"Oaten" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hurdles, which confined the smoke and excluded the light, they promiscuously slept on the ground, perhaps on a sheep-skin, with their wives, their children, and their cattle. Sordid and scanty were their garments; the use of bread and wine was unknown; and their oaten or barley cakes, imperfectly baked in the ashes, were devoured almost in a crude state, by the hungry savages. The health of Gelimer must have sunk under these strange and unwonted hardships, from whatsoever cause they had been endured; but his actual misery was imbittered ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... the dingle my food had been of the simplest and most unsatisfying description, by no means calculated to support the exertions which the labour I had been engaged upon required; it had consisted of coarse oaten cakes, and hard cheese, and for beverage I had been indebted to a neighbouring pit, in which, in the heat of the day, I frequently saw, not golden or silver fish, but frogs and efts swimming about. I am, however, inclined to ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... ear of yours, and put a few drops of carbolic in the water.' She takes the basket as she says it, and goes into the kitchen. I hurry over this, and go into the little sitting-room. There is a tray with a glass of milk and some oaten cakes upon the table. I am too disturbed to sit down; I stand at the window and watch the bats flitter in the gathering moonlight, and listen with quivering nerves for her step—perhaps she will ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... to cook, he dumps these folks oaten his clothes, an' lets 'em hustle an'play'round while ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... of their great God Pan; and, that they had designed her Mistresse of a Love-feast, which was to be kept that present day, in an Arbour built that morning, for that purpose; she told him also, that Orpheus would bee there, and bring his Harp, Pan his Pipe, and Titerus his Oaten-reed, to make musick at this feast; shee therefore perswaded him, not to lose, but change that dayes pleasure; before he could return an answer they were unawares entred into a living mooving Lane, made of Shepheard and Pilgrimes; who had that morning measured many miles to be ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... people spin their own flax, but not more, and a few of them wool for themselves. Their food is potatoes and milk; but they have a considerable assistance from fish, particularly herrings; part of the year they have also barley, oaten, and rye bread. They are incomparably better off in every respect than twenty years ago. Their increase about Ballycanvan is very great, and tillage all over this neighbourhood is increased. The rent of a cabin 10s.; an acre with it 20s. The grass ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... the Claudes found it impossible to designate a certain delightful region which you enter at the end of an hour's riding from Porta Cavalleggieri as anything but Arcadia. The exquisite correspondence of the term in this case altogether revived its faded bloom; here veritably the oaten pipe must have stirred the windless air and the satyrs have laughed among the brookside reeds. Three or four long grassy dells stretch away in a chain between low hills over which delicate trees are so discreetly scattered that each one ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... evening meal at the door of a little hut at one side of the path. I must have looked rather ill, for they both got up and took me into the hut and were very kind to me. They gave me a big bowl of warm broth, some oaten cakes, and made me stay the night with them. I tried to tell them of my adventure, but as they spoke a strange tongue they could not understand me. I made up my mind that I had better stay with them until I could find ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... are the daughters of motion. Color and music, the ethereal and aerial offspring of this ancestry, born with the world, fostered in Biblical times, expanded in China and Egypt, living on the painted jar, and breathing in the oaten reed, deified in Greece, and analyzed to-day, are natural cousins at the least, and they have come from the spacious home of their progenitor, upon our dusky and silent sphere, like Peace and Goodwill, with hands bound in an oath and contract ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... heaven-sent youngling, holy-maid-born wight: Midst, end, beginning of our prophecies! Blest cottage that hath flowers in winter spread, Though withered—blessed grass that hath the grace To deck and be a carpet to that place! Thus sang, unto the sounds, of oaten reed, Before the Babe, the shepherds bowed on knees; And springs ran nectar, honey dropped ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... of these assertions. To this end I will give a detailed example, with names almost exact. The medium was Mr. Phoenix, of Glasgow, with whom I have myself had some remarkable experiences. The sitter was Mr. Ernest Oaten, the President of the Northern Spiritual Union, a man of the utmost veracity and precision of statement. The dialogue, which came by the direct voice, a trumpet acting as ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Saviour; And tell him, by that bud now blown, He is the Rose of Sharon known. When thou hast said so, stick it there Upon his bib or stomacher; And tell him, for good hansel too, That thou hast brought a whistle new, Made of a clean strait oaten reed, To charm his cries at time of need. Tell him, for coral thou hast none, But if thou hadst, he should have one; But poor thou art, and known to be Even as moneyless as he. Lastly, if thou canst win a kiss From those mellifluous ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... bundle of oat straw, and these bundles Woolcott changed to black horses when the night had grown dark enough not to let the way of the change be seen. These horses could not cross streams of water, and on the stroke of midnight they fell to pieces and were oaten sheaves once more, but during their time of action they rushed through woods, bearing their riders safely, and tore like hurricanes across the fields, leaping bushes, fences, even trees, without effort. Never could traces be found of them the next day. At last the devil came ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... of baser grain, as peas, beans, oats, rye, or [1378]over-hard baked, crusty, and black, is often spoken against, as causing melancholy juice and wind. Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his History of Scotland, contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread: it was objected to him then living at Paris in France, that his countrymen fed on oats, and base grain, as a disgrace; but he doth ingenuously confess, Scotland, Wales, and a third part of England, did most part use that kind ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... milk; and then away he trotted on Neogle, followed by Surly Grind, towards the west. Morton and their host took their time in discussing a far more substantial breakfast, consisting of salted and dried haddocks, pickled pork, oaten cakes, and other substantial articles of food, sufficient to astonish a southern stomach. The captain then lighted his pipe, inviting Rolf to join him, and they smoked away in that deliberate manner which showed that they considered it a far pleasanter pastime than battling ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... the good old English manner!" exclaimed the admiral, when he had returned the salutes, and cordially thanked the baronet. "One might land in Scotland, now, anywhere between the Tweed and John a'Groat's house, and not be asked so much as to eat an oaten cake; hey! Atwood?—always excepting the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rejected state, or dreams of happy love, will be dwelt upon; oblivious sleep and the wan-faced moon will be invoked, and death will be called upon for respite. Love and the praises of the loved one was the theme. On this old but ever new refrain the sonneteer devised his descant, trilling joyously on oaten pipe in praise of Delia or Phyllis, Coelia, ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... bakes oaten cake, Minnie brews ale, All because her Johnnie's coming home from the sea." (That's parade, Pip.) "And she grows red as a rose, who was so pale; And 'Are you sure the church-clock ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... mine oaten pipe enclin'd her eare That she thenceforth therein gan take delight, And it desir'd at timely houres to heare Al were my notes ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... had walked about half a mile in a scene truly pastoral, we began to think ourselves in the days of Theocritus, so sweetly did the sound of a flute come wafted through the air. Never did pastoral swain make sweeter melody on his oaten reed. Our ears now afforded us fresh attraction, and with quicker steps we proceeded, till we came within sight of the musician that had charmed us. Our pleasure was not a little heightened, to see, as the scene promised, in reality a shepherd, watching a large flock of ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... a Lithuanian dish, a sort of jelly made of oaten yeast, which is washed with water until all the mealy parts are separated from it: hence the proverb. [The literal translation of the Polish line is simply: "To the Horeszkos he is merely the tenth water on ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... weigh our gold by grains. This fool had got a lucky hit; And people fancied he had wit, Two gods their skill in music tried And both chose Midas to decide: He against Ph[oelig]bus' harp decreed, And gave it for Pan's oaten reed: The god of wit, to show his grudge, Clapt asses' ears upon the judge, A goodly pair, erect and wide, Which he could neither gild nor hide. And now the virtue of his hands Was lost among Pactolus' sands, Against whose torrent ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... a common word in the northern counties for oats; as "haver bread," for oaten bread; perhaps properly "aven," from "avena," ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... by the light of Will o' Wisp she could just catch sight of their little oaten pipes. Shrill were the notes they blew on these, but softer were the sounds they blew through tiny hemlock pipes. Then deeper came the tones of the bog-reeds and large hemlock, and Janet, looking, saw the ...
— Stories from the Ballads - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... head, and merrily Tune us somewhat to thy reed: See our flocks do freely feed, Here we may together sit, And for music very fit Is this place; from yonder wood Comes an echo shrill and good, Twice full perfectly it will Answer to thine oaten quill. Roget, droop not then, but sing Some kind ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... healthy food, oaten meal flummery with whey, and a griddle-cake; dandelion tea and sorrel from ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... Boduoc; but as the Trinobantes have long been forbidden to carry arms, it might have caused trouble had I gone armed into the town, and we don't want trouble at present. I went on a peaceful visit, and there was no occasion for me to carry my weapons. But give me a piece of that deer flesh and an oaten cake; we have ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... such like) of dedicatee's name only are given, for, says the dedicator, "I know no fame can redound unto you by these meane essayes, which were written, Ocium magis foventes, quam studentes gloriae, as sheapheards play upon their oaten pipes, to recreate themselves, not ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... for the Telemark deserves only too well its surname of the Buttermilk Country. At Tiness, Listhus, Tinoset, and many other places, no bread is to be had, or if there be, it is of such poor quality as to be uneatable. One finds there only an oaten cake, known as flat brod, dry, black, and hard as pasteboard, or a coarse loaf composed of a mixture of birch-bark, lichens, and chopped straw. Eggs are a luxury, and a most stale and unprofitable one; but there is any quantity of poor beer to be had, ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet; it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval entreating me to join him. He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where he was, that letters ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... mutton-ham, the horn, which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and, lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd boy have, when the corn stems are green and full-grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held up by the lips, and plays ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... hungry a Ham goes but a very little way, and fowls are like Larks to me.... I take a whole string of Pork Sausages down as easily as a Pen'orth of Lady's fingers.' And then he bewails the fact that when he arrives in the Highlands he will have to be contented 'with an acre or two of oaten cake, a hogshead of Milk, and a Cloaths basket of Eggs morning, noon, and night.' Here is the active Keats, of honest mundane tastes and an athletic disposition, who threatens' to cut all sick people if they do not make up their minds ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... wore a wrinkled face, That not a leaf e'er shed its sylvan grace, But, harden'd by their northern wind, Rude, deceitful, and unkind, Thy half-cloth'd sons their oaten cake denied, Victims at once of penury ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... kin git all the rails you want oaten my white oak timber over, thar," replied the first speaker, who appeared to be a man of property and willing to ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... under shade Oaten reeds me music made, Striving with my mates in song; Mixing mirth our songs among. Greater was the shepherd's treasure Than this ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... that in thy noontide shade Rest near their little plots of oaten glade, Those steadfast eyes that beating breasts inspire To throw the 'sultry ray' of young Desire; Those lips whose tides of fragrance come and go Accordant to the cheek's unquiet glow; Those shadowy breasts in love's soft light arrayed, And rising by the ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... as milk disagrees with my constitution, and my mind tires of this pastoral sweetness, I am too glad to obey your summons. In my younger days when I loved to press the stops of oaten pipes, and—a plaintive swain—fancied every woman what she seemed, and every man my friend,—I should have hailed the prospect of a life in an Arcadia like this. How gladly I should have climbed ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... fifteen, was a "good scholar," and dux in the parish school. He was ready for the university, and was going there when the way should be made clear for him. As a general thing, he had a book in his hand while he munched the oaten bannocks, which formed the chief part of the boys' evening meal. But to-night he listened and put in his word with the rest. And there were words in plenty, for their father had been away ten whole days, and he had much ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... she saw the great monster standing beside her on his four legs as usual; yet it was strange, for she found herself lying on a delicious mossy couch, and the softest and driest moss had been gathered together for a pillow, and beside her a cup of fresh milk and a cake of oaten bread were lying for her breakfast. How had all this been done for her? she asked herself, as she ate with a very good appetite, for she had had no food since the morning before. She began to think the bull not so bad after all, and to wonder if it was to Fairyland he was ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... a visit to his friends that evening, he was compelled to comply with his companion's wishes, for Burdale gave him to understand very clearly that he had no intention of accompanying him. A substantial meal of venison-steaks, wheaten bread, and oaten cakes, to which Jack was nothing loath to do ample justice, was soon placed on ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Brother. Or, if our eyes Be barred that happiness, might we but hear The folded flocks, penned in their wattled cotes, Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops, Or whistle from the lodge, or village cock Count the night-watches to his feathery dames, 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. But, Oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... than he could accomplish. One black and burning thought tormented him, and he sat down by his own cheerless hearth, more cheerless than he had ever felt before. Matty was preparing dinner; but it was a meagre and homely fare—a little oaten bread, and one spare collop which had been given her by a neighbour. Scanty as was the meal, it was better than the humble viands which sometimes supplied their board. Matty knew not the real cause of her husband's dumps, supposing it to be ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... my song. But stay, honest anglers; for I will make Maudlin sing you one short song more. Maudlin ! sing that song that you sung last night, when young Coridon the shepherd played so purely on his oaten pipe to you and your ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... ham; the horn, which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd boy have, when the corn-stems are green and full grown. The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... vermeil of the rose, The perfume breathing in its veins; The gold within the mist that glows Along the west and overflows With light the heaven; the dew that rains Its freshness down and strings with spheres Of wet the webs and oaten ears. ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... in his body, his mind, his feelings, his companionships, his reputation. It was for me a kind of unison between two instruments, both playing that old familiar air, "Life,"—one a bassoon, if you will, and the other an oaten pipe, if you care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other until the players both grew old and gray. At last the thinner thread of sound is heard by itself, and its deep accompaniment rolls out ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... half Cavalier! His curly hair I think's a wig; And, for his fortune, why my Dear, 'Tis not enough to keep a gig. Rich Aunts and Uncles never die; And what you bring won't do for dress: And so you'll live on By-and-by, Within oaten-cake and water-cress!" ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... "On oaten pipe I sued the woodland Muse— I, of Latona and the Thunderer son! Thou knowst not what love is, if thou refuse T'endure ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening bright Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute; Temper'd to the oaten flute, Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damoetas loved ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... What time the grey-fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star that rose at evening, bright, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute; Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long, And old Damoetas loved to hear our song. But oh! the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now thou art gone, and never must return! Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves, With ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... swing'st upon the waving ear Of some well-filled oaten beard, Drunk every night with a delicious tear Dropt thee from heaven, where now ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... of an evening if the fret was on him, and loneliness after the old times. One by one the neighbours began to send their children in to get some learning from him, and with what they brought, a few eggs or an oaten cake or a couple of sods of turf, he made out a way of living. And if he went for a wild day and night now and again to the Burrough, no one would say a word, knowing him to be a poet, with wandering ...
— Stories of Red Hanrahan • W. B. Yeats
... which has no relation to ourselves; but we feel instantly an eager desire to find its altitude, to take its bearings, to trace its course, and to calculate its influence upon surrounding bodies. When especially it is no more an "oaten reed" that is blown; or a "simple shepherd" who blows it; but when the song involves many high and solemn feelings, and a man of rank and notoriety strikes his golden harp, we feel, at once, that the increased influence of the song demands the more ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... behind, for suspending over them the pots used in cooking the food of the squad. The scene, as we entered, was one of wild confusion. A few of the soberer workmen were engaged in "baking and firing" oaten cakes, and a few more occupied, with equal sobriety, in cooking their evening porridge; but in front of the building there was a wild party of apprentices, who were riotously endeavouring to prevent ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... cogitations astonished thereat. For indeed the exteriour habit of this our English politician, to wit, the harsh and vnaffected stile of his substantiall verses and the olde dialect of his wordes is such; as the first may seeme to haue bene whistled of Pans oaten pipe, and the second to haue proceeded from the mother of Euander; but take you off his vtmost weed, and beholde the comelinesse, beautie, and riches which lie hid within his inward sense and sentence, and you shall finde (I wisse) so much true and sound policy, so much delightfull ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt |
