Thrush Quotes

• Gone were but the Winter,
  Come were but the Spring,
  I would go to a covert
  Where the birds sing;
  
  Where in the whitethorn
  Singeth a thrush,
  And a robin sings
  In the holly-bush.
  
  Full of fresh scents
  Are the budding boughs
  Arching high over
  A cool green house:
  
  Full of sweet scents,
  And whispering air
  Which sayeth softly:
  We spread no snare;
  
  Here dwell in safety,
  Here dwell alone,
  With a clear stream
  And a mossy stone.
  
  Here the sun shineth
  Most shadily;
  Here is heard an echo
  Of the far sea,
  Though far off it be.

  Christina Rossetti

  Sweet, Spring, Winter

  Christina Rossetti (2008). “Poems and Prose”, p.11, OUP Oxford

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• I long for wildness, a nature which I cannot put my foot through, woods where the wood thrush forever sings, where the hours are early morning ones, and there is dew on the grass, and the day is forever unproved, where I might have a fertile unknown for a soil about me.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Morning, Nature, Feet

  Henry David Thoreau, Ronald A. Bosco (2005). “Nature's Panorama: Thoreau on the Seasons”, p.28, Univ of Massachusetts Press

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• When on a summer's morn I wake,
  And open my two eyes,
  Out to the clear, born-singing rills
  My bird-like spirit flies.
  
  To hear the Blackbird, Cuckoo, Thrush,
  Or any bird in song;
  And common leaves that hum all day
  Without a throat or tongue.
  
  And when Time strikes the hour for sleep,
  Back in my room alone,
  My heart has many a sweet bird's song -
  And one that's all my own.

  W. H. Davies

  Summer, Song, Sweet

  William Henry Davies, “When On A Summer's Morn”

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• Every spring I hear the thrush singing in the glowing woods he is only passing through. His voice is deep, then he lifts it until it seems to fall from the sky. I am thrilled. I am grateful. Then, by the end of morning, he's gone, nothing but silence out of the tree where he rested for a night. And this I find acceptable. Not enough is a poor life. But too much is, well, too much. Imagine Verdi or Mahler every day, all day. It would exhaust anyone.

  Mary Oliver

  Morning, Spring, Fall

  Mary Oliver (2012). “A Thousand Mornings: Poems”, p.39, Penguin

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• The song of thrush and blackbird, joy that falls so gently on the ears to celebrate another day of life and living, flying free.

  John McLeod

  Music, Song, Fall

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• Nothing is so beautiful as spring- When weeds in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Beautiful, Weed, Spring

  Gerard Manley Hopkins (2009). “Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins”, p.29, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, lest you should think he never could recapture the first fine careless rapture!

  Robert Browning

  Wise, Song, Thinking

  "Home-Thoughts, from Abroad" l. 14 (1845)

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• Nothing is so beautiful as spring - when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Beautiful, Weed, Nature

  Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Spring”

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• Here, also, the future was cried aloud by the wind through the rocks, so that all those who heard would shiver, and then the liquid spring song of the thrush would make all the beauty of moonlight and sunlight blend together, making it true, so true, that happiness must come again

  Elyne Mitchell

  Song, Spring, Wind

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• The day of fire is coming, the thrush
  will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket.

  Anne Sexton

  Fire, Sky, Rockets

  Anne Sexton (1974). “The death notebooks”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH)

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• Nowadays, people are so jeezled up. If they took some chamomile tea and spent more time rocking on the porch in the evening listening to the liquid song of the hermit thrush, they might enjoy life more.

  Tasha Tudor

  Song, People, Enjoy Life

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• I never heard a wood thrush until I was a grown man, though I must have been surrounded by them every spring.
  Each year I discover new sights and sounds to teach me how blind and deaf I must still be.

  Louis J. Halle

  Spring, Men, Years

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• When a caterpillar eats a leaf, then a thrush eats the caterpillar, or when a hawk eats the thrush only 5 to 20% of usable energy is transferred from one level to the next. ... Thus herbivores will account for a much smaller fraction of the biomass [than plants] and the carnivores for a still smaller fraction.

  Richard Heinberg

  Environmental, Energy, Levels

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• If I were to choose the sights, the sounds, the fragrances I most would want to see and hear and smell--among all the delights of the open world--on a final day on earth, I think I would choose these: the clear, ethereal song of a white-throated sparrow singing at dawn; the smell of pine trees in the heat of the noon; the lonely calling of Canada geese; the sight of a dragon-fly glinting in the sunshine; the voice of a hermit thrush far in a darkening woods at evening; and--most spiritual and moving of sights--the white cathedral of a cumulus cloud floating serenely in the blue of the sky.

  Edwin Way Teale

  Spiritual, Song, Lonely

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• Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went- Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars: I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.

  Robert Frost

  Music, Stars, Dark

  Robert Frost (1963). “Selected poems”

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• Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the key-hole.

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Keys, Light, Shining

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Hobbit”, p.27, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Nothing is so beautiful as spring- When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling. What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden.-Have, get, before it cloy.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Beautiful, Weed, Sweet

  'Spring' (written 1877)

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• When loud by landside streamlets gush,
  And clear in the greenwood quires the thrush,
  With sun on the meadows
  And songs in the shadows
  Comes again to me
  The gift of the tongues of the lea,
  The gift of the tongues of meadows.
  So when the earth is alive with gods,
  And the lusty ploughman breaks the sod,
  And the grass sings in the meadows,
  And the flowers smile in the shadows,
  Sits my heart at ease,
  Hearing the song of the leas,
  Singing the songs of the meadows.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Song, Flower, Heart

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated)”, p.3765, Delphi Classics

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• O thrush, your song is passing sweet,
  But never a song that you have sung
  Is half so sweet as thrushes sang
  When my dear love and I were young.

  William Morris

  Song, Sweet, Dear Love

  "Other Days". "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations", 10th edition, 1919.

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• And from the phlox and mignonette Rich attars drift on every hand; And when star-vestured twilight comes The pale moths weave a saraband. And crickets in the aisles of grass With their clear fifing pierce the hush; And somewhere you many hear anear The passion of the hermit thrush.

  Clinton Scollard

  Stars, Twilight, Sunset

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• Hush! With sudden gush As from a fountain sings in yonder bush The Hermit Thrush.

  John B. Tabb

  Hush Hush, Fountain, Hermits

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• [Glenn] Thrush's emails to [Hillary] Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were splashed across screens in newspapers nationwide. Thrush was criticized for sharing a half dozen paragraphs of a draft of a story for Podesta to rebut. Some reporters do just that. Other newsrooms have policies discouraging or forbidding it. Thrush says he does the same for Republicans.

  Donna Brazile

  Email, Doe, Campaigns

  Source: www.npr.org

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• I know him, February's thrush, And loud at eve he valentines On sprays that paw the naked bush Where soon will sprout the thorns and bines.

  George Meredith

  Valentine, Thorns, Paws

  George Meredith (1922). “The Complete Works of George Meredith”, p.8366, Library of Alexandria

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• Tis toil's reward, that sweetens industry, As love inspires with strength the enraptur'd thrush.

  Ebenezer Elliott

  Work, Inspire, Toil

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• Really rather fascinating, you know,' he confided, and I recognized, with an internal sigh, the song of the scholar, as identifying a sound as the terr-whit! of a thrush.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Song, Sound, Scholar

  Diana Gabaldon (2015). “The Outlander Series 8-Book Bundle: Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart's Blood”, p.20, Dell

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