"Cower" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a moving coolness than a stream of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 20 night long. I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle, habitable place; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the 25 fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had rediscovered one of those ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... said, looking about his chaotic domain disparagingly, "and they say they may have to have me out here next Sunday—somebody's sick or missing. But they won't," he continued darkly. It was a threat, we felt—a threat that would make some presumptuous superior cower and conform. "I really belong at our branch in Dellwood Park, where there is something; not out here, beyond the last of everything." And he said more to indicate that his energies and abilities were temporarily ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... than participated in the world of to-day. But with an effort I sent such thoughts to the right-about. The long, draughty subterranean passage was chilly and dusty, and my candle flared and made the shadows cower and quiver. The echoes rang up and down the spiral staircase, and a shadow came sweeping up after me, and one fled before me into the darkness overhead. I came to the landing and stopped there for ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... cowards," said they. "We have never been foiled in battle; never have we been the vassals of a stranger. Why, then, shall we cringe and cower before such men as Leudiger ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... was wholly free from the disgusting swagger and noisy bravado of his fraternity. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession, and a sternness of glance, which might well daunt hearts less timid than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through life to cower before a driver's lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership, which he possessed ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... dour people, like all northerners, ever ready to make the worst of things. Inwardly, we love the sun, and long for it to come nearer to us, and to come more often. And it is partly because this craving is unsatisfied that we cower so fondly over our open hearths. Our fires are makeshifts for sunshine. Autumn after autumn, 'we see the swallows gathering in the sky, and in the osier-isle we hear their noise,' and our hearts sink. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... the Christ of power, Thou need'st not before me cower; An unknown knight thou see'st in me, Sent forth by three maids ...
— Ulf Van Yern - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... week by week, I had seen the child-birds growing and gaining strength. Their muscles were now well developed, their bodies were clothed with feathers, they had learned to use their wings,—they could fly. Would it not have been passing strange, had they continued as they were, contented to cower and to crawl, when they had acquired the power to soar? And will you be content to remain forever only a fledgling, satisfied with having acquired the power of rising, but never actually using the wings which these years of honorable industry have ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... one is laid low; the lioness looks calmly on until the little problem of superiority is settled, and then she goes off with the victor. The horses on the Pampas have their set battles until one has asserted his mastery over the herd, and then the defeated ones cower away abjectly, and submit themselves meekly to their lord. All the male animals are given to issuing challenges in a very self-assertive manner, and the object is the same in every case. But we are far above the brutes; ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... however, before which even Eliza herself, hardened wretch as she seemed, used to cower and shiver; and that was the great black bumble-bee, the largest and most powerful of the British bee-kind. When one of these dangerous monsters, a burly, buzzing bourgeois, got entangled in her web, Eliza, shaking ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... back the smile to her lip or chase the look of sadness from her brow. She had, from the first, exhibited great signs of fear of the chief, and did she catch his eye resting on her she would hurriedly gather her child in her arms, and with a wild look of terror cower away into the corner of the room farthest from him she could get, and there sit murmuring in wailing tones to the babe nestling ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... I hardly know the meaning of; And the mute birds Are glancing at Love From out their shade of leaf and flower, Trembling at treacheries Which even in noonday cower. Heed, heed not what I said Of frenzied hosts of men, More fools than I, On envy, hatred fed, Who kill, and die— Spake I not plainly, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... lingers not by the fire; but, with his books slung over his shoulder, he sets out to face the storm. When he reaches the topmost ridge, where the snow lies in drifts, and the north wind comes keen and biting, does he shrink and cower down by the fences, or run into the nearest house to warm himself? No; he buttons up his coat, and rejoices to defy the blast, and tosses the snow-wreaths with his foot; and so, erect and fearless, with strong heart and ruddy cheek, he goes on ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... and their conviction that nothing could save it but the dismemberment of the Republic. They forgot that the Rebellion was simply an advanced stage of slaveholding rapacity, and that instead of tempting us to cower before it and surrender our principles, it furnished an overwhelming argument for standing by them to the death. This movement was fruitful of great mischief throughout the loyal States, and on my return to Washington in the fall of this year I was glad to find this ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... rough, knotted hands trembled on the wheel, and his eyes were misty. Eben never saw him look at him in such a way before. Had he stormed and raged it would have but increased his defiance. But that look of silent reproach smote his very soul, causing him to cower conscience stricken. Without a word, he left his father's side and went forward. And there he stood with his hands behind his back, staring straight before him. The captain watched him anxiously. His mind was greatly ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... in the dreadful hour When a great nation, like a ship at sea With the wroth breakers whitening at her lee, Feels her last shudder if her helmsman cower; A godlike manhood be his mighty dower! Such and so gifted, Lincoln, may'st thou be With thy high wisdom's low simplicity And awful tenderness of voted power. From our hot records then thy name shall stand On ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... friendship. And it was her misfortune, perhaps, that the real love for another which had succeeded would not in turn consume itself, but would continue to flourish green and perennial, though now seemingly fated to bask no longer in the sunshine of kindly words and actions, but only to cower beneath the chill ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to her brother William, and sometimes fondling a white dove, which she had petted and trained with such success that it was then amenable to almost every light injunction she laid upon it. It sat upon her shoulder, which, indeed, was its usual seat, would peck her cheek, cower as if with a sense of happiness in her bosom, and put its bill to her lips, from which it was usually fed, either to demand some sweet reward for its obedience, or to express its attachment by a profusion of innocent ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... fire The coldest heart, so ardent was his own. His fearless eye, his calm intrepid tone, Bespoke the leader, strong with conscious power, Whom following friends will bless, while foes will curse and cower. ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... and scarce draw breath, Scarce lift eyes up toward the light that saves not, scarce may cast Thought or prayer up, caught and trammelled in the snare of death. Not as sea-mews cling and laugh or sun their plumes and sleep Cling and cower the wild night's waifs of shipwreck, blind with fear, Where the fierce reef scarce yields foothold that a bird might keep, And the clamorous darkness deadens eye and deafens ear. Yet beyond their helpless hearing, out of hopeless sight, ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... every figure that crossed the hillside in doubt whether it were foe or friend, to be roused from sleep by the slogan of the Highlander or the cry of the borderer as they swept sheep and kye from every homestead in the valley, to bear hunger and thirst and cold and nakedness, to cower within the peel-tower or lurk in the moorland while barn and byre went up in pitiless flame, to mount and ride at a lord's call on forays as pitiless, this was the rough school in which the Scotch peasant was trained through two hundred years. But it was a school in which he learned ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... come she would cower down in the bottom of the cart and cry and pray. Storms terrified her. It seemed as if all the anger of the heavens were levelled at her. She would cry and moan pitifully whilst O'Connell would try to soothe her and tell her that ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... night in one of the music halls and gave the Mohammedans a piece of my mind. The poor Christians!—they feared the Government in the old regime; they cower before the boatmen in this. For the boatmen of Beirut have not lost their prestige and power. They are a sort of commune and are yet supreme. Yes, they are always riding the whirlwind and directing the storm. And who dares say a word against them? Every one of them, in his swagger ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... contain more space than other shapes, and Bees make their cells in hexagons only because that figure best admits of junction. Before I quitted the premises, however, I learned that Tarleton, the actor of those times, was not buried at St. Saviour's, Southwark, as he wished, near Massinger and Cower, but at Shoreditch Church. He was the first of the profession whose fame was high enough to have his portrait solicited for to be set up as a Sign; and none but he and Garrick, I believe, ever obtained that honour. Mr. Dance's picture of our friend David lives ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... not be cast down. You, I trust, are not the man to cower at such a moment. Do not be afraid to stand up your whole length in defence of your ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... alive eneuch, but she has ower mony bairns to hap them a'; her wings winna cower them, and she drives this ane awa', and winna lat it ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... was in mortal fear, led by all his training to expect nothing less than death; yet he did not cower away from them. Instead, he returned their looks with lean self-sufficiency, and finally centred his gaze upon Joan, the first white ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... dogs never fight hyenas; never even to defend their own lives. They may bark or howl while the hyena is some distance away, but as soon as it comes near they are silent; and when it approaches them, they simply cower and submit. Not only that, but it is beyond question that hyenas have the power to call dogs to them. . . . For five weeks I have been alone in this tent six nights in every week all night, with two children and the spartan ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... brooding hen, Beside your sooty hearth-stone cower; Go, creep along the dirt, and pick Your way with your good walking-stick, Just three ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... Creeping shadows cower low on our land; These shall not dim our grander day: Stainless knights must be those who stand Full in the van of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... became absolutely necessary to change a woman's preconceived notions as to what she should do—as, for instance, discouraging her riding through quicksand—he would persuade somebody else to issue the advice. And he would cower in the background blushing his absurd little blushes at his second-hand temerity. Add to this narrow, sloping shoulders, a soft voice, and a diminutive ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... a hundred steeds along, Their peal the merry horns rung out, A hundred voices join'd the shout; With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe, Close in her covert cower'd the doe; The falcon, from her cairn on high, Cast on the rout a wondering eye, Till far beyond her piercing ken The hurricane had swept the glen. Faint, and more faint, its failing din Return'd from cavern, cliff, and ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... their time. When night shut down the latter became bolder, and taunted cruelly those destined to become so soon their hapless victims. Twice the maddened men fired recklessly at those dancing devils, and one pitched forward, emitting a howl of pain that caused his comrades to cower once again behind their covers. One and all these frontiersmen recognized the inevitable—before dawn the end must come. No useless words were spoken; the men merely ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... and prayers avail not. He appears—one glance (from a god that glance comes!) At a flash decides what the youngster's fate is. At his will a crowd runs, at his beck it parteth. Doth he smile? all frolic; doth he frown—all cower. By a tone he threatens, gives rewards, metes justice. Absent though he be, every pupil dreads him, For he sees, hears, knows, everything that's doing. On the urchin's forehead he can see it written. He divines who laughs, idles, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... it must be the Queen Sudarshana who is approaching near. [Aside to SUVARNA.] Suvarna, you must not hide and cower behind me like that. Mind, the umbrella in your ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old Thermopyl! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that ye do crouch and cower like base-born slaves, beneath your master's lash? O! comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we must die, let us die under the open sky, by ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... brook—a mere strip of meadow between—is green too with rising wheat, high enough now to hide the partridges. Before it got so tall it was pleasant to watch the pair that frequent it; they were so confident that they did not even trouble to cower. At any other time of year they would have run, or flown; but then, though scarcely forty yards away and perfectly visible, they simply ceased feeding but showed no ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... son cried to her with the yearning cry of a little child. At such times the old woman would shrink within herself, and moan and cower over the fire, and smoke ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... roused to an unexpected burst of wrath. His eyes kindled with rage, and he darted a glance at the intruders which made them cower and shrink from his rebuke. In a moment he grew calm, relapsing into his usual moody and thoughtful attitude. Taking courage, they again ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... to us of pride and power, Of Empire vast beyond the sea; As here beside my hearth I cower, What mean such words as these to me? Oh, will they lift the clouds that low'r, Or light my ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... cower down in the brush, though Bobolink muttered something to the effect that he had received another jab in the neighborhood of his ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... hand and turned her face to the wall, as if to shut out him and the light. He stepped to her, caught her by the wrist and forced her round towards him. At the first touch he felt her wince. So will you see a young she-panther wince and cower from ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sitting on her eggs must be rather cramping work for the flamingo with those long legs? But I will tell you how cleverly she contrives. Instead of building a nest on the ground, where she would find it impossible to cower closely enough over her eggs to keep them warm, the flamingo heaps up a hill of earth so high, that she can sit comfortably upon it with her long legs dangling, one on each side. At the top is a hollow just large enough to hold her two or three white eggs. A full-grown flamingo stands ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... then, You should falter, should cling to your pitiful breath; Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men, And prefer the slave's life ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Judge Hildreth repeated the words in an awestruck tone. Did she see him cower in his chair? It must have been an optical illusion. The storm outside was making the house shiver and the ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... gospel, is glad tidings. Dante, Paul, Swedenborg, Edwards have seen the pit. It opens only in the holiness of such men,—is a thunder out of clear sky, before which generations of the impure, like brute beasts, tremble and cower. An equal moral genius will see that the ascension of an immortal Love has left behind this vacuum, mitigated, not deepened, by the furniture of devils and their flame. Men strive in vain to be afflicted by a revelation of the best and worst. The mind ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... what can long depress the youthful and the loving when they dream that they are entirely beloved? Lands and thrones may perish, plague and devastation walk abroad with death, misery and beggary crawl naked to the doorway, and crime cower in the hedges; but to the egregious egotism of young love there are only two identities bulking in the crowded universe. To these immensities all other beings are audacious who dream of being even comfortable and obscure—happiness would ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... boy had been told so much of murderers that he had been made to fear. Peter,—and other Peters about the country,—had filled his mind with sad foreboding. And there had always been something timid, something almost unmanly in his nature. He had seemed to prefer to shrink and cower and be mysterious with the Carrolls to coming forward boldly with such a man as Yorke Clayton. The girls had seen this, and had declared that he was no more than a boy; but his father had seen it and had made no such allowance. And now he saw that he trembled. But Florian got up on the ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... stirs Morgan, and he seems to cower half timidly under the words, as if they were blows. Mary has already grasped her father's hand, and ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... plot, and play a midnight part, malignant to the hopes of good men. At their approach the earth is troubled, the moon is overcast, gusts of storm are shaken out from the folds of their garments, the watch dogs and the war dogs cower down, in camp and rath, and whine piteously, as if ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... breathlessly. "Ah! that explains the foreign language—and I do not know Spanish." Then facing him again with an air and look that made him cower, in spite of his bravado, she sternly asked: "Why are ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... mingled sounds of footsteps and hoofs grow fainter on the trail. The children looked at her to tell them why this night was different from all others—what was happening. But she could only cower among them, more terrified than they. She seemed to be shrunken from the happenings of that day. They hardly knew the little, shrivelled, gray woman who looked at them with unfamiliar eyes. Alida gazed at the little Judith, and there was something in her mother's ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... then should man fear any more The voice of Pytho's dome, or cower before These birds that shriek above us? They foretold Me for my father's murderer; and behold, He lies in Corinth dead, and here am I And never touched the sword.... Or did he die In grief for me who left him? In that way I may have wrought his death.... But ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... noonday cower, Heed, heed not what I said Of frenzied hosts of men, More fools than I, On envy, hatred fed, Who kill, and die— Spake I not plainly, ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... of them Thrusts into view To observe the intruder; you see it If quickly you turn And, before they escape you surprise them. They grudge you should learn How the soft plains they look on, lean over And love (they pretend)— Cower beneath them. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... a little flower 'Neath a great oak tree: When the tempest 'gan to lower Little heeded she: No need had she to cower, For she dreaded not its power - She was happy in the bower Of her great oak tree! Sing hey, Lackaday! Let the tears fall free For the pretty little flower and the great ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... to consider as they cower around the watch-fire, and little time for deliberation. They are at their furthest point from home and their leader has fallen at their head; we shall see presently how they faced ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... struck by a thunderbolt, released his hold, and, staggering back a few paces, seemed to cower, abashed and humbled, before the eye of the priest, as it glared upon him through the ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the larger trees with a crash like thunder, and swept far away into the forest. The very earth trembled and seemed terrified at the dreadful conflict going on above. It seemed to the two friends as if the end of the world were come; and they could do nothing but cower among the branches of the tree and watch the storm in silence; while they felt, in a way they had never before experienced, how utterly helpless they were, and unable to foresee, or avert, the many dangers by which they were surrounded, and ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... scold, giving each a sharp cut that at once reduces them to quiescence, causing them to cower at her feet. "Do you not see the mistake you have made?" she goes on addressing the dogs; "don't you see the caballero is not an Indio? It is well, sir!" she adds, turning to the caballero, "well that your ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... mother, pretending prettily to cower before him. "What a tone! What a look! What have I ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... cried death to the Prophet, John of Leyden calmly, with great impressiveness, made them cower before his rage. ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... long tail which it wagged beseechingly, at once deprecating severity and asking kindness. The poor animal had evidently been used to gentle treatment; it would look up in a boy's face, and give a leap, fawning on him, and then bark in a small doubtful voice, and cower a moment on the ground, astonished perhaps at the strangeness, the bustle and animation. The boys were beside themselves with eagerness; there was quite a babble of voices, arguing, discussing, suggesting. Each one had a plan of ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... ever and louder and yet more loud Till night be shamed of morn [Ant. 7. Rings the Black Huntsman's horn Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260 Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear; Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear, Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale, Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail, Till mitre and cowl bow down And crumble as a crown, Till Caesar driven to lair and hounded Pope ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... round them and the troopers whooping jubilantly outside, Chenier and his eighty followers call out: "We are done! We are sold! Let us jump!" Chenier jumps from the steeple, is hit by the flying bullets, and perishes as he falls. His men cower back in the flaming steeple till it falls with a crash into the burning ruins. Amid the ash heap are afterwards found the corpses of seventy-two patriots. The troopers take one hundred prisoners in the region, then set fire to all houses ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... are that for soul's affright Bow down and cower in the sun's glad sight, Clothed round with faith that is one with fear, And dark with doubt ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... pointed to the stars. And from out of the earth, out of the mist, but whence and how it is impossible to say, there come other angels dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; and the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... astonishing thing. Suddenly Mr. Ricardo seemed to shrivel—to cower back into himself. His fierce, triumphant energy had gone as at a blasting touch of magic. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... paving-stones, and discovered all sorts of tokens and signs in them. Thus occupied, I arrive at length at Parliament Place. I stand all at once stock-still, and look at the droskes; the drivers are wandering about, chatting and laughing. The horses hang their heads and cower in the bitter weather. "Go ahead!" I say, giving myself a dig with my elbow. I went hurriedly over to the first vehicle, and got in. "Ullevoldsveien, No. 37," I called out, and ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... happing bird, wee, helpless thing, That, in the merry months o' spring, Delighted me to hear thee sing, What comes o' thee? Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... One, or even to guard against wandering souls on certain feasts of the dead, were all part of my childhood. So to the Marquesan are the goblins that cause him to refuse to go into silent places alone at night, and often make him cower in fear on his own mats, a pareu over his head, in terror ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... two guards lead out the Queen. Nobody else moves. The townspeople cower and stare. The two little pages that bore her train as she entered remain back of the throne, not knowing what to do. As she goes by them, her train dragging on the ground, the two ragged little boys of Lisa, the ...
— The Lamp and the Bell • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of things, Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with plume-plucked wings, Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none may ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... So silently around. His snows descend And make the green Earth hoary. Chains of frost Straighten her breadth of waters. Dropping rains Refresh her summer thirst, or rending clouds Roll in wild deluge o'er her. Roaming beasts Cower in their dens affrighted, while she quakes Convuls'd with inward agony, or reels Dizzied with flashing fires. Again she smiles In her recovered beauty, at His will, Maker of all things. So, He rules the world, With wrath commingling mercy. Who may hope With finite mind to understand His ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... accused of immodesty, or of making personal reflections, when I say that the Department has had several notorious failures of late. It is not what it used to be. Crime is becoming impertinent. It no longer knows its place, so to speak. It throws down the gauntlet where once it used to cower in its fastnesses. I repeat, I make these remarks solely in the interest of law and order. I do not for one moment believe that Arthur Constant killed himself, and if Scotland Yard satisfies itself with that explanation, and turns on its other side and goes to sleep again, ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... little exertion and active movement on Toby's part to enable him to get hold of that paw, in order to discover what it was which Mr. Stubbs had captured; but the instant he did succeed, there went up from his heart such a cry of sorrow as caused Old Ben to start up in alarm and the monkey to cower and whimper like ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... seemed to cower in exaggerated fright before the Prosecutor's pointed finger. A little hush ensued. A tense dramatic pause. Then Heney branded Haas before the ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... one another, silent, yet expressive, like a picture facing a statue; but soon the colour died out of Julia's face as well, and she began to cower with vague fears before that stately figure, so gentle and placid usually, but now so discomposed ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... cower under their shelter and wait until, later on, without warning, there would come loud shouts from the front, and when they craned their necks to catch the first glimpse of the foe shots from the rear would clean up ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... came a sound which could only be likened to rolling thunder by one uninitiated, but which caused Ixtli to shrink and almost cower, ere gasping: ...
— The Lost City • Joseph E. Badger, Jr.
... and—poorer relations. Controlled by thy will, they select their society; Thou art their instructor in manners and piety. And thus they obey the decrees of a power, To which, in a servile allegiance, they cower— A power that binds them in thraldom, and then Makes puppets of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... rase to the ground^; trample in the dust, pull about one's ears. sit, sit down; couch, squat, crouch, stoop, bend, bow; courtesy, curtsy; bob, duck, dip, kneel; bend the knee, bow the knee, bend the head, bow the head; cower; recline &c (be horizontal) 213. Adj. depressed &c v.; at a low ebb; prostrate &c (horizontal) 213; detrusive^. Phr. facinus quos ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... in rank and wealth and power, And some renowned for genius and for worth; And some are poor and mean, who brood and cower And shrink from notice, and accept all dearth 25 Of body, heart and soul, and leave to others All boons of life: yet these and those are brothers, The saddest and the weariest men ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... at her she began to cower. She shrank back in her seat, putting up her hands to shield ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... serpent, and with languid arm, Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm. So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent, Full of adoring tears and blandishment, And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane, Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower That faints into itself at evening hour: But the God fostering her chilled hand, She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland, And, like new flowers at morning song of bees, Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... grumbler, all sulky and sour, But for Christopher's temper such trash was too much; And it soon made the malecontent quiver and cower, When he saw preparations for handling the Crutch. "Lay your croaking aside," The old gentleman cried, "Or I'll make you eat up each ungenerous word: Not our deadliest foe, Such injustice should know, And far less shall a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... sons of Boreas," cried Iris warningly, "forbear to slay the Harpies that are the hounds of Zeus. Let them cower here and hide themselves, and I, who come from Zeus, will swear the oath that the gods most dread, that they will never again come to Salmydessus to trouble ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... chair and looked at him. Was it only or chiefly Adelaide's unforgiving anger that weighed on his broad shoulders, bent his clever brow, drove the old contented smile from his face? True, Joseph's death might well have done all this; but she knew Urbain, and he was not the man to cower under the inevitable. It was his way to meet the blows of fate with a brave front, if not a gay one; he was a Frenchman, and had lived and laughed through the great Revolution. And yet Anne was puzzled; for ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... drift in, filled with a morbid curiosity to see how a foreigner deports himself when engaged in this strange, barbaric rite. On the occasion of my first bath on French soil, after several of the hired help had thus called on me informally, causing me to cower low in my porcelain retreat, I took advantage of a moment of comparative quiet to rise drippingly and draw the latch. I judged the proprietor would be along next, and I was not dressed for him. The Lady Susanna of whom mention has previously been made must have stopped ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... before thee. And cower in the straw; The chickens[011] are submissive, And own thy will for law; Bullfinches and canary Thy bidding do obey; And e'en the tortoise in its shell ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... the other end of the court like a herd of cattle maddened by the gadfly in early summer when the days are at their longest. As eagle-beaked, crook-taloned vultures from the mountains swoop down on the smaller birds that cower in flocks upon the ground, and kill them, for they cannot either fight or fly, and lookers on enjoy the sport—even so did Ulysses and his men fall upon the suitors and smite them on every side. They made a horrible groaning ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... helpless sincerity that nothing in it shows larger than it is; no mist clothes the sky-scraper in gigantic vagueness, the hideous tops soar into the clear heaven distinct in their naked ugliness; and the low buildings cower unrelieved about their bases. Nothing could be done in palliation of the comparative want of antiquity in New York, for the present, at least; but it is altogether probable that in the fulfilment of her destiny she will be one day as old as ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... believe that she had grace to fill it with life, to move at ease in it, to press it into soft and rounded lines. Her linked companions also were beauties of their day—that sleek and sleepy Nicoletta, that ruddy Guglielmotta; but they seemed to cower in their rigid clothes, and they ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... to indulgence which can only rest on acknowledged weakness—taught me but too well the meaning of this fearful, trembling anxiety to please, or rather not to offend. I suppose that even a brutal master hardly likes to see a child cower in his presence as if constantly expecting a blow; and this cowering was so evident in my bride's demeanour, that, after trying for a couple of hours to coax her into confidence and unreserved feminine fluency, ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... brother, no man for another cares. The gods in heaven are frightened, refuge they seek, Upward they mount to the heaven of Anu. Like a dog in his lair, So cower the gods together at the bars of heaven. Ishtar cries out in pain, loud cries the exalted goddess:— All is turned to mire. This evil to the gods I announced, to the gods foretold the evil. This exterminating war foretold Against my race of mankind. Not for this ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ladders, access to the ground-floor was also afforded by narrow doorways closed with hides or mats. It was hot and quiet in this yard; the sun shed glaring light into it and over the roofs. Naked urchins played and squirmed below, whereas above, an old woman or some aged man would cower motionless, shading their blear eyes with one hand and warming their cold frames in the heat. Okoya went directly to one of the ground-floor openings, lifted the deerskin that hung over it, and called ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... through the streets which that morning they had laid waste, and through those that the stern Admiral had sworn to destroy. There black ruin faced them starkly; here doomed things awaited mutely. The town was little, and it seemed to cower before them like a child. Almost in silence did they ride, lifted and restless in mind, thought straining at the leash, but finding no words that should ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... the dead girl cringe and whine, And cower in the weeping air— But, oh, she was no kin of mine, And so I ...
— Nets to Catch the Wind • Elinor Wylie
... of Satyrs, wherefore fear you Spear to wield, and only dare to Talk in swelling phrase, while yet you Cower, Teles like, And when goaded on, past bearing, By our Kleon's tongue so daring, Only gnash your teeth despairing, Still afraid ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... is the same as to cower over the coals, as a gipsy over a fire. Thus Hodge says of Gammer Gurton and Tib, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 203, September 17, 1853 • Various
... Tour, scornfully; "you stoop to insult a prisoner, who is powerless in your hands, but from whose indignation you would cower, like the guilty thing you are, had I liberty and my good sword to revenge your baseness! Go, use me as you will, use me as you dare, M. d'Aulney, but remember the day of vengeance ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... how fascinating she can be. She used no arts on me. Her purpose was to cower me. She found she could not do that, but she did a thing which helped her more: she proved that she was honest, perfectly sincere in what she thought. She believes that if she merely beckons to Philip, he will go to her. So I am giving her the opportunity to learn from him what ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... fast enough. There'll be more money coming in, in a year or two, please God. And as for your health, why, what's to make you well, if you cower over the fire all day, and shudder away from a good honest tankard as if ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... is no further use for them. Then the poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to hide in corners and by-ways. There is no loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them or where they seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. They will also crawl ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... flame, Your joy half sorrow, half your glory shame, Hollowness, weariness, and, worst of all, Self-scorn that pities not its own deep fall, Fast gathering darkness, and fast waning light,— Oh could ye see it all, ye might, ye might Cower in the dust, unequal to the strife, And die, but in beholding ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... for others have before, Why should I fear to view the storm-cloud's form? I answered to the Voice. In One I trust, Upon whose blazing path the clouds are dust, Why should I cower 'neath the whirlwind's roar? God's chariot is the ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... now and again a fresh shivering fit came on. At such times I would cover my head with the bedclothes and cower, and see the Picture even so floating visibly in mid-air like a ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... china, in one chaotic heap on the floor. As darkness came on, the gale rose higher, the moon was obscured, the rack in heavy masses was driving across the stormy sky, and scuds of sleet and spray made the few venturous persons on deck cower under the nearest ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... hat was gone, bare and begrimed his knees, Face with blood and dirt disfigured, elbows peeped from out his sleeves. Rat-tat-tat, upon the entrance, brought Aunt Hannah to the door; Parched lips humbly plead for water, as she scanned his misery o'er; Wrathful came the dame's quick answer; made him cower, shame, and start Out of sight, despairing, saddened, hurt and angry to the heart. "Drink! You've had enough, you rascal. Faugh! The smell now makes me sick, Move, you thief! Leave now these grounds, ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... stars. And from out of the earth, out of the mist—but whence and how it is impossible to say—there come other angels, dark of hue and foul smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; the dark angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... even think such a thing," I exclaimed, and I wanted to rise to my feet and break the spell of that space around us, but I could only cower closer to him on the grass beneath the rustling silver leaves. "I'm going to marry Nickols in a few months and then I'm going out of this world of yours and you can lead them all ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... some time she had foreboded trouble. The foreboding grew upon her till its dark shadow cast a gloom upon all her feelings; it thrilled her at times with fear. She would start at the veriest trifles, as if affrighted. Particularly at night did she cower under the feeling, and of late it had been hard for her to sleep; and when she slept, it was wakefully: often would she start up, and look around to see that all was right, then fall asleep again. And yet she did not apprehend danger to herself particularly. Sometimes she feared ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... pointed out that this conception has its roots deep in primitive human nature: The Birth of Humility, Oxford, 1910, p. 17. 'It would, perhaps, be fanciful to say that man tends to run away from the sacred as uncanny, to cower before it as secret, and to prostrate himself before it as tabu. On the other hand, it seems plain that to these three negative qualities of the sacred taken together there corresponds on the part of man a certain negative attitude of mind. Psychologists ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... Virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke; She left the down-trod nations in disdain, And flew to Greece, when Liberty awoke, New-born, amid those glorious vales, and broke Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands: As rocks are shivered ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... made to stay in thy hiding-places until thy bleached bones would tell that Rome findeth starvation oft cheaper than the sword. From Dan to Beersheba doth the heathen purple fly over tower and wall, and under the dark shadow of her mighty eagle do the nations of the earth cower. Whence then could come thy succor? To lift the sword is but to bring it down on thine own neck. If he whom our hearts love escape, by the wit of man's mind must the thing be accomplished. Go thou, Lazarus, with these disciples and rouse ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... the view, but, when the white wreaths were scattered on the wind, a wretched spectacle was disclosed: men and officers tumbled in heaps, battalions resolved into a mob, order and obedience gone; and, when the British muskets were levelled for a second volley, the masses of the militia were seen to cower and shrink with uncontrollable panic. For a few minutes the French regulars stood their ground, returning a sharp and not ineffectual fire. But now, echoing cheer on cheer, redoubling volley on volley, trampling the dying and the dead, and driving the fugitives in crowds, the British ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... increased in volume till the very hills seemed to cower in fear. Miss Whitmore gasped when a limp form was dragged from the cabin and lifted to the back of ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... either. Perhaps it would rather rest and fall into disorder the way Tenney would let it, if he were here alone. That was it. He had had enough of threats that made him sick with the reaction of nervous violence. He had had enough of real violence that recoiled on himself and made him cower under the shadow of the law. He was going to turn her out of the house, the baby with her. And he did not seem to be suffering much over it, now he had made up his mind. Perhaps, now that the scene of the morning—three together in May sunshine—had ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... man's evident intention, made obvious by his manner and his leer at the old woman, was to say something against her; the Prince was in a mood to quarrel with any one, on any ground at all, who did not cower to him. ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... and finished their packing. About the house hovered the profound silence of the cold night, such a night as makes all living things, men and beasts, cower away for warmth into the depths of sleep. Antoinette's teeth were chattering: she ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him? What ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... forest, the little square pen-trap, the wolverine, desperate but cool, thrusting its blunt nose quickly here and there in baffled hope of an orifice of escape. Somehow the man reminded her of the animal, the fierce little woods marauder, trapped and hopeless, but scorning to cower as would the gentler creatures of ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the German way? Comes this low bleating forth from German hearts? Should Teutons, sin repenting, lash themselves, Or spread their palms with priestly unctuousness, Exalt their feelings with the censer's fumes, And cower and quake and bend the trembling knee, And with a sickly sweetness plead a prayer? Then ogle nuns, and ring the Ave-bell, And thus with morbid fervour out-do heaven? Is this the German way? Beware, yet are you free, yet your own ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.
... nests. What will be the result of the experiment? Will it once more cover me with confusion? The weather is cold and rainy; not a Bee shows herself on the few spring flowers that have come out. Numbers of Anthophorae cower, numbed and motionless, at the entrance to the galleries. With the tweezers, I extract them one by one from their lurking-places, to examine them under the lens. The first has Sitaris-larvae on her thorax; so has the second; the ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... rise: had the place been a ring, instead of a pavement, he would have been up and dancing within ten seconds. So with Anthony—had Fortune frowned, he would have laughed in her face. It was her smile that made him cower. And, so long as she smiled, what mattered it if he cowered? Had Homer never nodded, gentlemen, till it was past his bed-time, neither you nor I would ever ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... cower! Lo, for an end of breath, Clytie, hardy and frail, Anguisht after her death. For the Sun-flower droops and is pale When her king hideth his power, And ever draggeth the woe of her piteous tale, As a woman that laboureth ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... my boat will glide And I shall know the secret things." The old man answered: "Woe betide!" Said I "The world was made for kings: To him who works and working sings Come joy and majesty and power And steadfast love with royal wings." "O watch these fools that blink and cower," Said that wise man: "and every hour A score is born, a dozen dies." Said I: —"In London fades the flower; But far away the bright blue skies Shall watch my solemn walls arise, And all the glory, all the grace Of earth shall gather there, and eyes Will shine like stars in that new place." ...
— Forty-Two Poems • James Elroy Flecker
... make much difference whether we shall hide our gray heads beneath lace or a handkerchief striped with blue and red; whether we sweep a crossing with a birch broom, or the steps of the Tuileries with satins; whether we sit beside a gilded hearth, or cower over the ashes in a red earthen pot; whether we go to the Opera or look on in the Place ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... public. Modest merit is, however, too apt to be inactive, or negligent, or uninstructed merit. Well matured and well disciplined talent is always sure of a market, provided it exerts itself; but it must not cower at home and expect to be sought for. There is a good deal of cant too about the success of forward and impudent men, while men of retiring worth are passed over with neglect. But it usually happens that those ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... after bad; though when I saw the patience with which she bore his querulous complaints and the solicitude with which she attended to his wants, I sometimes imagined he had some secret hold over her. Often I saw her cower and flush piteously, as with terror, before his insolent gaze. But I decided finally his was merely the ascendency of the strong over the weak—of the bully over his victims, who serve him more loyally because he kicks them. The bad-tempered ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... the inventor of this game, but he openly renounced all patent rights. He said that everybody on board ought to take the stage in turn—he himself was quite content to retire on his early laurels. So all hands took pains to contradict Cranze and to cower with a fine show of dramatic ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... and shrieking, clamouring and howling, pries into the quagmires and turf pits, whips up the muddy puddles, throws itself forcibly into the thickets of fir trees that have just been replanted, so that they groan and moan and creak as they cower, and then rages on ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... for some clever woman to teach people how to dress for the occasion and how to sit, what to avoid and how to avoid it. As it is, we go in a state of nervous agitation, obsequiously costumed; our last vestige of self-assertion vanishes before the unwinking Cyclops eye of the instrument, and we cower at the mercy of the thing and its attendant. They make what they will of us, and the retoucher simply edits the review with an eye to the market. So history is falsified before our faces, and we prepare a lie for our grandchildren. We fail to stamp our individualities upon our photographs, ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... did every few seconds. He had started on his rounds early, in order to attract as many children as possible before school-time, and I doubt if the poor little thing had had any breakfast. She was sick besides. She would dance a few steps and then cower down and tremble, and look at him so appealingly, that only a brute could have had the heart to strike her as he did. When he found that all his jerking was in vain, he gave her several hard blows with the other end of the rope. At that she staggered up and began to dance again, but ...
— The Story of Dago • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... hall and listening to the pattering of the salt spray against the window, when, lo! there came a sharp rap at the house door. Mr Englefield unbarred it cautiously, and started as he encountered a very tall and slight figure wrapped in a shepherd's plaid, and seeming to cower ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... will say. 'T is true: We cower timidly beneath the rod Lifted in menace by an angry God, But won't endure it from an ape like you. Detested simian with thumb prehensile, Switch me and I would brain ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... him. He was perfectly enchanted, and fluttered, turned about, and frisked, like a bird possessed. As he became accustomed to it, I began to throw handfuls of water over him, and that he did enjoy. He would cower down, and lie with his wings expanded and beak open, receiving charge after charge of water till quite out of breath; then he would run a few paces away on his island till he recovered himself, and then would go back and place himself ready ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... bla'guard i' the haill queentry he wadna sell her till, sae be he was o' an auld eneuch faimily, and had rowth o' siller. Haith! noo a days the last 'ill come first, an' a fish cadger wi' siller 'ill be coontit a better bargain nor a lord wantin 't: only he maun hae a heap o' 't, to cower the ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Into the silent night, as one amazed To see the calm that reigned o'er all supreme, When his own reign was but a troubled dream. The moon lit up the gables capped with snow, And the white roofs, and half the court below, And he beheld a form, that seemed to cower Beneath a burden, come from Emma's tower,— A woman, who upon her shoulders bore Clerk Eginhard to his own private door, And then returned in haste, but still essayed To tread the footprints she herself had made; And as she passed across the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... roam through clans of savage men, Untamed by arts, untaught by pen; Or cower within some squalid den O'er ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... bed? You, with your crimes, go to bed? Why, you couldn't sleep! You would cower all night! Go to bed! Oh, my dear Struboff, think better of it. No, no, we'll none of us go to bed. Bed's a hell for men like us. For you above all! ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... said Jean. "So happy that I'm almost afraid. Isn't it odd how one seems to cower down to avoid drawing the attention of the Fates to one's happiness, saying, 'It is naught, it is naught,' in case ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)
... shrink and wither, Custom-straitened like her waist, All her thought to cower together, Huddling sheep-like with the rest, With the flock of soulless bodies on a ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... ravined up his flesh, And earth had veiled his bones, the Trojans then Tarried in Priam's city, sore afraid Before the might of stout-heart Aeacus' son: As kine they were, that midst the copses shrink From faring forth to meet a lion grim, But in dense thickets terror-huddled cower; So in their fortress shivered these to see That mighty man. Of those already dead They thought of all whose lives he reft away As by Scamander's outfall on he rushed, And all that in mid-flight to that high wall ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... when within the closely-fastened cage Of an old lioness, well used to fight, An untamed bull is prisoned, to engage The savage monster, for the mob's delight; The cubs, who see him cresting in his rage, And round the den loud-bellowing, to the sight Of the huge beast's enormous horns unused, Cower at a ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... his heart, and then mendaciously represented him as the thief and kidnapper who is found in your own person; then, sir, would you vail your face and go out no more among men, but upon your forehead, as now upon your soul, would be the brand of thief, robber, murderer! Ay, well may you cower! well may the cold sweat force itself out upon your brow! Did it never enter into your debased mind that the villain who is degraded enough to sell himself to crime for a little sordid dust, will, for a larger sum, betray his employer? Do ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison |
