"Witching" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Stella, but she was nowhere to be found, nor had the warm evening lured Mrs. Wildmere from her room. He had learned that Arnault was still at the house, and he inferred, from the surpassing beauty of the moonlit evening, that his rival would not let such witching hours pass without an effort to turn them to account. With a frown he retreated from the music, dancing, and gayety of a full house, and went up ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... that this was not the first time that Mr Shute had made one of a trio in these circumstances, for the swift dexterity with which he lost Arthur was certainly not that of a novice. So smoothly was it done that it was not until she emerged from the Witching Waves, guided by the pugilist's slim but formidable right arm, that Maud realized that ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... now wholly shading her radiant face, which quickly peeps out again from behind its shelter, like the moon from out a passing cloud. This little article, always costly, sometimes very expensive, in her hand seems in its eloquence of motion almost to speak. She has a witching flirt with it that expresses scorn; a graceful wave of complacence; an abrupt closing of it that indicates vexation or anger; a gradual and cautious opening of its folds that signifies reluctant forgiveness; in short, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... odorous limes were dim above As we leant on a drooping bough; And the darkling air was a breath of love, And a witching thrush sang "Now!" For the sun dropt low, and the twilight grew As we listen'd and sigh'd, and leant; That day was the sweetest day—and we knew What the ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... despotic sway alike over the gorgeous city of a consummate civilization, and the miserable wigwam of a heathen barbarism! Who, then, can wonder—if the theme of Love be universal—that it should have evoked the rude and iron eloquence of the Scandinavian Scald as well as the soft and witching poesy of the bards of more genial climes, or that its praises or its sorrows should be sung on the banks of the Arno, the Seine, or the Thames, as well as amidst the pathless forests of America, or the burning sands of Africa, ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... to buy his ticket, dash down the steps, and jump into a first-class carriage. Getting out at Portland road, he took a cab to Regent street, and dropped in at the Cafe Royal for a few minutes. Then he started toward his lodgings on foot. It was that witching hour when West End London, before it goes to sleep, foams and froths like a glass of champagne that will soon be flat and flavorless. Men and women, inclined to be hilarious, thronged the pavements under the strong lights. Birds of prey, male ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... along with its witching gayeties, and, though the young Christian was never tempted to join the giddy multitude in their unlawful pastimes, yet his views were more lax than ...
— Tiger and Tom and Other Stories for Boys • Various
... did she straight a snowycloth disclose Of samite, which she placed upon a chair: Then, smiling like a freshly-budding rose, She gazed upon me with a witching air, As mote a Cynic anchorite ensnare. Eftsoons, as though her thoughts she could not smother, She hasted thus her mission to declare:— 'Please, these is your clean things I've brought instead of brother, 'And if you'll pay the bill you'll ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... eyes which he had so madly loved. The music gave life and being to these memories, and its glamour brought back the dead from her grave! He remembered how he had asked her if she loved him, and how, avoiding the words so difficult to speak, she had answered with the witching tones of her violin. Oh, that heavenly evening hour upon the balcony! She had said, "Love has its own language: come and listen." And Christina said SHE HAD NOT LOVED! He could ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... which she was particularly fond, and began to read. For a while she listened, and in her interest forgot her forebodings, but after a time her long silky lashes swept her cheeks, and she slept. The minister laid down the volume and watched the pure girlish face; noted all its witching loveliness, and thought of the homage which it would win her in coming years. He knew as he sat watching her slumber that he loved her above everything on earth; that she wielded a power none had ever possessed before—that his heart was indissolubly linked with hers. He had wrestled ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... hermit peoples. Learn before you die to follow the Piper's Son, and though your old bones bleach among grey rocks, what matter if you have had your bellyful of life and come to your heart's desire?" And the tune fell low and witching, bringing tears to the eyes and joy to the heart; and the man knew (though no one told him) that this was the first part of the Rime, the Song of the Open Road, the Lilt of the Adventurer, which shall be now and ever and to the end ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... still shall last the dreadful chase Till time itself shall have an end; By day they scour earth's cavern'd space, At midnight's witching hour, ascend. ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... the Opium-eater (5) quell Thy wondering sprite with witching spell? Read'st thou the dreams of murkiest hell In that mild mien? Or dost thou doubt yet fear to ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... say it? She was never a woman—she was a girl— far, far transcendent. It was the first time I had ever seen her— standing there before the door. I had never beheld such beauty, such profile, poise—the witching, laughing, night-black of her eyes; the perfectly bridged nose and the red, red lips that smiled, it seemed to me, in sadness. She hesitated, and as if puzzled, lifted a jewelled hand to her raven mass of hair. To this minute I cannot account for my action, unless, perchance, ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... playground, and the water lapped the base of the big rock on which we played "King on the Castle,"—the big rock so pitifully dwindled of late years. No matter what he facts are. Sing 'of "The Little Old Red Schoolhouse On the Hill" and in everybody's heart a chord trembles in unison. As we hear its witching strains, we are all lodge brethren, from Maine to California and far across the Western Sea; we are all lodge brethren, and the air is "Auld Lang Syne," and we are clasping hands across, knitted together into one living solidarity; and this, if we but sensed it, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... it may, the spot in question was, at all events, so situated as to be only visible, and then but vaguely, under certain witching ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... ca? I am also in a conspiracy with the American editor, a French restaurant-man, and an Italian fisherman against the Padre. The enclosed poster is my last literary appearance. It was put up to the number of 200 exemplaires at the witching hour; and they were almost all destroyed by eight in the morning. But I think the nickname will stick. Dos Reales; deux reaux; two bits; twenty-five cents; about a shilling; but in practice it is worth from ninepence ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the witching time for Story-telling. "Our whole life, Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less intelligible,—generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that I scarce know which ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... Was that witching light already fading in her sky? Was the storm even now muttering, that would rudely toss aside the rose leaves that garlanded the feet of her beloved? In the midst of her eloquent prologue would darkness smite suddenly, and end the drama? Life had poured ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... kept what her witching, luring face promised, she must be very pretty by this time, notwithstanding the peculiar color of her hair—for, between ourselves, if she had been a tradesman's daughter, instead of a young lady of high birth, they ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... noblemen and merchants. These new inhabitants have walled up the fair arched windows and slender portals of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets without materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching hour when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving along those open loggias, the young men ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... halls we turned away To gaze upon a poet's home; 'Twas near the close of that bright day, And golden sunlight on it shone; Perfume of flowers, and birds' songs low A witching spell about us throw. ...
— Within the Golden Gate - A Souvenir of San Fransisco Bay • Laura Young Pinney
... and the forehead was not very high; but for all this, the glossy hair, the dancing blue eyes, the apple-blossom complexion, and the rosebud mouth made ample amends; and Dr. Richards saw no fault in that witching face, flashing its blue eyes for an instant upon him, and then modestly turning to the service just commencing. So absorbed was Dr. Richards as not to notice that the strain of music filling the old church did not come from the screeching melodeon he had so anathematized, but from an organ as mellow ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... on board? Poor Dr Cuff! I thought of him more than any one. He was a friend in whom I could place perfect confidence, and had so often been my companion that I thought more of his fate than of that of anybody else on board. While I stood witching the far-distant conflagration, I felt a stronger puff of wind on my cheek than had for some time been blowing. It rapidly increased, but it blew off the land. After I had waited some time till I thought I ought to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... wi' toil an' pain, May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain; For oh! the yellow treasure's ta'en By witching skill; An' dawtet, twal-pint Hawkie's gaen As ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... see. There was a witching mingling of the frank, the childlike, and the womanly, in her troubled face; frankness that would not deny the truth that her monitor seemed to have read, a childlike simplicity of shame that he should have divined it, and a womanly self-respect ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... tends, And seems too woe-begone to drop a tear. How yet the regal aspect he retains! Jason is he, whose skill and prowess won The ram from Colchos. To the Lemnian isle His passage thither led him, when those bold And pitiless women had slain all their males. There he with tokens and fair witching words Hypsipyle beguil'd, a virgin young, Who first had all the rest herself beguil'd. Impregnated he left her there forlorn. Such is the guilt condemns him to this pain. Here too Medea's inj'ries are avenged. All bear him company, who like deceit To his have practis'd. And thus much ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... describe charm, and I shall make no attempt, except to say that my mother's spell did not consist in good looks in the ordinary sense of the word. She had a witching expression, an exceedingly graceful carriage of her head and body, and a good figure; but her face was so mobile and so entirely governed by her smile that photographs and pictures were always pronounced as "impossible" ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... honest fellows—all men of uncommon talents—are now all under the turf." And in 1821, John Struthers, a Scottish poet little known, but of great worth and some genius, thus recurs to Currie's words:— (p. 111) Nae mair in learning Willie toils, nor Allan wakes the melting lay, Nor Rab, wi' fancy-witching wiles, beguiles the hour o' dawning day; For tho' they were na very fou, that wicked wee drap in the e'e Has done its turn; untimely now the green grass waves o'er a' ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... glimmered on The shining way he went. He whispered to the trees strange tales Of wondrous sweet intent, When, suddenly, his witching voice With timbre rich and rare, Rang through the woodlands till it cleft Earth's silent solitudes, and left ...
— The Verse-Book Of A Homely Woman • Elizabeth Rebecca Ward, AKA Fay Inchfawn
... grove is one of the most beautiful, serene, witching places that ever was seen. High overhead are ranges of green rustling arches; through which the sun's rays come down to you in sparkles. You seem to be wandering through illimitable halls of pillars; everywhere you catch ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... should think this was, from his shivering notes. Listen again! how old is the dead Time, whose age the distant town-clock is tolling? I don't care to count—to tell the truth, that owl makes me nervous—and if it is 'the witching time of night,' I don't care to ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... "The witching hour," thought the girl. "The hour when the Banshee walks abroad. I wonder if I shall see her. I should like to see her. Did she hear me when I called to her in the cave? Would she help me if she came to my rescue now? She belongs to us; she is our own Banshee; she has belonged to ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... soon distracted from this witching scene— the exquisite beauty of which is not to be described in mere words—by a noise of singing and shouting on Merlani's island. Presently a feeble flickering fame became visible on the sandy beach, which, quickly ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... as I stood up and went away from the window, "a day might have come when to give him up would be to renounce the happiness of my whole life—that day that I had sometimes fondly, though vainly, dreamed of, with all its witching possibilities and which now lay crumbled ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... first voyage up the river brings us more delicately and gracefully down from these mountains to the Hudson—the level highway to the sea. "Of all the scenery of the Hudson, the Kaatskill Mountains had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination. Never shall I forget the effect upon me of my first view of them, predominating over a wide extent of country—part wild, woody and rugged; part softened away into all the graces of cultivation. As we slowly floated ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... Thy witching tone and air, Thine eye's beseeching earnestness May be to thee a snare. The silver stars may purely shine, The waters taintless flow: But they who kneel at woman's shrine Breathe on it as they bow. Peace may fling back the gift again, But the crushed flower will ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... sometimes at the dead of night. Notices were sent to obnoxious persons warning them to stop certain practices. If warning failed, something more convincing was tried. Fright was the emotion most commonly stirred. A horseman, at the witching hour of midnight, would ride up to the house of some offender, lift his head gear, take off a skull, and hand it to the trembling victim with the request that he hold it for a few minutes. Frequently violence ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... read The Three Clerks; others in which this story is almost wholly delightful. With those who are fond of bed-reading Trollope should ever be a favourite, and it is no small compliment to say this, for small is the noble army of authors who have given us books which can enchant in the witching hour between waking and slumber. It is probable that all lovers of letters have their favourite bed-books. Thackeray has charmingly told us of his. Of the few novels that can really be enjoyed when the reader is settling down for slumber ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... and hollows of the sand-dunes, to the right the rocky shore with its inky shadows and its crystalline coves. Rilla and her partner swung in among the dancers; she drew a long breath of delight; what witching music Ned Burr of the Upper Glen was coaxing from his fiddle—it was really like the magical pipes of the old tale which compelled all who heard them to dance. How cool and fresh the gulf breeze blew; how white and wonderful ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... she said, "men, as I have known them, are men. He has been shut up for a long while with that minx, who is very fair and witching, and it was scarcely right to watch him through a slit in a tower. If he were my lover, I should ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... now, drawing into a separate corner some of the straggling parties whom he had collected and brought to the church, kept on the alert, and appeared ready for an attack as well at mid-day as at the witching hour of midnight. This was the more necessary, as the eye of Sir John de Walton seemed busied in searching from one place to another, as if unable to find the object he was in quest of, which the reader will easily understand to be the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... going, but Esther was so eager that her father put aside his precious paper, tucked her under his arm and trudged cheerily away across the parade toward the bright lights of the hop room. They had a fairly good string orchestra at Frayne that year, and one of Strauss's most witching waltzes—"Sounds from the Vienna Woods"—had just been begun as father and daughter entered. A dozen people, men and women both, saw them and noted what followed. With bright, almost dilated, eyes, and a sweet, warm color mantling her smiling ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... terrors of the tempest, blasts Of demon-armies clouding all the wind, With thunder, and with blinding lightning flung In jagged javelins of purple wrath From splitting skies; sometimes with wiles and words Fair-sounding, 'mid hushed leaves and softened airs From shapes of witching beauty; wanton songs, Whispers of love; sometimes with royal allures Of proffered rule; sometimes with mocking doubts, Making truth vain. But whether these befell Without and visible, or whether Buddh Strove with fell spirits in his inmost heart, Judge ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... winsome witching art, Who touches at his will the kindly human heart, 'Till it throbs with joy like pain and tears begin to start; He so tenderly touched ours With his melting magic powers, Made feelings which he felt within our bosoms spring, ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke
... soul. Then a shadow crossed me. It fell upon my shoulder, and I turned in fear to look. No one—except a naked Venus on the wall. My good angel drew me on. I have seen her thrice since then. It seems a day. She came and looked into my eyes, while I played. It was fairy-music, witching and sweet—a little sad—the fairies of the Danube. My heart danced with them in the fatherland. Her eyes looked into mine. Sombre eyes—strange eyes. What did they say? She leaned forward on the piano, gazing at me ...
— Unfinished Portraits - Stories of Musicians and Artists • Jennette Lee
... fascination of that little creature's countenance. It was a face to attract, to charm, to delight, to draw you in, and rivet your whole attention, until you became absorbed and lost in the study of its mysterious spell—a witching face, whose nameless charm it were impossible to tell, I might describe the fine dark Jewish features, the glorious eyes, the brilliant complexion, and the fall of long, glossy, black ringlets that veiled the proud little head; but the spell lay not in them, any ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... secret life Is given to choicest things:— Of flowers, the fragrance rife Is wafted on viewless wings; We see not the charmed air Bearing some witching sound; And ocean deep is where The pearl of price ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... By the witching amorous sweetness and the blackness of thine eyes, By the tender flexile softness in thy slender waist that lies, By the graces and the languor of thy body and thy shape, By the fount of wine and honey from thy ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... wilds, been lurking within. But, though he thus resolved and reasoned the intruding feeling into nothing, yet he felt he would not like to have Avis Gurley know how often the sparkling countenance and witching smile of this new and beautiful face had been found mingling themselves with the previously exclusive images of his dreams. But, if they did so before this second interview, would they do it less now? His head resolutely answered, "Yes, less, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... twelve o'clock, Kara. The witching hour over and I have seen no woodland spirits come to haunt us, and no human beings. I am afraid my signals have failed to attract attention. The other girls at camp must have decided to give us up for lost and await our return in the morning; ...
— The Girl Scouts in Beechwood Forest • Margaret Vandercook
... in, and the witching hour—the keystone of night's black arch, twelve o'clock—was approaching. To go to bed on such an occasion, would have been held no better than for a jolly toper to shirk his bicker, a lover to eschew the trysting thorn, or a warrior to fly the scene of his country's glory; neither ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... glance up into his earnest face, a witching little smile began to quiver about her lovely lips, then she said, half-saucily, ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... entertains a warm feeling for you, John—always has since making your acquaintance; and after the event of to-day, or rather yesterday, since it is past the witching hour of midnight, she is ready ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... consequence is, when he aimed at mental effect, the result was nearly always pompous, as when Dr. Seelig, in "As a Man Thinks," tries to explain the psychological matrix of the piece, and as when Jack Brookfield, in "The Witching Hour," explains the basis of telepathy. But when he aimed nowhere, yet gave us living, breathing flashes of character, as dominate "The Other Girl" and are typified in the small role of Lew Ellinger, in "The Witching Hour," Thomas was happiest in ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: In Mizzoura • Augustus Thomas
... was occupied by fame This day; and watching, witching, condescending To the consumers of fish, fowl, and game, And dignity with courtesy so blending, As all must blend whose part it is to aim (Especially as the sixth year is ending) At their lord's, son's, or similar connection's Safe conduct through ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... a veteran grim and grey, With sling and crutch, I am but fit to watch the fray Where, in the world-old, witching way, In other hands your fingers stay With lingering touch, That may mean nothing, or it may Mean, oh! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various
... Bang, and myself, sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well inclined for a lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by half— past nine in the evening, and as it was now "the witching time o' night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the daytime, had ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... a fair sight to see the stately mirrors which spread their shining surfaces between pillars of polished marble reflecting the gay assemblage, that, radiant with jewels, promenaded the saloon, or wreathed the dance to the witching music of the most skilful minstrels in all Tuscany. Every lattice was open, and the eye, far as it could reach, wandered through illuminated gardens, tenanted by gay groups, where the flush of the roses, the silver stars of the jasmine, the crimson, purple, orange, and blue of the variegated ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... came into the bazar a Persian riding on a she-mule and carrying behind him a damsel; as she were argent of alloy free or a fish Balti[FN447] in mimic sea or a doe-gazelle on desert lea. Her face outshone the sun in shine and she had witching eyne and breasts of ivory white, teeth of marguerite, slender waist and sides dimpled deep and calves like tails of fat sheep;[FN448] and indeed she was perfect in beauty and loveliness, elegant stature and symmetrical grace, even ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... The witching hour of twilight was chosen for this crude but solemn trial, and at the time appointed a large crowd was gathered in the great courtyard of Haddon in obedience to a mandate of the King of the Peak, ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... Hope, thy fine discourse Foretold not half life's good to me; Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force To show how sweet it is to be! Thy witching dream And pictured scheme To match the fact still want the power; Thy promise brave From birth to grave Life's boon ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Lewy Loses all his pretty smiles; He says they're very far away; At least a hundred miles. He looks as sober as a judge, As stately as a king, As solemn as a parson and As still as anything. And then our little Bertie, The witching willow bringing, Sends all the smiles safe home again, By ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - No 1, Nov 1877 • Various
... ears in blood," smiling grimly at the music of echoing cannons, the shrill trump, and all the rude din of arms, until, like the waters of Egypt, the lake became red as the crimson flowers that blossom upon its margin.[1] And if at "the witching hour of night," the unquiet ghosts of murdered sinners do stalk forth to re-visit earth by the pale glimpses of the moon, the slaughter of Fort William Henry might have furnished a goodly number of shadowy companions for the hero of a tale which is no fiction. But I am not aware that any of ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... Another witching time is the period of twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany. Hence in some parts of Silesia the people burn pine-resin all night long between Christmas and the New Year in order that the pungent smoke may drive ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... them, that so she might devise with him a cunning plan for her to take the mighty fleece of gold and return to the home of Aeetes, for, she said, the sons of Phrixus had given her by force to the strangers to carry off; with such beguiling words she scattered to the air and the breezes her witching charms, which even from afar would have drawn down the savage beast ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... coolness and delight in the midst of the raging day—has been erected by woman into one of London's daily social events; and though the novelist has not discovered the fact up to this moment—Mr. McCarthy has made a very pretty love scene on the Terrace, but it is at the witching hour of night—though this discovery has yet to come, the respite is brief, and in a short time we shall have the hero and the heroine passing through all the agonies of three-volume suffering, to the accompaniment of the division bell and the small tea-table of the ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... the ferry for the sake of fresh air, Isabelle thought she had never seen the city so marvellous. There was an enchantment in the moving lights on the river, the millions of fixed lights in the long city. The scent of sea water reached them, strong and vital, with its ever witching associations of far-off lands. Isabelle turned and met Cairy's ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... for this I went blackberrying with you in my tender infancy! Is it for this that in the heyday of youth I walked with you to the school-house down the road! Was it for this that in the prime of manhood I breathed soft music in your ear at the witching time of night!" ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... eye, Take to itself a female form, And hover toward me from on high, As fall the leaves in Autumn storm. Her dress was like the mantle fair Which Autumn to Columbia brings, And bids the moaning forest wear, With rainbow hues of angel's wings; Her voice was like the witching strain Which laughing streamlets gayly sing When Summer o'er the ripening grain Spreads wide her warm ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... 'Tis that enamoured nightingale Who thus gives me the reply:— To his partner in the vale Listening on a bough hard by Warbling thus his tuneful wail. Cease, sweet nightingale, nor show By thy softly witching strain Trilling forth thy bliss and woe, How a man might feel love's pain, When a bird can feel his so. No: it was that wanton vine That in fond pursuit has sought The tall tree it doth entwine, Till the green weight it hath brought Makes the noble trunk decline. Green entwining ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... idling around, stopped smitten with wonder at the sight. The dogs, dressed in showy colours, braided with imitation gold lace on every seam, a plumed hat or a turban on their heads, and moving in cadence to a witching rhythm, with a distant resemblance to human beings, appeared to him to be supernatural creatures. The skilfully linked steps, the slides, the pirouettes delighted but did not discourage him. Like Correggio at the sight of Raphael's painting, he exclaimed in his canine speech, Anch' ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... the number of times Bertha perused that letter, or if we may draw an inference from her wearing it about her person (probably that she might be able to refresh her memory with its information concerning her cousin), the epistle was either very difficult of comprehension, or it had some witching spell which drew her eyes ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... he listened, Aja's soul was filled as it were with a mingled essence of wonder and irresolution and sheeny beauty and singing sound. For the tone of her voice was like a lute, and before his eyes hovered a picture of waving arms and witching curves, out of which her dreamy eyes, from which he could not take his own, seemed as it were to speak to him of love reproachful and old regret. And all at once, with a violent effort, he roused himself as if from sleep with ...
— An Essence Of The Dusk, 5th Edition • F. W. Bain
... till he was well-nigh beside himself. Presently, out comes Moll from her state room, all glowing with exercise, flushed with pleasure, a rich colour in her cheek, and wild fire in her eyes, looking more witching than any siren. Swiftly she crosses the hall, and runs up the stairs to gain her chamber and reclothe herself, but half way up Dawson stops her, and clasping her about, cries hoarsely ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... right—a porter at the station, a most awfully nice chap, put me into a sort of fly and sent me to one of the hotels—a jolly good little inn it is—and they can put me up. Then I asked for Hillview, mentioning the witching name of Miss Bella Bathgate, and they sent a boy with me to find the place. Miss Bathgate sent me on here. Beautifully managed, ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... At that "witching hour," if any of the Corner House girls had been awake and had looked out of the window, they would have seen that the snowman was ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... they were not blue, neither were they brown; but they presented in the most fascinating ensemble a grey which at night was a fathomless dusk, and by day that green which you perceive where the sea is a hundred fathoms deep. With the light upon her eye there was a glint of emerald, that witching glare which made Becky Sharpe irresistible. Now imagine an eyebrow, dark as the raven's quill, overarching such an eye, and contrasting itself with the burning gold of the hair, and a skin of Parian white and purity. Then contemplate a softness beside which the velvet upon the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... turned with distaste from this idle mockery. The tears would rush into her eyes, as her thoughts reverted from this scene of profligate splendour, to the humble but virtuous home from whence she had been betrayed; or if the witching power of music ever soothed her into a tender reverie, it was to dwell with fondness on the image of Antonio. But if Don Ambrosio, deceived by this transient calm, should attempt at such time to whisper his passion, she ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... breathless moon, Singing in the silent night Till the stars for sheer delight Closed their eyes, and drowsy birds In the midmost forest spray Took their heads from out their wings, Thinking—it is Ariel sings And we must catch the witching words And sing them o'er ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... this world under the semblance of a sanctified exterior. The friar and Matilda had often sung duets together, and had been accustomed to the baron's chiming in with a stormy capriccio, which was usually charmed into silence by some sudden turn in the witching melodies of Matilda. They had therefore naturally calculated, as far as their wild spirits calculated at all, on the same effects from the same causes. But the circumstances of the preceding day had made an essential alteration in the case. The baron knew well, from the intelligence he had received, ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... listened, stared, wondered, the breath of the sea sweet in his nostrils, its flavour in his throat, his vision lost in the tangled web of masts and cordage and funnels that stencilled the moon-pale sky: the witching glamour of salt water binding all his senses ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... to her, whose smiles shed light on My weary lot last year at Brighton, I talk of happiness and marriage, St. George's and a travelling carriage. I trifle with my rosy fetters, I rave about her 'witching letters, And swear my heart shall do no treason Before the closing of the season. Thus I whisper in the ear Of Louisa Windermere— If she cares for what I say, She's an April ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13 Issue 364 - 4 Apr 1829 • Various
... Witching dancer be gone! For my heart's a still shore in the hugeness of dawn, And some answer is thrilling, is trembling for me In the eerie still brightness of heaven and sea, And the little ripples whisper, "What thing ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... very happy in this luxury of mystical speculation. Eternity was behind as before them. Soft impulses from moon and stars, and from the witching beauty of lonely hills and scented garden-ways, touched within their souls some primal sympathy that drew them close to that unseen boundary dividing spirits from shadow-casting men. It is true they rather ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... the very witching time of night, When Prosers yawn."—Discussion grew diffuse: Argument's carte and tierce were lost, outright: ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... then witching the world—witching, in its more solemn sense; for though her smile was exquisite, she might have sat for the picture of a Sybil or a Pythoness. The stage had never seen her equal, and will probably never see another so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... gracious mother's wiles And dear delusive smiles! No callow fledgling of her singing brood But tastes that witching food, And hearing overhead the eagle's wing, And how the thrushes sing, Vents his exiguous chirp, and from his nest Flaps forth—we know the rest. I own the weakness of the tuneful kind,— Are not all harpers blind? I sang too early, must I ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... was rude and unattractive in comparison with the splendid armor, the gay tournaments, and the witching minstrelsy which signalized French chivalry; and thus the peaceful elements of conquest were as seductive as the force of arms was potent. A dynasty which had ruled for more than six hundred years was overthrown; a great ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... thou hast done to me; dost thou remember all those witching letters thou sent'st unto me to Armenia, fill'd with the praise of my beloved Sister, where thou extol'st her beauty, what had I to do with that? what could her beauty be to me? and thou didst write how well she ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... she did not visit him at Potsdam, but at Berlin, and instead of the witching hour of midnight, she chose the broad, clear light of day. Indeed, during the whole of her career, the White Lady does not seem to have kept to the time-honoured traditions of most ghosts, and appeared to startled humanity chiefly at night time or in dim ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji
... holding high discourse, they came to where The cursed carle was at his wonted trade, Still tempting heedless men into his snare, In witching wise, as I ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... In woody wold She met a huntsman fair and bold; His baldrick was of silk and gold, And many a witching tale he told To ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... haze the silver rays of a half moon high in the heavens came with the tenderest touch and the most gracious softness upon all earthly things. There was a vapourous glitter on the water of the broad river, a dewy or hazy veil on the land; the scene could not be imagined more witching fair or more removed from any sort of discordance. Esther stood looking, and her heart calmed down. She had been feeling distressed under the question of ways and means; now it occurred to her, 'Take no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink; your Father knoweth that ye ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... easily said. Leaue me Friends: 'Tis now the verie witching time of night, When Churchyards yawne, and Hell it selfe breaths out [Sidenote: brakes[2]] Contagion to this world.[3] Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter businesse as the day [Sidenote: such busines as the bitter day] ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... and Lucy sat in the library, which was in the rear of the house, far removed from its public entrance. Spenser's Faery Queen was in her hand, but she had turned from its witching pages to gaze upon the title-page, on which was written, in Edward Houstoun's hand, "June 24th, 18—." It was the day, as Lucy well remembered, on which he had first revealed his love, and chosen his career in life. She was aroused from her reverie by Lady Houstoun's entrance. As she held ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... however, regard the power as unholy or disreputable. Another informant mentions a belief that children born between midnight and one o'clock will be second-sighted. People attempt to hasten or delay the birth, so as to avoid the witching hour; clearly then they regard the second sight as an unenviable accomplishment. 'It is certane' says Kirk, 'he sie more fatall and fearfull things, than he do gladsome.' For the physical condition of the seer, Kirk describes it as 'a rapture, transport, and sort of death'. Our contemporary ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang |
