Brambly Hedge Quotes

Ease your whiskers, rest your paws, Pies and puddings fill the stores Sweetly dream the night away Till sunshine brings another day

Roast the chestnuts, heat the wine, Pass the cups along the line, Gather round, the log burns bright, It's warm as toast inside tonight,

Spring, in Brittany, is milder than spring in Paris, and bursts into flower three weeks earlier. The five birds that herald its appearance—the swallow, the oriole, the cuckoo, the quail, and the nightingale—arrive with the breezes that refuge in the bays of the Armorican peninsula.[28] The earth is covered over with daisies, pansies, jonquils, daffodils, hyacinths, buttercups, and anemones, like the wastelands around San Giovanni of Laterano and the Holy Cross of Jerusalem in Rome. The clearings are feathered with tall and elegant ferns; the fields of gorse and broom blaze with flowers that one may take at first glance for golden butterflies. The hedges, along which strawberries, raspberries, and violets grow, are adorned with hawthorn, honeysuckle, and brambles whose brown, curving shoots burst forth with magnificent fruits and leaves. All the world teems with bees and birds; hives and nests interrupt the child’s every footstep. In certain sheltered spots, the myrtle and the rose-bay flourish in the open air, as in Greece; figs ripen, as in Provence; and every apple tree, bursting with carmine flowers, looks like the big bouquet of a village bride.

They all hushed as Brinny, the one murderess of their crew, told them of the making of her bride cake, with primrose yellow butter and raisins of the sun, fattened on smuggled brandy. The further they sailed from England, the fonder they grew of the pleasures of home: plum trees with bowed branches, brambles in the hedge, cream from a beloved cow.

Through the chink in the hedge,’ said Susan, ‘I saw her kiss him. I raised my head from my flower-pot and looked through a chink in the hedge. I saw her kiss him. I saw them, Jinny and Louis, kissing. Now I will wrap my agony inside my pocket-handkerchief. It shall be screwed tight into a ball. I will go to the beech wood alone, before lessons. I will not sit at a table, doing sums. I will not sit next Jinny and next Louis. I will take my anguish and lay it upon the roots under the beech trees. I will examine it and take it between my fingers. They will not find me. I shall eat nuts and peer for eggs through the brambles and my hair will be matted, and I shall sleep under hedges and drink water from ditches and die there.

Oh, yeah. Well, it’s just a bad habit we’ve slipped into,” said Harry. “But I haven’t got a problem calling him V —” “NO!” roared Ron, causing Harry to jump into the hedge and Hermione (nose buried in a book at the tent entrance) to scowl over at them. “Sorry,” said Ron, wrenching Harry back out of the brambles, “but the name’s been jinxed, Harry, that’s how they track people! Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance — it’s how they found us in Tottenham Court Road!

two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other’s chests; then, recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking briskly in the same direction. “News?” asked the taller of the two. “The best,” replied Severus Snape. The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge. The men’s long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched. “Thought I might be late,” said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. “It was a little trickier than I expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be good?” Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led off the lane. The high hedge curved with them, running off into the distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the men’s way. Neither

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever! From A Railway Carriage

Through the chink in the hedge,’ said Susan, ‘I saw her kiss him. I raised my head from my flower-pot and looked through a chink in the hedge. I saw her kiss him. I saw them, Jinny and Louis, kissing. Now I will wrap my agony inside my pocket-handkerchief. It shall be screwed tight into a ball. I will go to the beech wood alone, before lessons. I will not sit at a table, doing sums. I will not sit next Jinny and next Louis. I will take my anguish and lay it upon the roots under the beech trees. I will examine it and take it between my fingers. They will not find me. I shall eat nuts and peer for eggs through the brambles and my hair will be matted and I shall sleep under hedges and drink water from ditches and die there.

Darkness, it turned out, would be my ultimate teacher. The Buddhists consider suffering to be the ultimate gateway to awakening, and mine had brought me to a crossroads of sorts. One road was paved and would take me along a more conventional route. It was the more popular road because it was simpler to navigate, well lit, and easier to tread (and faster, even though there was more traffic). Here people had faces and everything was orderly and sterile. There was a solid framework, and things were done in certain ways and did not stray from those ways. The other was scarier, darker, less familiar, with shadows and turns and faceless beings and mountains to scale, but with a whole lot of mystique, with varying shades of light and wind that spoke, blowing in different directions and making everything feel circular rather than linear. It was the more unpredictable road, easier to get lost on, obscured with brambles. This road beckoned me, tugged at my heartstrings, but I hedged, afraid of losing everything familiar to me, of alienation. I feared I would become some lonely, ghostly figure. It was safer to stick to what I knew, but the familiar was no longer comforting to me.

Sorry,” said Ron, wrenching Harry back out of the brambles, “but the name’s been jinxed, Harry, that’s how they track people! Using his name breaks protective enchantments, it causes some kind of magical disturbance — it’s how they found us in Tottenham Court Road!” “Because we used his name?” “Exactly! You’ve got to give them credit, it makes sense. It was only people who were serious about standing up to him, like Dumbledore, who ever dared use it. Now they’ve put a Taboo on it, anyone who says it is trackable — quick-and-easy way to find Order members! They nearly got Kingsley —” “You’re kidding?” “Yeah, a bunch of Death Eaters cornered him, Bill said, but he fought his way out. He’s on the run now, just like us.” Ron scratched his chin thoughtfully with the end of his wand. “You don’t reckon Kingsley could have sent that doe?” “His Patronus is a lynx, we saw it at the wedding, remember?” “Oh yeah . . .” They moved farther along the hedge, away from the tent and Hermione. “Harry . . . you don’t reckon it could’ve been Dumbledore?” “Dumbledore what?” Ron looked a little embarrassed, but said in a low voice, “Dumbledore . . . the doe? I mean,” Ron was watching Harry out of the corners of his eyes, “he had the real sword last, didn’t he?” Harry did not laugh at Ron, because he understood too well the longing behind the question. The idea that Dumbledore had managed to come back to them, that he was watching over them, would have been inexpressibly comforting. He shook his head. “Dumbledore’s dead,” he said. “I saw it happen, I saw the body. He’s definitely gone. Anyway, his Patronus was a phoenix, not a doe.” “Patronuses can change, though, can’t they?” said Ron. “Tonks’s

Zun-zet Where the western zun, unclouded, Up above the grey hill-tops, Did sheen drough ashes, lofty sh’ouded, On the turf beside the copse, In zummer weather, We together, Sorrow-slightèn, work-vorgettèn, Gambol’d wi’ the zun a-zettèn. There, by flow’ry bows o’ bramble, Under hedge, in ash-tree sheädes, The dun-heäir’d ho’se did slowly ramble On the grasses’ dewy bleädes, Zet free o’ lwoads, An’ stwony rwoads, Vorgetvul o’ the lashes frettèn, Grazèn wi’ the zun a-zettèn. There wer rooks a-beätèn by us Drough the aïr, in a vlock, An’ there the lively blackbird, nigh us, On the meäple bough did rock, Wi’ ringèn droat, Where zunlight smote The yollow boughs o’ zunny hedges Over western hills’ blue edges. Waters, drough the meäds a-purlèn, Glissen’d in the evenèn’s light, An’ smoke, above the town a-curlèn, Melted slowly out o’ zight; An’ there, in glooms Ov unzunn’d rooms, To zome, wi’ idle sorrows frettèn, Zuns did set avore their zettèn. We were out in geämes and reäces, Loud a-laughèn, wild in me’th, Wi’ windblown heäir, an’ zunbrowned feäces, Leäpèn on the high-sky’d e’th, Avore the lights Wer tin’d o’ nights, An’ while the gossamer’s light nettèn Sparkled to the zun a-zettèn.

News?” asked the taller of the two. “The best,” replied Severus Snape. The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge. The men’s long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they marched. “Thought I might be late,” said Yaxley, his blunt features

I remind myself of what old Trust, when I came to know him well, told me: "Sheep and men are very much alike," said Trust, who thought both very poor creatures. "Very much alike, indeed. They go in flocks; and can't give a reason why. They leave their fleece on any bramble that is strong enough to insist on fleecing them. They bleat loud at imagined evils, while they tumble straight into real dangers. And for going oil' the line, there's nothing like them. There may be pits, thorns, quagmires, spring-guns, what not, the other side of the hedge, but go off the straight track they will; and no dog can stop them. It's just the sheer love of straying. You may bark at them right and left, go they will, though they break their legs down a limekiln. Oh, men and sheep are wonderfully similar, take them.all in all.

At last I came upon the hedge maze. Far from the warm circles of light cast by torch and lamp, the leaves and twigs here were wedged in a silver lacework of starlight and shadow. The entrance was framed by two large trees, their branches still bare of any new growth. In the darkness, they seemed less like garden posts marking the way into the labyrinth than two silent sentinels guarding the doorway to the underworld. Shapes writhed in the shadows beyond the archway of bramble and vine, both inviting and intimidating. Yet I was not frightened. The hedge maze smelled like the forest outside the inn, a deep green scent of growth and decay, where life and death were intermingled. A familiar scent. A welcoming scent. The scent of home. Removing my mask, I crossed the threshold, letting darkness swallow me whole. There were no torches or candles lit upon the paths, and neither moonlight nor starlight penetrated the dense bramble. Yet my footing along these paths was sure, every part of me attuned to the wildness around me. Unlike the maze of Schönbrunn Palace, a meticulously manicured and man-made construction, this labyrinth breathed. Nature creeped in along the edges, reclaiming groomed, orderly, and civilized corridors into a twisting tangle of tunnels and tracks, weeds and wildflowers. Paths grew vague, roots unruly, branches untamed. Somewhere deep in the labyrinth, I could hear the giggles and gasps of illicit encounters in the shrubbery. I was careful of my step, lest I trip over a pair of trysting lovers, but when I came upon no one else, I let myself fall into a meditative state of mind. I wandered the recursive spirals of the hedge maze, turn after turn after turn, feeling a measure of calm for the first time in a long time.