brood quotes

Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.Your still fowl, blinking at youwithout remark, mayall thewhilebesittingonone addled egg; and when it takes to cackling will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.

- George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans Eliot
  Felix Holt, ch.15.

O tell her, Swallow that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made.

-Tennyson
  The Princess, pt.4, added song, stanza 6.