When all aloud the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

Related Quotes

Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence-- Some to kill canters in the musk-rose buds, Some war with reremice for their leathren wings, To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.

— William Shakespeare

It is the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman Which gives the stern'st good-night.

— William Shakespeare

When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Then lady Cynthia, mistress of the shade, Goes, with the fashionable owls, to bed.

— Edward Young

The screech-owl, with ill-boding cry, Portends strange things, old women say; Stops every fool that passes by, And frights the school-boy from his play.

— Lady Mary Wortley Montagu