His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnetalmost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles.

They were very shy on account of being hunted so much; but after I had been silent and motionless for half an hour or so they began to venture out of their holes and to feed on the seeds of the grasses and thistles around me as if I were no more to be feared than a tree-stump.

He who sows the wind must reap the whirlwind, and he who sows thistles may be well assured that he will never gather figs as his harvest.

It's so foolish, you see, Lancelotso foolishlike an ass that eats thistles! . . .

Pray, day and night, and see if she will let you gather figs of thistles.

Mingled with these grow, lower, the spiraeas, white and pink, yellow touch-me-not, fresh white arrowhead, bright blue vervain and skullcap, dull snakehead, gay monkey-flower, coarse eupatoriums, milk-weeds, golden-rods, asters, thistles, and a host beside.

'I have entered the service of a new Master, that's all; and, Tom,' I said timidly, 'I wish He was your Master too.' Tom made no answer, but swung his stick round and round, and slashed at the thistles and the ox-eye daisies which grew by the roadside.

Sow thistles, too, looked strangely anachronistic.

The village street ran upwards between low walls, brambles and thistles lining the roadway on either side.

August comes: the Thistles are out, beloved of butterflies; deeper and deeper tints, more passionate intensities of color, prepare the way for the year's decline.

Behind these sand hills grow a number of spring shrubs, clumps of tamarisk, star thistles, and that Haloxylon ammodendron which Russians call, not so scientifically, "saksaoul."

And are they to look to him for illumination and renewed vigor!and expect "grapes from thorns and figs from thistles!"

Dead thistles, whose feathered seeds had drifted far away upon the wind to found new colonies, and a multitude of withered spikes and racemes, told the old story of the summer's life passing into the death or sleep of winter.

The brown bees came along there, when their work was over, and hummed into the great purple thistles on the roadside in a voluptuous stupor of delight.

II He tumbled and toss'd on his mattress o' nights, That was fit for a fiend's disportal; For 'twas made of the finest of thistles and thorn, Which Alecto herself had gather'd in scorn Of the best down beds that are mortal.

The last, before the cat got them, was a very nice, stocky chick, but these are Growing like thistles.

A FEW FIGS FROM THISTLES, poems and sonnets, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

A few figs from thistles.

In his view the SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND was too mild in his methods, and should be "bristling with thistles and flourishing the claymore" when he tackled the reform of the Land Laws.

They have been the results of chartered popular metaphysics: therefore I still hold that one cannot expect to get grapes from thistles, or good from lies and deception.

" In 1883 she exhibited in Rome, "Answered," a study of thistles; "In Autumn," a variety of fruits; and "Questions," a charming study of carnations.

That smile has turn'd my stomach: this is right the old Embleme of the Moyle cropping of Thistles: Lord what a hunting head she carries, sure she has been ridden with a Martingale.

Never more will I despise your learning, never more pin cards and cony tails upon your Cassock, never again reproach your reverend nightcap, and call it by the mangie name of murrin, never your reverend person more, and say, you look like one of Baals Priests in a hanging, never again when you say grace laugh at you, nor put you out at prayers: never cramp you more, nor when you ride, get Sope and Thistles for you.

And Scotland, the land knows there is thistles enough along the cow path to represent her if they're handled right.

Between those two Scotchmen he appeared like a glow-worm between two thistles.