonlight quivering upon the river; let me take all this world about us into my soul, for it seems to me that my happiness is written large over it all; I am seeing it for the first time in all ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... the first time I ever heard you croak, except in a public speech where you had a point to gain," said Livingston. "Do you ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... worse than this. I ain't hurted bad. I ain't got mine just yet, old scout! Would I leave meself croak—an' that bum, Mike the Kike, handin' me fren's the ha-ha! Gawd," he muttered hazily, as though his mind was beginning to cloud, "just f'r that I'll get up an'—an' go—home—" His voice flattened out and he ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... was ours," said Chafi Three. He had not vocalized since fledgling days and his voice had a jarring croak of disuse. "Our Zid escaped its cage and destroyed two of us, forcing us to maroon it here for our own safety. Unfortunately, we trusted our star manual's statement that ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee
... geese, cheerful harbingers of spring, and the prairie-chickens had set up their morning symphony, wide-swelling, wonderful with its prophecy of the new birth of grass and grain and the springing life of all breathing things. The crow passed now and then, uttering his resonant croak, but the crane had not yet sent ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvellous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... Arthur; no longer was he a mortal boy. Instead of this, a frog—a green speckled frog, with great bulging eyes and a fishy mouth—looked up at him. He tried to call, to shout, but in vain; he could only croak, and this in the most dismal manner. What was he to do? Sit and stare about him, try to catch flies, plunge down into the mud—charming amusements for the rest of his life! A little brown bird hopped ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... to croak, which, taken together with a dawning passion for socks, ties, and brilliantine, was an unmistakable sign of growing up; Russell was preternaturally thin and looked all arms and legs; while Tim had forsaken ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... melancholy croak proceeding from the other side of the wall. The skipper's cell had been changed, as Archie had hoped, and the skipper himself was doing his duty to the bitter end. The street was deserted. They acted ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... malarial pond is expected to croak and make all the protest he can against his surroundings. But a man! Destined for a crown and sent upon earth to be educated for the court of the King of kings! Placed in an emerald world with a hither edge of opaline shadow and a fine spray of diamond-dust to set it sparkling; with ten million ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the raven's croak, In symphony austere; Thither the rainbow comes, the cloud— And mists that spread the flying shroud, And sunbeams; and the sounding blast, That if it could would hurry past; But that ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... want to croak," he said, "but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point— for you and ...
— Isobel • James Oliver Curwood
... lies clean and bright, Prepared in foreign lands to fight: Our ravens croak to have their fill, The wolf howls from the distant hill. Our brave king is to Russia gone,— Braver than he on earth there's none; His sharp sword will carve many feast To wolf ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... brink and slid into the water,—cows plashed in the shallows,—fishes leaped from the placid depths,—a squirrel sobbed and fretted on a neighboring stump,—a katydid across the lake maintained its hard, dry croak,—the crickets chirped pertinaciously, but with little fatigued pauses, as if glad that their work was almost done,—the grasshoppers kept up their continual chant, which seemed thoroughly melted and amalgamated into the summer, as if it would go on indefinitely, though ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... horror-struck at the sight, and seized a heavy stick to kill the frog; but the creature looked at her with such strange, mournful eyes, that she was not able to strike the blow. Once more she looked round the room—the frog uttered a low, wailing croak, and she started, sprang from the couch, and ran to the window and opened it. At that moment the sun shone forth, and flung its beams through the window on the couch and on the great frog; and suddenly it appeared as though the frog's great mouth contracted and became small and ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Maheegun gave up her grip on Mispoon and tore ferociously at her new assailant. For a space Mispoon was saved, but it was at a terrible sacrifice to Newish. With a single lucky slash of her long-fanged jaws, Maheegun literally tore one of Newish's great wings from her body. The croak of agony that came out of her may have held the death-note for Mispoon, her mate; for he rose on his wings, poised himself for an instant, and launched himself at the she-wolf's back with a force that drove ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... and ended in a croak for water. The Prussian nodded, disappeared, returned with an aluminium cup of stale cold water ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... fools who see only the pleasant side? Are they alone the visionaries who see the best rather than the worst? It is strange that the critics see only weakness in the "pleasant- spoken," and only truth and safety in those who croak. ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... disappointed their expectations, on account of the shallowness of its channel. The river, however, was then at a low ebb; its banks were marshy, and its waters moved slowly and silently between forests of mangrove trees. The air was filled with the discordant croak of innumerable parrots, diversified somewhat by the notes of a few singing birds. As they proceeded, the river, instead of diminishing, seemed to increase in volume. At Embomma, much interest was excited among the natives, by the discovery that their ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... there is, I believe, a sufficient physical reason. For these are clearly the most mountainous parts of the United Kingdom; and the clear mountain air seems to produce on the average a better type of human larynx than the mists of the level. The men of the lowland, say the Tyrolese, croak like frogs in their marshes; but the men of the upland sing like nightingales on their tree-tops. And indeed, it would seem as if the mountain people were always calling to one another across intervening valleys, always singing ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... him, Reddy," said Buckrow hoarsely. "Pass the bottle and let the old devil croak. You stick ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: 'What did he say?' The peasant answered: 'In the first place, he says that there is some wine hidden under the pillow.' 'Bless me!' cried the miller, and went there and found the wine. 'Now go on,' said he. The peasant made the raven croak again, and said: 'In the second place, he says that there is some roast meat in the tiled stove.' 'Upon my word!' cried the miller, and went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven prophesy still more, and said: 'Thirdly, he says that there ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... to croak if there wasn't two of 'em with the stren'th of eight," rejoined Phelan, wiping his dripping forehead and rolling his eyes. "An' they chloroformed me an' stuffed me into the chest. You can ask ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... go another inch," cried the obstinate frog with an angry croak, "nor shall any of your people advance another step while that ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... passages written expressly for our Bull-Frog. After this, we shall challenge Mr. GEORGE FRANCIS TRAIN to compete in public speaking with the Frog of PUNCHINELLO, for a purse of $20,000—Mr. TRAIN to speak ten minutes solo; the Frog to croak ten minutes; and then both to speak and croak in duet also for ten minutes—the most sonorous performer to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... Raven's croak, the chirping of the Sparrow, The scream of Jays, the creaking of Wheelbarrow, And hoot of Owls,—all join the soul to harrow, And grate the ear. We listen to thy quaint soliloquizing, As if all creatures thou wert catechizing, Tuning their voices, and their notes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... them, dangling a milk pail on his arm. At sight of Margarita his jaw dropped, he shivered violently and appeared ready to faint, but as she called encouragingly to him he mustered courage to approach and feel of her skirt timidly. He was evidently feeble-minded as well as dumb, for with a sort of croak he dropped the bucket and began to dance clumsily up and down, snapping his fingers the while. Plainly he had thought her gone for good and ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... as, under the ordinances prevailing, it was impossible to tell whether he was or not, I gave him the two sous; but no tip with it, since he had no right to claim it, and I had not the slightest doubt that he was lying. Then he began to croak that it was a shame not to give a pourboire, and, seeing that did not help matters, as I simply walked up the hotel steps, he shouted in his ill-temper, first "Vous n'etes pas Francais!" and then "Vous etes Prussien!" No sooner had he said it than ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... taking off his cap and fumbling with it while he stared wide-eyed at the threatening revolver, "I—I ain't a real thief—cross me heart and hope to die, I ain't! Don't croak ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... sponger!" how those words stung him. How contemptuously his father had always spoken of such people. They rankled in his heart as he sped up the road. A squirrel in an old fir-tree had shouted them at him, while a forlorn crow soaring overhead had looked down and given its hoarse croak of contempt. He was a sucker—a sponger! living upon others! What was he doing to earn his living? Nothing. What would his father ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... sound! The faint creak of a tree as the night wind stirred the branches; the rustle of leaves on the ground or the breaking of a twig as some prowling animal moved about; the flight of a bird, disturbed at its rest; the hoot of an owl on the hillside or the croak of a frog in the swamp were all magnified tenfold by the half-darkness and the sense of danger near. One end of his beat ended at the brook and here he waited longest, for the sentry he met there was, like himself, hardly out of his teens, and unused to war. A bond of fellowship sprang ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the Knight, sitting up. "If I were a bird, riding in yon nest would be easier." The last of his sentence ended in a hoarse croak. Sir Hokus vanished, and a great raven flopped down in the ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... shall have to buck myself up if I am to reduce the damages to any reasonable amount, and that he had been desirous from the first to brief WITHERINGTON. But this is to croak like a raven, for the cross-examining is, after all, of very minor importance compared to the Gift of the Gab—in which I am notoriously ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... me, with no restrictive covenants, the freehold of one of those mills, for I have coveted a mill ever since I succumbed to the enchantments of Lettres de mon moulin. True, Flanders is not Provence, and the croaking of the frogs, croak they never so amorously, among the willows in the plains below is a poor exchange for the chant of the cigale. But these mills look out over a landscape that is now dearer to me than Abana and Pharpar, for many a gallant friend of mine lies ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... not," said the mother. "I will teach you to fly, and when you have learnt, we will fly into the meadows, and pay a visit to the frogs, who will bow themselves to us in the water, and cry 'Croak, croak,' and then we shall eat them ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Vigour, he gave her 10000l. and his Blessing, which was a double Portion, on their Wedding-Day, which he celebrated with all the Cost and Mirth that his Estate and Sorrow would permit: Sorrow for the Loss of his Son, I mean, which still hung upon him, and still hover'd and croak'd over and about him, as Ravens, and other Birds of Prey, about Camps and dying People. His Melancholy, in few Months, increas'd to that Degree, that all Company and Conversation was odious to him, but that of Bats, Owls, Night-Ravens, &c. Nay, even his Daughter, his dear and only Child, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... to state that the one most dreaded, alike by the friends of the sick man and by the lesser witches, is the K[^a][']lana-ayeli[']sk[)i] or Raven Mocker, so called because he flies through the air at night in a shape of fire, uttering sounds like the harsh croak of ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... where the great yellow cat, so soft and beautiful, springs on Kitty's shoulder, rounds its back, and, purring, insists on caresses; in the large, clean stables where the horses munch the corn lazily, and look round with round inquiring eyes, and the rooks croak and flutter, and strut about ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... when they called us gunmen—Ben and me. But, so help me God, Doc, we never did any work like that ourselves. We never fired a shot to croak any living guy. Did ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... "And I will croak once more," said the discharged official. "You will never make that mine pay, for there is no coal there. It is all on the other side ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... chance, Cappy. All you old graybeards can do is sit on the fence and decry the efforts of the rising generation. You just croak and knock. Of course I admit that once on a time an opportunity couldn't fly by you so fast you wouldn't get some of the tail feathers; but that was a long ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the king's, I bid you go back to your master and say this: Kings are great in the eyes of their people, but the people are great in the eyes of God, and it is the people of France who answer you in the name of this epitome. The people of Paris are not so poor of spirit that they fear the croak of the Burgundian ravens. We are well victualled, we are well armed; we lie snug and warm behind our stout walls; we laugh at your leaguer. But when we who eat are hungry, when we who drink are dry, when we who glow are frozen, when ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hears no sounds but that of an occasional big rain-drop, plashing on the bare bent; the crag high overhead sometimes utters a sullen groan—the pilgrim, starting, listens, and the noise is repeated, but instead of a groan, a croak—croak—croak! manifestly from a thing with life. A pause of silence! and hollower and hoarser the croak is heard from the opposite side of the glen. Eyeing the black sultry heaven, he feels the warm plash on his ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... challenge ringing Shrill, and each headpiece lined with fence of proof. Alternate clack the strokes in whirling strife; Sore buffeted, quakes and shivers heart of oak. But when grasshopper feels the vulture's talons, Then the storm-boding ravens croak their last, Prevail the mules, butts ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... back and have a chance to give us away to that bunch, not if I knows it. I've about made up my mind to croak him. He knows too much. Go on and find a place to ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... they sent yet a third time to Jupiter to beg him to choose for them still another King. Jupiter, displeased with all their complaints, sent a Heron, who preyed upon the Frogs day by day till there were none left to croak upon the lake. ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... "gentleman," as No. 3 called him, had turned very red at the doubt thus thrown on his accuracy, and put a rather threatening croak into his voice, ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... the rippling lake the wild swan flaps her wing. Out in the lignum swamps once more frogs croak and crickets sing. Once more the wild fowl, sporting midst the crab-holes, may be seen, For prosperity is hovering o’er the ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... such wood!" Jennie grew angry. "What's better according to you—to rot on straw with a nose fallen through? To croak under the fence like a dog? Or to turn honest? Fool! You ought to kiss his hands; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... verse: how long shall I forbid? For all forbiddal thou persistest more, * And my sole grace it is to keep it hid; Then hide thy love nor ever dare reveal, * For an thou speak, of thee I'll soon be rid If to thy silly speech thou turn anew, * Ravens shall croak for thee the wold amid: And Death shall come and beat thee down ere long, * Put out of sight and bury 'neath an earthen lid: Thy folk, fond fool! thou'lt leave for thee to mourn, * And through their lives to ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... stretch her legs any more than Nimble stretches his," he objected in his hoarse croak. "Nimble jumped the fence twice to stretch his legs. She has jumped once already. Let her jump the fence once more and then they'll be even and ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... must get up off this log, for the ante are crawling over us, and the bull-frogs croak as though the night were coming on. The evening star hangs its lantern at the door of the night to light the tired day to rest. The wild roses in the thicket are breathing vespers at an altar cushioned with moss, while the fire-flies are kindling their dim lamps in the cathedral of the woods. ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... here,' he grumbled. 'They're enough to make one croak. Mind, doctor, no priests, and no physics when I go off, or we shall quarrel. Let him come in, however, as he is ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... fallen to your lot? How comes it that you are left desolate—you, so good a human being! While to others happiness comes without an invitation at all? Yes, I know—I know it well—that I ought not to say it, for to do so savours of free-thought; but why should that raven, Fate, croak out upon the fortunes of one person while she is yet in her mother's womb, while another person it permits to go forth in happiness from the home which has reared her? To even an idiot of an Ivanushka such happiness is sometimes granted. "You, you fool Ivanushka," says ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... "Her voice was blithe, her heart was light; The Broom might have pursued Her speech, until the stars of night Their journey had renewed; But in the branches of the oak 95 Two ravens now began to croak Their nuptial song, a gladsome air; And to her own green bower the breeze That instant brought two stripling bees To rest, or [10] murmur ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... is all stale. I am just the same as usual, or perhaps worse, because I have become lazy. I don't do anything now but croak like an old raven. My mother, the old magpie, is still chattering about the emancipation of woman, with one eye on her grave and the other on her learned books, in which she is always looking for the dawn of ...
— Uncle Vanya • Anton Checkov
... that, Neekewa? It was not the wing of a duck, nor was it the croak of a loon far up the shore, or a fish leaping in the still water. ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... wonder. He stretched forth his hand with his rod over the rivers, and caused frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt. Moses, whose life had been preserved by the water, was kept from poisoning his savior with the reptiles. At first only a single frog appeared, but he began to croak, summoning so many companions that the whole land of Egypt swarmed with them. Wherever an Egyptian took up his stand, frogs appeared, and in some mysterious way they were able to pierce the hardest of metals, and even the marble palaces of ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... swoops down, and he blows—and blows,— While I drum on his swollen cheek, And croak in his angered eye that glows With the lurid lightning's streak; While the rushes drown in the watery frown That his bursting ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Thebes or Petraea, and mayhap a thousand times more ancient. There is no lack of life along the shores of the solitary little bay. The shriek of the sparrow-hawk mingles from the cliffs with the hoarse deep croak of the raven; the cormorant on some wave-encircled ledge, hangs out his dark wing to the breeze; the spotted diver, plying his vocation on the shallows beyond, dives and then appears, and dives and appears again, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... rides a toboggan! FISH SMART's on the job in the ice-covered fens, And at Hampstead and Highgate they're "sleighing." There is plenty of stuff for pictorial pens, And boyhood at snowballs is playing. To sit by the fire and to grumble and croak At "young fools," I presume is improper, Yet (chuckle!) the Skater sometimes has a "soak," The Sleigher sometimes comes a cropper! ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 10, 1891 • Various
... me by its domestic chirp back into my bedroom, and is there my social companion, while, in a happy dreaming state, I await the coming day, kept half awake by the buzz of the mosquites, the kettle-drum croak of the bull-frog, or the complaining cry ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, No. - 537, March 10, 1832 • Various
... in seconds. Rounding the truss, Friday caught the man in the armored crook of his arm. A startled croak preluded the thump of two bodies on the hull; there was the tinkle of a falling hand-flash and a slight squirming which was quickly stopped by a ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... "Oh, don't begin to croak!" cried Rattleton. "Merriwell knows his business. Hurry up with your makeup. Can't tell how early ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... great wide stream, with slippery and marshy banks; here the toad lived with her son. Ugh! how ugly and clammy he was, just like his mother! 'Croak, croak, croak!' was all he could say when he saw the pretty little girl ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... the woods! Silence! Deep silence! Save for the chortle of the night-jar, the tap of the snipe's beak against the tree-trunks, the snores of a weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. The crescent moon stole silently above the horizon. Wonderful, significant is that silent, stealthy approach of the moon. Red Head lumbered from his lair and crouched beside ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... grandfather had taken a liking to him, and when he quitted the sea Krok followed him, and became his man and served him faithfully. He could neither read nor write at that time, and his only vocal expression was a hoarse croak like the cawing of a crow, and this, combined with ample play of head and hand and facial expression and hieroglyphic gesture, formed his only means of communication with ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... meditation, according to a new Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo forest—and Siddhartha accepted the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, was a heron, ate fish, felt the pangs of a heron's hunger, spoke the heron's croak, died a heron's death. A dead jackal was lying on the sandy bank, and Siddhartha's soul slipped inside the body, was the dead jackal, lay on the banks, got bloated, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyaenas, was skinned by vultures, turned into a skeleton, turned to dust, ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... a great English poet had rushed down on Venice like a raven on a corpse, to croak out in lyric poetry—the first and last utterance of social man—the burden of a de profundis. English poetry! Flung in the face of the city that had given birth to Italian ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... "Don't croak," was the polite rejoinder; and then he was silent; but I could hear a peculiar boring noise being made, and no further attempts at a joke issued ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to imitate all the birds in the air at once,' said Louis, beginning to chirp like a melee of sparrows, turning it into the croak of a raven, and breaking off suddenly with, 'I beg your pardon—I forgot it was Sunday! Indeed, Mr. Holdsworth, I can say no more than that I was a wretch not to remember. Next time I'll write it all down in the top of my hat, with a pathetic entreaty that if my hat be stolen, the thief shall ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Ithacensian suitors in old time, Stared with great eyes, and laughed with alien lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false: but smiling 'Not for thee,' she said, O Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil: marsh-divers, rather, maid, Shall croak thee sister, or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass: and this A mere love-poem! O for such, my friend, We hold them slight: they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the ...
— The Princess • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... blue-white now, and looked oddly shrunken. His voice came in a rasping croak from his ashen lips as ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... appear to take much note of the sense of what she read, but evidently felt the tedium of the lecture, without harvesting its profit. His sister's voice, too, naturally harsh, had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak, which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. In both sexes, occasionally, this lifelong croak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settled melancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... still here, sly and nefarious, as when I bent down to give him my tearful good-by kiss on my wedding-morning. I kneel down, half laughing, half crying, on the damp walk, to stroke his round gray head, and hear his dear cross croak. Whether he resents the blackness of my appearance as being a mean imitation of his own, I do not know, but he will not come near me; he hops stiffly away, and stands eying me from the grass, with an unworthy affectation of not knowing who I am. I am still wasting ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the birds crowded on the gibbet; not one was on the corpse. They were talking among themselves. The croaking was frightful. The howl, the whistle and the roar, are signs of life; the croak is a satisfied acceptance of putrefaction. In it you can fancy you hear the tomb breaking silence. The croak is night-like ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... by our side. We were thus proceeding onward to the house of the minister, whose blessing was to make a couple happy, and the arm of the blooming bride was through mine, when I heard a voice, or rather let me say a sound, like the croak of a raven, exclaim— ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton |
