Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Wind
The hushed winds wail with feeble moan
Like infant charity.
Joanna Baillie—Orra. Act III. Sc. 1. The Chough and Crow.
Blow, Boreas, foe to human kind!
Blow, blustering, freezing, piercing wind!
Blow, that thy force I may rehearse,
While all my thoughts congeal to verse!
John Bancks—To Boreas.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep.
Bryant—Evening Wind. St. 4.
Where hast thou wandered, gentle gale, to find
The perfumes thou dost bring?
Bryant—May Evening. St. 2.
Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay
In the gay woods and in the golden air,
Like to a good old age released from care,
Journeying, in long serenity, away.
In such a bright, late quiet, would that I
Might wear out life like thee, mid bowers and brooks,
And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,
And music of kind voices ever nigh;
And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men as thou dost pass.
Bryant—October. L. 5.
A breeze came wandering from the sky,
Light as the whispers of a dream;
He put the o’erhanging grasses by,
And softly stooped to kiss the stream,
The pretty stream, the flattered stream,
The shy, yet unreluctant stream.
Bryant—The Wind and Stream.
As winds come whispering lightly from the West,
Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep’s serene.
Byron—Childe Harold. Canto II. St. 70.
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
Campbell—Ye Mariners of England.
The wind is awake, pretty leaves, pretty leaves,
Heed not what he says, he deceives, he deceives;
Over and over
To the lowly clover
He has lisped the same love (and forgotten it, too).
He will be lisping and pledging to you.
John Vance Cheney—The way of it.
The wind’s in the east***I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.
Dickens—Bleak House. Ch. VI.
The winds that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straighten’d lungs or conscious of their charge.
Dryden—Astræa Redux. L. 242.
Perhaps the wind
Wails so in winter for the summer’s dead,
And all sad sounds are nature’s funeral cries
For what has been and is not.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. I.
But certain winds will make men’s temper bad.
George Eliot—The Spanish Gypsy. Bk. I.
The wind moans, like a long wail from some despairing soul shut out in the awful storm!
W. H. Gibson—Pastoral Days. Winter.
The wind, the wandering wind
Of the golden summer eves—
Whence is the thrilling magic
Of its tunes amongst the leaves?
Oh, is it from the waters,
Or from the long, tall grass?
Or is it from the hollow rocks
Through which its breathings pass?
Felicia D. Hemans—The Wandering Wind.
A little wind kindles, much puts out the fire.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
To a crazy ship all winds are contrary.
Herbert—Jacula Prudentum.
An ill wind that bloweth no man good—
The blower of which blast is she.
John Heywood—Idleness. St. 5.
Madame, bear in mind
That princes govern all things—save the wind.
Victor Hugo—The Infanta’s Rose.
He stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.
Isaiah. XXVII. 8.
The wind bloweth where it listeth.
John. III. 8.
I hear the wind among the trees
Playing the celestial symphonies;
I see the branches downward bent,
Like keys of some great instrument.
Longfellow—A Day of Sunshine. St. 3.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear
Has grown familiar with your song;
I hear it in the opening year,
I listen, and it cheers me long.
Longfellow—Woods in Winter. St. 7.
It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills,
And April’s in the West wind, and daffodils.
Masefield—The West Wind.
The winds with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kisst.
Milton—Hymn on the Nativity. St. 5.
While rocking winds are piping loud.
Milton—Il Penseroso. L. 126.
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling leaves,
With minute drops from off the eaves.
Milton—Il Penseroso. L. 128.
Never does a wilder song
Steal the breezy lyre along,
When the wind in odors dying,
Wooes it with enamor’d sighing.
Moore—To Rosa.
Loud wind, strong wind, sweeping o’er the mountains,
Fresh wind, free wind, blowing from the sea,
Pour forth thy vials like streams from airy mountains,
Draughts of life to me.
D. M. Mulock—North Wind.
When the stormy winds do blow.
Martyn Parker—Ye Gentlemen of England.
Cum ventis litigare.
To strive with the winds.
Petronius Arbiter. 83.
Who walketh upon the wings of the wind.
Psalms. CIV. 3.
And the South Wind—he was dressed
With a ribbon round his breast
That floated, flapped, and fluttered
In a riotous unrest
And a drapery of mist
From the shoulder to the wrist
Floating backward with the motion
Of the waving hand he kissed.
James Whitcomb Riley—The South Wind and the Sun.
A young man who had been troubling society with impalpable doctrines of a new civilization which he called “the Kingdom of Heaven” had been put out of the way; and I can imagine that believer in material power murmuring as he went homeward, “it will all blow over now.” Yes. The wind from the Kingdom of Heaven has blown over the world, and shall blow for centuries yet.
George W. Russell—The Economics of Ireland. P. 23.
O the wind is a faun in the spring time
When the ways are green for the tread of the May!
List! hark his lay!
Whist! mark his play!
T-r-r-r-l!
Hear how gay!
Clinton Scollard—The Wind.
Take a straw and throw it up into the air, you may see by that which way the wind is.
John Selden—Table Talk. Libels.
What wind blew you hither, Pistol?
Not the ill wind which blows no man to good.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 89.
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
Henry VI. Pt. III. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 55.
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes.
Shelley—Ode to the West Wind. Pt. I.
O wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
Shelley—Ode to the West Wind. Pt. V.
Cease, rude Boreas! blustering railer!
G. A. Stevens—The Storm.
There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulation; their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape.
Stevenson—Foreigner at Home.
Emblem of man, who, after all his moaning
And strain of dire immeasurable strife,
Has yet this consolation, all atoning—
Life, as a windmill, grinds the bread of Life.
De Tabley—The Windmill.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Tennyson—Princess. Song. End of Pt. II.
A fresher Gale
Begins to wave the wood, and stir the stream,
Sweeping with shadowy gust the fields of corn;
While the Quail clamors for his running mate.
Thomson—Seasons. Summer. L. 1,655.
Yet true it is as cow chews cud,
And trees at spring do yield forth bud,
Except wind stands as never it stood,
It is an ill wind turns none to good.
Tusser—Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie. Description of the Properties of Winds. Ch. XII.
I dropped my pen; and listened to the wind
That sang of trees uptorn and vessels tost;
A midnight harmony and wholly lost
To the general sense of men by chains confined
Of business, care, or pleasure,—or resigned
To timely sleep.
Wordsworth—Sonnet. Composed while the author was engaged in writing a tract occasioned by the Convention of Cintra.