"On the wing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... like great flies buzzing, which I really attributed, for a moment, to some early insect. Turning, I saw two Crows flapping their heavy wings among the trees, and observed that they were teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves, which was also on the wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches, and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The Crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... Birds are killed on the wing, with bwirris, or whilst resting on the ground, or in the water, or upon branches of trees. They are also taken by spearing, by snaring, by noosing, and by netting. In spearing them the natives make use of a very light reed spear (kiko), which is pointed ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... the wonders of a night in the West Indies, was caused by the fireflies. Of these insects there are two distinct species, one really a small fly which seems to be perpetually on the wing, flitting in and out in the air always, and never at rest; while the other is a species of beetle that is only seen in woody regions, where it takes up a more stationary position, like the glowworm over here. This latter has ...
— The White Squall - A Story of the Sargasso Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... whenever experiments were wanted. Naval gunnery, be it remarked in passing, is quite a different matter from army practice: in the former, with its platform never at rest, it is like shooting a bird on the wing, when distance and motion must be accurately gauged and allowed for; in the latter, from its gun on a fixed platform, it is but a question of measurement from the object, by means of instruments if need be, and of good pointing. The seaman stands immediately in rear ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... advanced to the capital; but it arrived at Paris with a keeper, and in a post-chaise; whence, by the orders of the sovereign, it was removed to the American shores, and there magnanimously let loose. Who knows, however, how soon it may be on the wing again, and what ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know, a loon isn't built for running. There is an old story, one which certainly has the appearance of truth, to the effect that when Nature manufactured the first of these birds she forgot to give him any legs at all, and that he had started off on the wing before she noticed her mistake. Then she picked up the first pair that came to hand and threw them after him. Unfortunately they were a misfit, and, what was, perhaps, still worse, they struck his body in the wrong place. They were so very short and so very far ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... promontory that buttresses the sea, with a wall of near or quite a thousand feet in perpendicular height. Here she felt the full force of the land-wind; and when her helm was put up, and her sheets eased off, a bird turning on the wing would not have come round more gracefully, and scarcely with greater velocity. The course now lay from point to point, in order to avoid being becalmed within the indentations of the coast. This carried the lugger athwart the cove of Sorrento, rather than ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... within seventy yards, and he did not dare to ride any nearer, so jumping off his pony he ran in towards the bird as hard as he could go. When he had covered ten paces the pauw was rising, but they are heavy birds, and he was within forty yards before it was fairly on the wing. Then he pulled up and fired both barrels of No. 4 into it. Down it came, and, incautious man, he rushed forward in triumph without reloading his gun. Already was his hand outstretched to seize the prize, when, behold! the great wings spread themselves out and the bird was flying away. John stood ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... was late in keeping his word. There had been many things pressing on his attention and consideration. Jeanne had been very restless. A hundred desires flew to her mind like birds on the wing. Never had there seemed so many charms outside of the walls. She ran down to see Marie at the new spinning wheel. Madame De Ber had not used one in a long time and was a ...
— A Little Girl in Old Detroit • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... glowing imaginable, and touched with the greatest spirit. Aristotle had reason to say, he was the only poet who had found out "living words;" there are in him more daring figures and metaphors than in any good author whatever. An arrow is "impatient" to be on the wing, a weapon "thirsts" to drink the blood of an enemy, and the like, yet his expression is never too big for the sense, but justly great in proportion to it. It is the sentiment that swells and fills out ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... having understood The glory of the Central Good, And how souls ne'er may match or merge, But as they thitherward converge, Take in love's innocent gladness part With infantine, untroubled heart, And faith that, straight t'wards heaven's far Spring, Sleeps, like the swallow, on the wing. ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... I prayed she might send me a message; But nought the sweet missive will bring: The breath of the morning, the sunlight, The carol of birds on the wing, Come to gladden my heart with their gladness; But joyless and tuneless each seems; And the only sad joy that is left me Is to live with ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... Parch'd to the throat, my tongue adheres. My pulse beats quick, my breath heaves short, My limbs deny their slight support. Cold dews my pallid face o'erspread, With deadly languor droops my head. My ears with tingling echoes ring, And life itself is on the wing; My eyes refuse the cheering light, Their orbs are veil'd in starless night: Such pangs my nature sinks beneath, And ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... now lies in its winding-sheet, Black is the night. Hear the owls on the wing, Striking the earth as they pass, while the horses stand 220 Chewing the leaves, and their bells faintly ring. Two eyes are burning like lamps at the train's approach, Steadily, brightly they gleam ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way, With painful steps and slow;— Look up! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing; Oh, rest beside the weary road, ...
— The Otterbein Hymnal - For Use in Public and Social Worship • Edmund S. Lorenz
... march of Spring Carpets your mountain fastness over,— Till chattering birds are on the wing, And buzzing bees are ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... man peremptorily. "No time to be lost, dear old artist. Time is on the wing, the light is fadin', an' if we want to put this jolly old ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... feather to be seen, nor any drop of red blood, and the Dove had flown quite away. Then the poor Princess thought, "No man can help me now;" and so she mounted up to the Sun, and said, "Thou shinest into every chasm and over every peak; hast thou seen a White Dove on the wing?" ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... upon the river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... provisions even on the long voyage across the Pacific. I found always some small stores to help the fare of luxuries; what I lacked of fresh meat was made up in fresh fish, at least while in the trade-winds, where flying-fish crossing on the wing at night would hit the sails and fall on deck, sometimes two or three of them, sometimes a dozen. Every morning except when the moon was large I got a bountiful supply by merely picking them up from the lee scuppers. All ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum
... listen, of course, to the band. The house was a sort of phalanstery; and Lucile and Matilda were pleased to discover A mutual passion for music. Moreover, The Duke was an excellent tenor; could sing "Ange si pure" in a way to bring down on the wing All the angels St. Cicely play'd to. My lord Would also, at times, when he was not too bored, Play Beethoven, and Wagner's new music, not ill; With some little things of his own, showing skill. For which reason, as well as for ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... in itself, but greater from the peculiar notions of the age —the murder of Comyn in the sanctuary of Dumfries; on the character of Wallace no similar imputation rests. Wallace initiated that plan of guerilla warfare,—that fighting now on foot and now on the wing, now with beak and now with talons, now with horns and now with hoofs,—which Bruce had only to perfect. Wallace was unsuccessful, and was besides treated by the King of England with revolting ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... him that he has not the power of speaking extempore; that he requires careful and studious preparation, and is never ready, off-hand, to shoot on the wing. I do not agree with Mr. Blaine's estimate of Mr. Schurz in that particular. I have heard him make very effective speeches in the Senate, and elsewhere, that were undoubtedly extemporary. Mr. Blaine says that ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... slow on the wing, flies very low, and in a manner different from all others of the hawk family. Flying near the surface of the water, just above the weeds and canes, the Marsh Hawk rounds its untiring circles hour after hour, darting after ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... Harlot is Carrest, Who plays the Tyrant in his Am'rous Breast; The Charming Syren touches e'ery String, To keep his busie Fancy on the Wing; All by her whiles, she binds her Captive fast, Sooths him at first, and bubbles him at last. To feed her Pride, clandestine means he'll take, Rob Friends, or Master; for the Harlot's sake, Still to the greatest Ill's he do's descend, And Ruin only; Ruin ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... definite. In this business, you understand, a fellow has to put two and two together. Sometimes I have to make one and two count four. I have to tell more'n I'm told; I have to shoot my game on the wing, for nobody tells me any more'n they dast. All the same, I'm sure Jose ain't carving no epitaph for you. From what I've dug out of Rosa, he's acting for a third party—somebody with pull and a lot of coin—but who it is I don't know. Anyhow, he's cooking trouble for the Austins, ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... nevertheless be deemed heresy to doubt the fact. At this season, therefore, the sportsman provides himself with tame pigeon, which he fastens by a string to the cimeaux, in such a manner that the poor bird is obliged to keep perpetually on the wing, not being allowed rope enough to reach a perch. After three or four Sundays passed in this manner, the unfortunate decoy dies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... on her sedate behaviour, and the profound curtseys she made to her partner, instead of the pirouette which she performed with Humphrey, his arm round her waist, and her little feet twinkling under the short skirt of her stiff brocade, like birds on the wing. ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... sir? hey, Arthur? Begad, you look dev'lish well and healthy, sir. I always said my brother Jack would bring the family right. You must go down into the west, and buy the old estate, sir. Nec tenui penna, hey? We'll rise again, sir—rise again on the wing—and, begad, I shouldn't be surprised that you will be a ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mr. Ainsley was on the wing, here and there where his interests called him, meantime making the Charleston hotel his headquarters. Miss Ainsley's friend, Mrs. Willoughby, carried off the daughter to her pretty home on the Battery, where sea-breezes tempered the Southern ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... striking telephone or telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. Once I picked up a Loon after a stormy night. Apparently it had recovered its strength after a few hours' rest, but, as this bird can rise on the wing only from a body of water, over the surface of which it can paddle and flap for many rods, and as {78} there was no pond or lake in all the neighbouring country, the Loon's fate was evident ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... Sing on, sing on, my dear; you sing very finely on the wing; but you'll perch pretty soon! You're not going to roam about at night for nothing. I know your tricks. I'll show you all up! I'm so mad now, that even if you bow down to my ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... fish hawks, or ospreys, of which there were nearly a dozen sailing about above the junction of the two streams, squealing and diving, and occasionally striking a fish on the rifts. I am convinced that the fish hawk sometimes feeds on the wing. I saw him do it on this and on another occasion. He raises himself by a peculiar motion, and brings his head and his talons together, and apparently takes a bite of a fish. While doing this his flight presents a sharply ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... like you, and papa would let me," she answered naively. "I often envy the men as I see them lying out on the yards or at the mast-head when the ship is rolling and pitching; and I fancy that next to the sensations of a bird on the wing, theirs ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... the hardest sort of question to answer, for he is always on the wing. He went in for mining engineering, and is making quite a record as consulting engineer. It's copper, I think, he consults about; anyway, no one ever can predict where he will be heard from next. Really, if you knew him, you must meet Professor ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... persuasion before she ventured in, the wheels crunching on the gravel, her fetlocks splashing the slow-moving, chocolate-coloured water. On the opposite bank we reached a sort of plateau, seen vaguely in the light. I "let a bawl out of me." It was like the cry of some lonely, lost bird on the wing. The Friar shook with laughter. I could feel the little rock of his body on the springs of the car. A figure came suddenly out of the darkness and silently took the mare by the head. The car moved on across the ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... how I act, beasts I shoot on the wing. [The signification of this is, that he "shoots at them as they fly," referring to the man/id[-o]s as they escape from ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... above the ground, or in the crevices of old snags and fence rails. It is then apparently lifeless, with the antennae resting close along the back, above which the wings are folded. But one or two warm days are necessary to restore it to activity, and I have seen it on the wing as early as the 2d of March, hovering over the open flowers of the ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... not a European one, then may it come, bronzed, keen, and supple from the tropic calm! The birds of the forest are on the wing. ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... thus bespoke his soldiers, took part of the parsley, and with it made himself a chaplet first, his captains and their companies all following the example of their leader. The soothsayers then, observing also two eagles on the wing towards them, one of which bore a snake struck through with her talons, and the other, as she flew, uttered a loud cry indicating boldness and assurance, at once showed them to the soldiers, who with one consent fell to supplicate the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... strong-muscled, keen-eyed, iron-nerved frontiersman it was an exceedingly accurate weapon, at all events within the ordinary limits of forest ranges. He was a poor marksman who could not shoot running deer or elk at a distance of one hundred and fifty yards, and kill ducks and geese on the wing; and "boys of twelve hung their heads in shame if detected in hitting a squirrel in any other part of ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... bliss, Whose power is such, that whom she lifts from earth She makes familiar with a heaven unseen, And shows him glories yet to be revealed. Not slothful he, though seeming unemployed, And censured oft as useless. Stillest streams Oft water fairest meadows; and the bird That flutters least is longest on the wing. Ask him, indeed, what trophies he has raised, Or what achievements of immortal fame He purposes, and he shall answer—None. His warfare is within. There unfatigued His fervent spirit labours. There he fights, And there obtains fresh ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... they were so small he could not hit them. And the swallows kept flying about so, twittering and darting here and there, that he knew he would have to practise a long time before he could take them on the wing. The yellow-birds and blue-birds were so shy, that he could hardly see one in sight of the house. So there was no game left ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... one's own presuppositions—not by accident or inadvertently, but proudly and with an air of triumph. Presuppositions are imposed on all of us by life itself: for instance the presupposition that life is to continue, and that it is worth living. Belief is born on the wing and awakes to many tacit commitments. Afterwards, in reflection, we may wonder at finding these presuppositions on our hands and, being ignorant of the natural causes which have imposed them on the animal mind, we may be offended at them. Their ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... we must not exercise That roughness here, as where conviction lies In nature, is because those thus ensnared Want nature's light and help to be repair'd. A spirit hath them taken, they are gone, Delusions supernat'ral they're on The wing of; They are out o' th' reach of man Nothing but God, and gospel reach them can. Now since we cannot give these people eyes, Nor regulate their judgment, wherein lies, Our work with them, if not, as has been said, In exercising patience. While display'd The holy word before their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... week after this I saw Lady Mary at her own house, the last person, she said, left in town, and just on the wing for Brighton, for the London season was quite over. She told me that she had heard from Mr. Jenning's niece, Martha, in Shropshire. There was nothing to be gathered from her letter, more than that ...
— Green Tea; Mr. Justice Harbottle • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... faith Of Ganelon, and sealed the treacherous bond By pressing on his lip a kiss—Besides Unto him gave his sword and carbuncle. "I will," said he, "put your great France to shame And from the Emperor's head shake off the crown!" Mounted on Barbamouche that faster flies Than hawk or swallow on the wing, he spurs His courser hard, and dropping on its neck The rein, he strikes Engelier de Gascuigne; Hauberk nor shield is for him a defense: Deep in the core the Pagan thrusts his spear So mightily, its point comes out behind, And with the shaft o'erturns him on the field A corse;—he cries. "Fit ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... for in a warmer climate it is a rare thing to find them. Sometimes a few weary land-birds that have strayed from their homeward way, skim over the ocean, or rest upon the masts; how they maintain themselves on the wing cannot be conjectured, but certain it is, they have been seen on the trackless ocean, when no point of land ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... tucked her feet away clear, Just an inch to one side of the fallen man's ear, With a flash of horse wisdom as she went on the wing Not to tread on man's body, that ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... enveloped in clouds emitting flashes of lightning, and the coloured bow of Indra appeared shedding its effulgent rays. And the clouds seemed to laugh on account of the rows of white cranes that were then on the wing. And seeing Indra thus viewing the arena from affection (for his son), the sun too dispersed the clouds from over his own offspring. And Phalguna remained deep hid under cover of the clouds, while Karna remained visible, being surrounded by the rays of the Sun. And the son of Dhritarashtra ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... all one. I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think "Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing, you must have all your will in a focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and, equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living in your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... move; impel &c. 276; propel &c. 284; render movable, mobilize. Adj. moving &c. v.; in motion; transitional; motory[obs3], motive; shifting, movable, mobile, mercurial, unquiet; restless &c. (changeable) 149; nomadic &c. 266; erratic &c. 279. Adv. under way; on the move, on the wing, on the tramp, on the march. Phr. eppur si muove [It][Galileo]; es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille[Ger], sich ein Charakter in dem Strom ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... the child from between the knees of the man,—they entice the unwary from out of his fruitful house,—they are the threatening voice which pursues him from behind." Their malice extended even to animals: "They force the raven to fly away on the wing,—and they make the swallow to escape from its nest;—they cause the bull to flee, they cause the lamb to flee—they, the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... could be urged, or rather perhaps the style of the address, as it was described to me, was fitted to confound and bewilder the man rather than enlighten him. In the midst of all this Mr. Carleton came in—he was just then on the wing for America, and he had heard of the poor creature's condition in a visit to his father. He came,—my informant said,—like a being of a different planet. He took the man's hand,—he was chained foot and wrist,—'My poor ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious, occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather from the south of England, where it is more often seen. Those I saw were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... should hold a box out as squarely as possible while a stretcher is measured. Cut a nick 3/8 inch deep in one end of the stretcher, and pass the end through the fabric slits to the ring not on the wing. Pull the wing out, holding it by its ring, and cut the stretcher off 1 inch from the nearest point of the ring. The extra length will allow for the second nick and the tensioning of the material. Now measure off the second stretcher by the first, nick it, and place it in position. ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... which was the most abundant here was the Cuculus phasianus or pheasant cuckoo. This bird in colour, in length of tail, in its size, and general appearance so closely resembles the hen pheasant of England that, when it is on the wing, it is almost impossible to tell the difference; its habits and food are also identical with that of the English pheasant. The chief point of distinction is that its toes point two before and two behind, in the same manner as those of a parrot; but ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... has given me a fellow-feeling for the birds of the air. I have at times tried light-heartedly to shoot partridges and even pigeons, but if ever again I fire at anything on the wing, sympathy will spoil ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... attached to the sport; in fact the only difficulty to be overcome in breaking him, is the effort it requires to make him suppress his natural ardour and withhold his exclamations of delight till the bird is actually on the wing. The tutelage of the cocker intended for the field should commence as early as possible, and is not, as many suppose, attended with great difficulty. His first lessons should be confined to the art ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... on a pond, A grass-bank beyond; A blue sky of spring, White clouds on the wing; How little a thing To remember for years— To ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... who gained the envied Alp, And—eager, ardent, earnest there— Dropped into Death's wide-open arms, Quelled on the wing like eagles struck in air— Forever they slumber young and fair, The smile upon them as they died; Their end attained, that end a height: Life was to these a dream fulfilled, And death ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... better shoot at stationary objects, however, than at game on the wing. Hard by his cottage a hare had burrowed in a potato-field. Every morning and every evening Murger fired at the hare, but with such little effect, that the hare soon took no notice either of Murger or his gun, and gambolled before them both as if they were simply a scarecrow. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... on a pond, A grass bank beyond, A blue sky of spring, White clouds on the wing; What a little thing To remember for years, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... contract, and the exercise of that studious ingenuity, which perhaps leads the world to admire the achievements of learning, thus deceive us into a state of existence little better than cold selfishness itself. Sir Isaac Newton, who soared so high and travelled so far on the wing of abstract thought, gathering light from the stars that he might convey it in intelligible shape to the world, seems to have thought, high as the employment was, that it was not good, either for the heart or mind of man, to be always away from ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... out against a nation! My whole object was to impress these people with my imaginary greatness, and I constantly made them marvel at my prowess with the bow and arrow. The fact of my being able to bring down a bird on the wing was nothing more nor less than a miracle to them. I was given the name of "Winnimah" by these people, because my arrows sped like lightning. Six of the alligator's teeth I took for myself, and made them into a circlet which ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... content you, Master Varney, it is no part of my policy to suffer such interlopers to interfere in my trade. He pries into no mysteries more, I warrant you, for, as I well believe, he hath been wafted to heaven on the wing of a fiery dragon—peace be with him! But in this retreat of mine shall I have the use ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... neither had done so was not, however, what now mattered, but that the gentleman at Florian's should be in the place at all. He couldn't have been in it long; Densher, as inevitably a haunter of the great meeting-ground, would in that case have seen him before. He paid short visits; he was on the wing; the question for him even as he sat there was of his train or of his boat. He had come back for something—as a sequel to his earlier visit; and whatever he had come back for it had had time to be done. He ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... a lesson in flower-making," replied I. "Yes, she is like the little busy bees, always on the wing, and, as the hymn says, 'How neat she spread her wax!' and Monsieur, where ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... home after the first shoot, I saw a falcon catch a swallow on the wing. It had missed one and we were watching it. It flew straight and rather fast past us, just within shot, fairly high. A swallow came sailing at full speed from the opposite direction and would have passed above ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... the spring, And day's at the morn; Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven— All's right ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... quietly opened, when one or two of the strangers soon make their appearance, wondering, evidently, where they are, but apparently resolved to make the most of their new circumstances. At last, they rise slowly on the wing, and buzz round and round their new habitation for some time, taking, no doubt, special note of its every peculiarity. The circle of observation is then gradually enlarged, till it is thirty or forty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... Liking 's ever on the wing, From new blooms new sweets to bring; Nibbling aye, the nimble thing From the hook is free still: Love 's a tar of British blue, Let mad winds their maddest do, To his haven carded true, As I ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... D—-, to whom (though my acquaintance with him was not so intimate as with some others) I should not have shrunk from presenting myself under any circumstances. He was still at Eton, though I believe on the wing for Cambridge. I called, was received kindly, and asked ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... Bucky O'Connor's bullet had already annulled the marriage, that happiness was already on the wing to them. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no ensemble and such marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on the wing opposed to Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and centre of the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is generalship! The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so mischievous, attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The victory, such as it was, was due to ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged let it disdain alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption; let him preserve ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... describes the California Melanerpes as one of the most abundant of the woodpeckers; and remarks that it catches insects on the wing like a flycatcher. It is well determined that it also eats the acorns that it takes so much pains ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... it should be but the drops of the incipient rill which is to terminate in such an ocean—the tiny grains which are to accumulate and issue in such "an exceeding weight of glory!" Delay not the momentous question! The day of offered grace is on the wing; its hours are fast numbering; and, ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... abundantly in its fertile soil. Among many kinds of native animals, the wild goats are the most numerous, and are scarcely ever tamed. Chili is particularly rich in beautiful birds; troops of parrots are seen on the wing; humming-birds, and butterflies of all kinds, hover round the flowers, and swarms of lantern-flies sparkle through the night; while venomous insects and snakes ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... by nets, dozens at a time, or brought down in great numbers by shot-guns. The marshalled hosts of wild geese made their noisy flights over the land in the spring and fall, traversing a space spanning the continent north and south. They were brought down by the gun, on the wing, or surprised while resting in their long route or stopped by storms, around secluded ponds or swamps. Ducks and other aquatic birds were abundant on the rivers and marshes, and pursued in canoes along the bays and seashores. Salt-water fish were within ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... send this as an avant-coureur, without jack-boots, to tell you, that I am again on the wing, and hope to be with you a few hours after you receive it. I shall find you well, and composed, I am sure; or, more properly speaking, cheerful.—What is the reason that my spirits are not as manageable as yours? Yet, now I think ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... on the wing, And death is ever nigh; The moment when our lives begin We all begin ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... now and then, play peep with the young birds. They fly almost up to the nest, and poise themselves for an instant on the wing, just long enough to say, "Bo-peep!" and then away! almost before they can be seen. Pretty soon they return again, generally bringing some nice morsel with them. They often first alight on a small branch of the vine, below the nest, and then hop ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... moment, but with an intuitive calculation of distance and speed where it will be when reached by the projectile hurled after it, illustrating cleverly by the example of shooting with bow and arrow at a bird on the wing. ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... make out as many as half a dozen of the fliers, some darting about as swift as swallows on the wing, others more stationary, and evidently with the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... remember Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The fever on ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... following, made by Alamanni two hundred and seventy years ago;—"There is one very singular prophecy concerning Venice: 'If thou dost not change,' it says to that proud republic, 'thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not reckon a century more than the thousandth year.' If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the government under which the republic flourished, we shall find that the date of the election ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... fervency of words, but with such soundness of doctrine while they mention, urge, or plead the promise with God, that that whole assembly may be enlightened, taught, taken, and carried away in their spirits, on the wing of that prayer, and of faith, to God, whose face they are come to seek, and whose grace they are gathered together to beg. Now this is called praying and praising, to the teaching and edifying of others, as by the scripture afore named is made appear (1 Cor 14:14-19). ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... he launched out into the praises of a monastic life, which no noise disturbs, no cares molest, and no danger invades—where the heart is weaned from carnal attachments, the grosser appetite subdued and chastised, and the soul wafted to divine regions of philosophy and truth, on the wing of studious contemplation. But his eloquence was lost upon me, whom two considerations enabled to withstand his temptation; namely, my promise to my uncle, and my aversion to an ecclesiastical life; for as to the difference of religion, I looked upon it as a thing of too small ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... (Fig. 6) is almost exclusively a southern species, occurring in some years very abundantly on the potato-vines in Southern Illinois, and also in Missouri, and according to Dr. Harris, it is occasionally found even in New-England. In some specimens the broad outer black stripe on the wing-cases is divided lengthwise by a slender yellow line, so that, instead of two, there are three black stripes on each wing-case; and often in the same field may be noticed all the intermediate grades; thus proving that the four-striped ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... her secret and was waiting to be answered. Would her daughter forgive her? The young nun's face expressed nothing she felt at that moment; for the staring eyes and parted lips remained mechanically fixed in a look of blind surprise long after her thoughts were on the wing; and her thoughts flew far, but their wide-circling flight brought them back, like swallows, as swiftly as they had ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... except the toy town itself. But it's a place to stay in. A happy man would never tire of it, I think. An unhappy one might prefer Brighton—or Monte Carlo. I am neither one nor the other. So I prefer a motor-car. We are on the wing again to-morrow. ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... who offered his services to Philip of Macedon, boasting of his skill in bringing down birds on the wing, and to whom Philip had replied he would accept them when he made war on the birds. Aster, to be revenged, sped an arrow from the wall of a town Philip was besieging, inscribed, "To the right eye of Philip," which took effect; whereupon Philip sped back ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... had fainted and lay like one dead on my arm, her white face upturned to mine, her long black lashes sweeping the marble cheeks, and the dark curls falling backward from the white brow and floating on the wind, as Fatima flashed along the woodland path like a swallow on the wing. ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... within six inches of them without frightening them. There is, however, a yellow and black banded wasp that catches them to store his nest with; and whenever one of these came about, they would rise fluttering in the air, where they were safe, as I never saw the wasp attack them on the wing. It would hawk round the groups of shrubs, trying to pounce on one unawares; but their natural dread of this foe made it rather difficult to do so. When it did catch one, it would quietly bite off its wings, roll it up into a ball, and fly off with it. Again, the cockroaches that infest the houses ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... approximate—as manners, customs, and laws vary, from the tumultuous intercourse of men—as new facts arise—as new truths are brought to light—as ancient opinions are dissipated, and others take their place—the image of an ideal perfection, forever on the wing, presents itself to the human mind. Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man: the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well, that no people and no individual, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... sat on one side of his own hearth, with Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town's life was still rolling in through the great ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... moisture occur in abundance, spread overhead in such extraordinary luxuriance that few of the sun's rays could penetrate the massy net-work of leaves and branches forming the roof of our fairy passage. Not a single bird could be seen, either seated or on the wing; nor was even a chirp distinguishable above the dreamy hum of millions of mosquitoes floating about, in a calm so profound, that it seemed as if the surface of the water had never been disturbed since the Creation. The air, though cool, felt so heavy and choky, that, by the time ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... able to enjoy lovely things that passed him on the wing as completely and deliberately as if they had been dug-up marvels, long anticipated, and definitely fixed at the end of a railway journey. For a few pleasurable seconds he quite forgot where he was going, and ...
— Alexander's Bridge and The Barrel Organ • Willa Cather and Alfred Noyes
... the estuary steamer that winter morning just as daylight came full. The sun was on the wing scattering little white clouds, as an eagle might scatter doves. They scurried up before him with their broken feathers tipped and tinged with gold. In the air was a touch of frost, and a smoky mist-drift ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... often seen 'em around here," whispered Gif. "But you'd have to go a long distance to get 'em unless you could shoot 'em on the wing. They never settle down in ...
— The Rover Boys on a Hunt - or The Mysterious House in the Woods • Arthur M. Winfield (Edward Stratemeyer)
... sport of falconry as a high tribute to the mental powers of the genus Falco. The hunting falcons were educated into the sport of hawking, just as a boy is trained by his big brother to shoot quail on the wing. The birds were furnished with hoods and jesses, and other garnitures. They were carried on the hand of the huntsman, and launched at unlucky herons and bitterns as an intelligent living force. The ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... gentleman was lying under the shelter of some shrubs on the banks of the River Tweed, when he saw a large brood of ducks, which had been made to rise on the wing by the drifting of a fir-branch among them. After circling in the air for a little time, they again settled down on ...
— The Nursery, November 1877, Vol. XXII. No. 5 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... which I had read of it, and was not at all disappointed. We caught one or two with a baited hook which we floated astern upon a shingle. Their long, flapping wings, long legs, and large, staring eyes, give them a very peculiar appearance. They look well on the wing; but one of the finest sights that I have ever seen, was an albatross asleep upon the water, during a calm, off Cape Horn, when a heavy sea was running. There being no breeze, the surface of the water was unbroken, but a long, heavy swell was rolling, and we saw the fellow, all white, directly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... voice cheered up and she said: "Why, of course—come right out. I understand." A pause and then, "Yes, I know a man has to go where he is called." "Oh, she'll understand—you know father is always on the wing." "No—why, no, of course not—mother wouldn't think that of you. I'll tell her how it was." "All right, good-by—yes, right away." And Jeanette Barclay skipped away from the telephone and ran to her ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... niggardly give me sight of her; not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely to many to know what she would have given; briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or in my means, meed, I am sure, I have received none, unless experience be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to ...
— The Merry Wives of Windsor • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... was a fine shot, Davy," remarked his Uncle Dunston in speaking about the partridge. "As fine a shot on the wing as ...
— Dave Porter and His Double - The Disapperarance of the Basswood Fortune • Edward Stratemeyer
... particularly he enjoyed listening to his own thoughts as they trod slowly, but very certainly, to foregone conclusions. Into the silent arena of his mind no impertinent chatter could burst with a mouthful of puns or ridicule, or a reminiscence caught on the wing and hurled apropos to the very centre of discussion. His own means of conveying or gathering information was that whereby one person asked a question and another person answered it, and, if the ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... plentiful at that time, their chief breeding-place being in the township of Fenelon, in a direct line west from my residence, some forty or fifty miles. And yet, soon after day- light, they would be passing eastward over my clearing, so vast is their swiftness and strength on the wing. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... the woods resound; The hatchet's buried in the valley; No foe profanes our hunting-ground! The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver, The verdant hills with song-birds ring, While our bark canoes, the river Skim, like swallows on the wing.—G. ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... shooting now like an arrow and then stopping in its course as if held back by invisible hands. Pierre sat in the stern and wielded the paddle just as calmly and nonchalantly as if they were paddling across a pond. His hand seemed sure, and the canoe came through like a swallow on the wing. ...
— Bob Hunt in Canada • George W. Orton
... respects to me again, saying, "You little devil, do you call this writing your worst?" "No," I replied; "I call it writing my best." The annihilator, as it turned out, was really a good-natured young man; but he was on the wing for Cambridge; and with the rest, or some of them, I continued to wage war for more than a year. And yet, for a word spoken with kindness, how readily I would have resigned (had it been altogether at my own ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... nothing to do with it—nothing. Between my niece and me—tout est fini." She darted from him, swerving again like a bird on the wing. "I don't know you. You come here with what may be no more than a cock-and-bull story, to get ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... fortunate In its greetings and adieux, Nothing flat or importunate, Nothing of the misuse That comes of the constant grinding Of one mind on another. So memory has nothing to smother, But only a few things captured On the wing, as it were, and enraptured. Yes, Morris, I am inditing— Answering at last it seems, How can you read the writing In ...
— Lundy's Lane and Other Poems • Duncan Campbell Scott
... the night, and when the rain The troubled torrent fills, I often think I see again The river in the hills; And when the day is very near, And birds are on the wing, My spirit fancies it can hear The song ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... alone take the storm on the wing, And, taunting the tree-sheltered laborers, sing. Like pebbles the rain breaks the face of the spring, While a bubble darts up from each widening ring; And the boy in dismay hears the ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... yet they had long since been cleared by the overmastering musketry of the Richard. Several, with leg or arm broken by a ball, had been seen going dimly downward from their giddy perch, like falling pigeons shot on the wing. ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... you are a man of wisdom, So let me counsel you. There's not a lad Up yonder, but at four-score yards can shoot A swallow on the wing. They have drunken deep. I cannot answer but their hands might loose Their shafts before they know it. Now shall I give ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... When you meet Mr. Nighthawk, keep perfectly still. He's a hungry fellow, always on the look-out for somebody to eat. But he has one peculiar habit: he won't grab you unless you're moving through the air. He always takes his food on the wing." ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... man's ambition is but vanity,—it has no definite aim, it plays with a thousand toys. As with one passion, so with the rest. In youth, Love is ever on the wing, but, like the birds in April, it hath not yet built its nest. With so long a career of summer and hope before it, the disappointment of to-day is succeeded by the novelty of to-morrow, and the sun that advances to the noon but ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... These doves, in taking flight, do not rise from the ground at once, but, edging themselves closer to the brink, with a caution almost ludicrous in such airy things, trust themselves upon the breeze with a shy little hop, and at the next moment are securely on the wing. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... no special attraction for a genuine sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my huntsman's suggestion, and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... practice if indulged in in moderation. On this occasion it answered perfectly. Charteris ran to the half-way line, and handed the ball on to the Babe. The Babe was tackled from behind, and passed to Thomson. Thomson dodged his man, and passed to Welch on the wing. Welch was the fastest sprinter in the School. It was a pleasure—if you did not happen to be one of the opposing side—to see him race down the touch-line. He was off like an arrow. Dacre's back made a futile attempt to get at him. Welch could have given the ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... she answered: "I am sorry to leave a place where I have been so happy. Oh! why cannot we settle down somewhere and stay? I get so tired of being always on the wing. Even the birds have nests to rest in for a little while. Are we never ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the martins and swallows is wholly made up of insects. We have all seen them in their graceful flight and have noticed how they seize their insect prey while on the wing. The martins are of little value for food, and yet, in some parts of our country they have become almost extinct because of the pursuit of ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... soars away, seldom flapping his wings, but rising, sinking, and floating through the air, as if kept up by some internal power. As he seldom is obliged to flap his wings he does not get tired of flying, and can remain on the wing for a very, very long time, pursuing his prey, or enjoying the ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... like some monstrous thing, By its uncurbed passion held; Like dreadful dragon on the wing, So ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... and would have their feet blistered, nay lamed, for a long time. Besides, the ground is so thickly covered with sturdy vegetation that the hounds could not derive much help from their noses. Mere shooting on the wing the King had long since quitted, and he had ceased to mount his horse; thus the chase simply ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... nature are essential to each other. What was the importance of a flock of sea fowl in the heart of the Pacific to the human race for the last four thousand years? or what may it ever be? Yet they pursue their instincts, exert their powers, sweep on the winds, range over the ocean, and return on the wing night by night to their island, nestle in their accustomed spots, and flutter over their young, without a shock or a change, without a cessation of their pleasures or a diminution of their powers through ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... into practice against a scepticism that amounted at times to hostility. One writer upon these subjects gives a funny little domestic conversation that happened, he says, in the year 1898, within ten years, that is to say, of the time when the first aviators were fairly on the wing. He tells us how he sat at his desk in his study and ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... birds are on the wing, When bee and bud and babbling flood Bespeak the birth of spring, Come, sweetheart, be my sweetheart ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... he sat there, Of the days when with such arrows He had struck the deer and bison, On the Muskoday, the meadow; Shot the wild goose, flying southward On the wing, the clamorous Wawa; Thinking of the great war-parties, How they came to buy his arrows, Could not fight without his arrows. Ah, no more such noble warriors Could be found on earth as they were! Now the men were all like women, Only used ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... my arrival at the village in May, until I left it early in July, the great annual business of pairing, nest-building, and rearing the young was going on uninterruptedly. The young of some of the earliest breeders were already strong on the wing when I took my first walks along the hedgerows, still in their early, vivid green, frequently observing my bird through a white and rose-tinted cloud of apple-blossoms; and when I left some species that breed more than once in the season ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... grass grows again when in majesty and mirth, On the wing of the spring, comes the Goddess of the Earth; But for man in this world no springtide e'er returns To the labours of his hands or the ashes of ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... suffer more in estimation by being contemplated in the absence of this poem than of any other single performance he has left us. Loftier flights he certainly has made, but in these he remained but a short while on the wing, and effort is too often perceptible; here the motion ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... import more blame than needs. 100 The tumult rose and ceas'd: for Peace is nigh Where Wisdom's voice has found a list'ning Heart. Amid the howl of more than wintry storms The Halcyon hears the Voice of vernal Hours, Already on the wing! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... to wheel them — he was racing on the wing Where the best and boldest riders take their place, And he raced his stock-horse past them, and he made the ranges ring With the stockwhip, as he met them face to face. Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash, But they saw their well-loved ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... trifling point, it is capital about the unadorned head of the Argus-pheasant. (391/1. See "Descent of Man," Edition I., pages 90 and 143, for drawings of the Argus pheasant and its markings. The ocelli on the wing feathers were favourite objects of Mr. Darwin, and sometimes formed the subject of the little lectures which on rare occasions he would give to a visitor interested in Natural History. In Mr. Wallace's book the meaning of the ocelli comes in by the way, in the explanation ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the flowers of the common Broom, and these are adapted by a curious mechanism for cross-fertilisation. When a bee alights on the wing-petals of a young flower, the keel is slightly opened and the short stamens spring out, which rub their pollen against the abdomen of the bee. If a rather older flower is visited for the first time (or if the bee exerts great force on a younger flower), the keel opens along its whole ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... beneath life's crushing load Whose forms are bending low; Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow,— Look now! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing; Oh! rest beside the weary road, And hear ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... just permitted his jewelled fingers to touch Philippa's velvet hood, saying carelessly,—"Our Lady keep thee!—I cry you mercy, fair son; the lesser tercel is far stronger on the wing." ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... ceased to breathe. In the amphitheatre a fly might be heard on the wing. People could not believe their own eyes. Since Rome was Rome, no one had ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... comrades on one of the ridges that they had defended so well, listened to the roar of conflict on the wing, ever increasing in volume, and watched the vast clouds of smoke gathering over the forest. He could see from where he stood the flash of rifle fire and the blaze of cannon, and both eye and ear told him that the battle was not moving back ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... The thatched roof on the wing that formed the kitchen attracted my artist's eye, and we went in to examine the interior, which we found surprisingly attractive. There was a tiny sitting-room, with a fireplace and a microscopic piano; a dining-room adorned with portraits of relatives who ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... might look who have spoken together, who know something of each other's lives, who may like or dislike, wish to avoid or to draw near to each other, but who cannot pretend that they are complete strangers, wholly indifferent to each other. They met in the sky, almost as one bird may meet another on the wing. And, to Domini, at any rate, it seemed as if the depth, height, space, colour, mystery and calm—yes, even the calm—which were above, around and beneath them, had been placed there by hidden hands as a setting for their encounter, even as the abrupt pageant of the previous day, into which ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... the person whom he saw most frequently was the Duke of Bassano, the only one of his ministers then at Fontainebleau; for the Duke of Vicenza, being charged continually with missions, was, so to speak, constantly on the wing, especially as long as his Majesty retained the hope of seeing a regency in favor of his son succeed him in the government. In seeking to recall the varied feelings whose impress I remarked on his Majesty's countenance, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... ochre-hued locusts, large as young canary birds, which had settled, thick as yellow snow, over the ground. They were resting after a long flight, and there were millions and millions of them, covering the earth in every direction as far as the eye could reach. Only a few were on the wing, but as the carriage stopped before the closed gates, fat yellow bodies came blundering against the canvas curtains, or fell plumply against the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had set to heating were much too hot. Should she run out-of-doors while one of them cooled, and lie in wait to catch the little nurse-angel on the wing or perhaps darting thrillingly down to Stefana on a shooting star, breaking all speed limits! This was a night for adventure. The wild ride of a becapped and haloed little celestial in goggles would be an adventure! Miss ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... sixteen years of age than his father accompanied him to the marshes and the forest, teaching him through the pleasures of the chase the rudiments of war, preaching by example, indifferent to fatigue, firm in his saddle, sure of his shot whatever the game might be,—deer, hare, or a bird on the wing,—intrepid in face of obstacles, bidding his son follow him into danger as though he had ten other ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... concealed, To maids alone and children are revealed: What though no credit doubting wits may give? The fair and innocent shall still believe. Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly, The light militia of the lower sky: These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring. Think what an equipage thou hast in air, And view with scorn two pages and a chair. As now your own, our beings were of old, And once enclosed in woman's beauteous mould; ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... inspired it. She made me read it three times over, and in the evening she copied it with her light and steady hand. Her writing flew upon the paper like the shadow of the wings of thought, with the swiftness, elegance, and freedom of a bird on the wing. The next day she sent it to Paris. M. de Bonald replied by many obliging auguries respecting my talents. This was the beginning of my acquaintance with that most excellent man, whose character I have always admired and loved since, without sharing his theocratical doctrines. ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... or used to claim, to be the literary metropolis of the United States. A prose volume by Mrs. Blake and a volume of her poems lie before us, and for elegance of typography do credit to their Boston publishers. "On the Wing"—lively sketches of a trip to the Pacific, all about San Francisco and the Yosemite Valley, and Los Angeles, and Colorado, but ending with this ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... worship the Lamb, and four groups, each consisting of many persons, advance from the sides: they comprise the holy martyrs, male and female, with priests and lay-men; in the foreground is the fountain of life; in the distance the towers of the heavenly Jerusalem. On the wing pictures, other groups are coming up to adore the Lamb; on the left, those who have laboured for the kingdom of the Lord by worldly deeds—the soldiers of Christ, and the righteous judges; on the right, those who, through self-denial and renunciation of earthly ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... Others. As smoke on the wing of heaven Climbeth and scattereth, Torn of the spear and driven, The land crieth for death: O stormy battlements that red fire hath riven, And ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... recitation with pleasure, or felt a sense of majesty in French verse; but he did not care to proclaim his weakness, and he tried to evade Swinburne's vehement insistence by parading an affection for Alfred de Musset. Swinburne would have none of it; de Musset was unequal; he did not sustain himself on the wing. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... occasionally rippled by the eddying breeze as it swept along; his own little skiff safe at her moorings, undulating with the swell; the sea-gulls, who but a few hours ago were screaming with dismay as they buffeted against the fury of the gale, now skimming on the waves, or balanced on the wing near to their inaccessible retreats; the carolling of the smaller birds on every side of him, produced a lightness of heart and quickened pulse, to which Edward Forster ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Cape-of-Good-Hope hen: They are of a dark-brown or blackish colour, and are therefore sometimes called the black gull: We saw also a great many pintado birds, of nearly the same size, which are prettily spotted with black and white, and constantly on the wing, though they frequently appear as if they were walking upon the water, like the peterels, to which sailors have given the name of Mother Carey's chickens; and we saw ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... blackbirds jawin' as they foller up the plow— Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and theyr not a-carin' how; So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel on the wing— But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other thing: And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in stiddy rest, She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's nest; And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's a-shinin' right, Seems ...
— Riley Farm-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... parting life, And then of death eternal the sharp dread! But if the soul with hope from heaven be fed, And haply in itself the heart have grief, What then is death? Its brief sigh brings relief: Already I approach'd my final goal, My strength was failing, on the wing my soul, When thus a low sad-whisper by my side, 'O miserable! who, to vain life tied, Counts every hour and deems each hour a day, By land or ocean, to himself a prey, Where'er he wanders, who one form pursues, Indulges one desire, one dream renews, Thought, speech, sense, feeling, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... convolutions—now looking back with fiery eyes upon his pursuers, now precipitating his flight—while the air was thronged with its winged tenants, wildly screaming, and occasionally dropping down dead with fear. To crown the whole, high in the expanse, a multitude of vultures appeared, almost stationary on the wing, waiting for their share of the anticipated slaughter. And as the beasts threw down and rolled over each other in their mad career, you might have fancied from the universal terror which prevailed, that it was a day of judgment to which the ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... queen bee contains about five thousand eggs, and that she produces from ten to twelve thousand bees in the space of two months.—Drones are smaller than the queen, but larger than the working bees, and when on the wing they make a greater noise. Their office is to impregnate the eggs of the queen after they are deposited in the cells; but when this is effected, as they become useless to the hive, they are destroyed by the working bees and thrown out; and having ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... Bradley fell; then something swooped for him from behind, another pair of talons clutched him beneath the arms, his downward rush was checked, within another hundred feet, and close to the surface of the sea he was again borne upward. As a hawk dives for a songbird on the wing, so this great, human bird dived for Bradley. It was a harrowing experience, but soon over, and once again the captive was being carried swiftly toward the east and what fate he could ...
— Out of Time's Abyss • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... running about free and unshackled in her loose draperies, quite unabashed in her state of semi-nudity—gay, reckless, wooing pleasure on the wing, surely she might have posed as the embodied archetype of France itself. So has this pagan among modern nations borrowed something of the antique spirit of wantonness. Along with its theft of the Attic charm and grace, it has captured, also, something of its ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... I found all my companions changed into blue chalcedony—not one alive. The heavens, too, had changed; clouds obscured the sun, the wind was rising, and ever and anon a mournful gust blew through the shrouds; the birds were screaming on the wing, and the water line of the black horizon was fringed with a narrow ridge of foam. The thunder rolled at a distance, and I perceived that convulsion of the elements was at hand. The sails were all set, and without ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Elmer who painted the picture of the hybrid between a blackcock and a pheasant which readers of Selborne will remember was sent by Lord Stawell to Gilbert White. "It had been found by the spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing." ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... draw, and to deliver to them, their draughts upon all such persons who stood indebted to their extensive concern. In the words of a celebrated orator[7], "Though they had shaken the tree till nothing remained upon the leafless branches, yet a new flight was on the wing, to watch the first buddings of its prosperity, and to nip every hope of ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr |
