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More "Wassail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the parlour waxed louder and wilder as the night wore on. There were unseen guests there, elate and inspiring, who sat with the revellers—phantoms who attend such wassail, and keep the ladle of the punch-bowl clinking, the tongue of the songster glib and tuneful, and the general mirth alive and furious. A few honest folk, with the gift of a second sight in such matters, discover their uncanny presence—leprous ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... two musty musketeers were awaiting him hard by the ruined chateau—that is to say, on a park bench with rickety cast-iron legs. His honor was at stake. He had engaged to storm the castle single-handed and bring back the treasure that was to furnish them wassail and solace. And all that stood between him and the coveted dollar was his wife, once a little girl whom he could—aha!—why not again? Once with soft words he could, as they say, twist her around his little finger. Why not again? Not for years had he tried it. Grim poverty and mutual hatred ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... impecuniosity, and against which he claimed a right to call for relief from the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read in a more elevated tone. The louder he read, the louder Hiffernan snored; until the author came ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... of life, but past and forgotten in the rush, made a little happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... may have sprung some of the Twelfth-Night revels, mingled with those in honour of the Manifestation and Adoration of the Magi. And, in all probability, some other Christmas customs are adopted from the festivals of the ancients, as decking with evergreens and mistletoe (relics of Druidism) and the wassail bowl. It is not surprising, therefore, that Bacchanalian illustrations have been found among the decorations in the early Christian Churches. The illustration on the following page is from a mosaic in the Church of St. Constantine, Rome, ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... strong force be sent out at once from Syracuse, to occupy all the roads, and cut off their retreat. The advice was good, but in the present temper of the army it was felt to be impracticable. The whole city had become a scene of riot and wassail, and if the order were given to march, it was but too evident that not a man would obey. Baffled in this direction, the keen-witted Syracusan hit upon another plan, which he at once proceeded to carry ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... my life was passed without excess. In such a home as mine, that would have been impossible. The frequent brawl, the wassail-bowl and drunken revel were almost of nightly occurrence; and I was fast sinking into the mere robber and inebriate, when an event occurred which rescued me for a time from the abyss on the brink of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of carrying the wassail bowl from door to door, with songs and merriment, in Christmas week, is still observed in some of ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... "Wassail the trees, that they may bear You many a plum and many a pear; For more or less fruit they will bring, As ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... with their wassail bowls, About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare in is bringing. Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box, And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbors come by flocks, And ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... March, 1858, a reading of the "Christmas Carol," in the Music Hall at Edinburgh. His audience consisted of the members of, or subscribers to, the Philosophical Institution. At the close of the evening the Lord Provost, who had been presiding, presented to the Beader a massive and ornate silver wassail bowl. Seventeen years prior to that, Charles Dickens had been publicly entertained in Edinburgh,—Professor Wilson having been the chairman of the banquet given then in his honour. He had been at that time enrolled ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... Augustine of Cockburn drank from a tortoise-shell wassail cup to the health of an apotheosized recusant, who was his supererogatory patron, and an assistant recognizance in the immobile nomenclature of interstitial molecular phonics. The contents of the vase proving soporific, a stolid plebeian took ...
— 1001 Questions and Answers on Orthography and Reading • B. A. Hathaway
... west and east And other foreign parts, Come share the rapture of our feast, The love of loyal hearts; And in the wassail that suspends All matters burthensome, We'll drink a health to good old friends And good friends yet to come. Clink, clink, clink! To fellowship we drink! And from the bowl No genial soul In such an hour will shrink. Clink, clink, clink! ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... cursing their stars and his own, ever since the receipt of solemn notification to this effect." But very grateful, when it came, was the enthusiasm of the greeting, and welcome the gift of the silver wassail-bowl which followed the reading of the Carol. "I had no opportunity of asking any one's advice in Edinburgh," he wrote on his return. "The crowd was too enormous, and the excitement in it much too great. But my determination is ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Beverly was one. We went together to the College hall after dinner; but the honorable and reverend Corporation and Overseers had retired, and I do not remember whether there was any person presiding. If there were, a statue would have been as well. The age of wine and wassail, those potent aids to patriotism, mirth, and song, had not wholly passed away. The merry glee was at that time outrivalled by Adams and Liberty, the national patriotic song, so often and on so many occasions sung, and everywhere so familiarly ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... made hot, sweetened with sugar and spiced with grated nutmeg, and a hot toast is served in it. This is the wassail drink. ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... effect; drunken Harda-Knut dying so speedily, and Magnus being the man he was. One would like to give the date of this remarkable Treaty; but cannot with precision. Guess somewhere about 1040: [17] actual fruition of it came to Magnus, beyond question, in 1042, when Harda-Knut drank that wassail bowl at the wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead; which in the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3d June of that year. Magnus at once went to Denmark on hearing this event; was joyfully received by the headmen there, who indeed, with their ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... enough on a bank of the river. It was called, no one knew why, the Inn of the Three Graces, and had, like many another wayside inn in France, its pleasant benches before the doors for open-air drinkers, and its not unpleasant darkened rooms inside for wassail in stormy weather; also it had quite a large orchard and garden behind it running down to the river's edge, where the people of the Inn raised good fruit and good vegetables, which added materially to the excellence of their homely table. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sail—the tide of gayety refuses to float their barks from the shoal beside which they are moored. In their seasons of gayety the French are philosophers, for while they imbibe the mirth they discard the wassail, and wine instead of being the body of their feasts, as with other nations, it is but the spice used to add a flavor to the whole. I know not that these remarks of mine have aught to do with my story, but I throw them ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Mark Lemon; the quill pen belonging to Charles Dickens, and used by him just previous to his death; a paper-knife formerly belonging to "C. D.," and the writing-desk used by "C. D." on his last American tour; silver wassail-bowl and stand presented to "C. D." by members of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh in 1858; walking-stick formerly belonging to "C. D.;" a screen belonging to Moses Pickwick, of Bath—the veritable Moses Pickwick of Chap. ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... puddings and flapdragons came in all aflame, and all as merry as grigs—flinging of lighted plums at each other, but most mannerly not to fling any at Moll or us. Then more shouting for joy when the bowls of wassail and posset come in, and all standing to give three times three for their new mistress and her husband. Hearing of which, the beggars without (now tired of dancing about the embers) troop up to the door and give three times three as well, and ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... shorn Blest be t' day that Christ was born, Guy Fawkes Day A Stick and a stake, Awd Grimey sits upon yon hill, Christmas I wish you a merry Kessenmas an' a happy New Year, Cleveland Christmas Song A Christmas Wassail Sheffield Mumming Song Charms, "Nominies," and Popular Rhymes Wilful weaste maks weasome want A rollin' stone gethers no moss Than awn a crawin' hen Nowt bud ill-luck 'll fester where Meeat maks The Miller's ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... which the ladies dipped their white fingers into the basin of perfumed water, dried them on the silver-fringed napkin, and sailed to the door, through which, after the profoundest of courtesies on the one side and the lowest of bows upon the other, they vanished, leaving the gentlemen to wine and wassail. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... Grace," said the little Prince, bowing low with true courtier-like grace and suavity, "I will, with your permission, crave my boon as a Christmas favor at wassail ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... system of moral instruction in detail, which, in our local history, constitutes an era. It has been written that "where vice abounds, grace shall much more abound," and St. Mary's may now be well included in the list of favorable examples. The lordly "wassail" of the fur-trader, the long-continued dance of the gay French "habitant," the roll of the billiard-ball, the shuffle of the card, and the frequent potations of wine "when it is red in the cup," will now, at least, no longer retain their places in the customs of this ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... way of compromise, and to secure for us inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup, and toast Old England ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... I had dashed off a word picture of metropolitan joys that made life in Atascosa City look as dull as a trip to Coney Island with your own wife. In ten minutes more we shook hands on an agreement that I was to act as his guide, interpreter and friend in and to the aforesaid wassail and amenity. And Solomon Mills, which was his name, was to pay all expenses for a month. At the end of that time, if I had made good as director-general of the rowdy life, he was to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... Whose rivers bound the province, and whose hills Touch the last cloud upon the level sky: No; better men still better love their country. 'Tis the old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence or perfidy invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with a bitter and ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... ladies dipped their white fingers into the basin of perfumed water, dried them on the silver-fringed napkin, and sailed to the door, through which, after the profoundest of courtesies on the one side and the lowest of bows upon the other, they vanished, leaving the gentlemen to wine and wassail. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... within the old baronial banqueting hall of Percy Du Bois. The wassail had not yet begun, and there was a pause in the feast. All eyes were bent upon the travel soiled pilgrim,—for he was telling a stirring tale of the martial deeds done in Palestine. The valiant Percy ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... answered Hilda, quickly turning; "such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board was left for ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... did! and bowels which would have stowed within them all the plate on board of a galleon. If tankards and wassail-bowls had stuck between your teeth, you would ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... filling his goblet, "drink wassail to the fair Rowena; for since her namesake introduced the word into England, has never been one more worthy of such a tribute. By my faith, I could pardon the unhappy Vortigern, had he half the cause that we now witness, for making shipwreck of his ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... sick; No gin to catch the state, or wring The freeborn nostril of the king, We send to you; but here a jolly Verse, crown'd with ivy and with holly, That tells of winter's tales and mirth, That milkmaids make about the hearth, Of Christmas sports, the wassail-bowl, That['s] tost up, after fox-i'-th'-hole; Of blind-man-buff, and of the care That young men have to shoe the mare; Of Twelfth-tide cakes, of peas and beans, Wherewith you make those merry scenes, Whenas ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... that day to give up the bulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on my coat ...
— Options • O. Henry
... his brown, he had a green velveteen coat, and a different-colored flowing tie for every day in the week. His habits were in complete conformity with his philosophy of extremes. He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile of his own) for weeks at a time; and yet when he was seized ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... for she is still a fruitful wife, "Her spouse the Dead, and their cold marriage yields "A million children, born of mould'ring flesh— "So Death and Flesh live on—immortal they! "I mean the blank-ey'd queen whose wassail bowl "Is brimm'd from Lethe, and whose porch is red "With poppies, as it waits the panting soul— "She, she alone is great! No scepter'd slave "Bowing to blind creative giants, she; "No forces seize her in their strong, mad hands, ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... "bush" evening was spent in palm-wine, rum, and wassail; one must begin by humouring Africans, under pain of being considered a churl; but the inevitable result is, that next day they will by some pretext or other shirk work to enjoy the headache. That old villain, "Young Prince," becoming very fou, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... may be lord by day, But the monk is lord by night; Nor wine nor wassail would stir a vassal ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... said young Chitterlings, mildly. "Every moment is precious. Is this an hour to give to wine and wassail? Ha, we want action—action! We must strike the blow for freedom to-night—aye, this very night. The scow is already anchored in the mill-dam, freighted with provisions for a three months' voyage. I have a black flag in my pocket. Why, ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... the warlike Edward; but, as to a "wretched village in Greece," bestowing its name upon the British monarch, the writer must be aware, according to his own account, that in ancient times Clarentza was no more a poor village, than Clare is what it was, when the wassail bowl cheered the baronial hall of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... happy, and soothed in her hours of unrest by this penny legacy. Let me think as I write. (The next month's sermon, thank goodness! is safe to press.) This discourse will appear at the season when I have read that wassail-bowls make their appearance; at the season of pantomime, turkey and sausages, plum-puddings, jollifications for schoolboys; Christmas bills, and reminiscences more or less sad and sweet for elders. If we oldsters are not merry, we shall be having a semblance of merriment. We shall see the young ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... California, surely never loved daughters of kings in the courts of kings; nor fought cutlass to cutlass on the swaying decks of ships; nor drowned in the spirit-rooms of ships, guzzling raw liquor to the wassail-shouting and death-singing of seamen, while the ship lifted and crashed on the black-toothed rocks and the water bubbled overhead, ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... meekly displaying the contents of her apron before her lord, the Landgrave—that heavy, sporadic type of whiskered ass whose only mission in life seems to be that of pulling the stars and all else down about his wassail-soaked head and ears through sheer avoirdupois and stupidity. Padre Antonio experienced a sudden thrill as he gazed at the picture. Clearly, it was the hand of God directing him. So did Saint Elizabeth deliberately deny the truth, ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... pleasures of wine and wassail, loose talk and tales of women's wiles, a favourite subject with the lewder ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... in (as was concerted) betwixt Christmas & Lord Mayor's Days. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of beef & turkeys would go down with him to the great greasing & detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day was at his elbow, plying him with the wassail-bowl, till he roared, & hiccupp'd, & protested there was no faith in dried ling, a sour, windy, acrimonious, censorious hy-po-crit-crit-critical mess & no dish for a gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard ...
— A Masque of Days - From the Last Essays of Elia: Newly Dressed & Decorated • Walter Crane
... of Hearne in his Search for the Coppermine River and Northwest Passage—Hilarious Life of Wassail led by Governor Norton—The Massacre of the Eskimo by Hearne's Indians North of the Arctic Circle—Discovery of the Athabasca Country—Hearne becomes Resident Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, but is captured by the French—Death of Norton and ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... thee," he said "men say thou art a prompt fellow in thy service, but too much given to brawling and to wassail to be trusted ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... of human power, And marvelled as the aged hind, With some strange tale bewitch'd my mind, Of forayers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurr'd their horse, Their southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue, And home returning, fill'd the hall With revel, wassail-rout, and brawl. Methought that still with trump and clang The gateway's broken arches rang; Methought grim features, seam'd with scars, Glared through the windows' rusty bars; And ever, by the winter hearth, Old tales I heard of woe or mirth, Of lovers' ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... of course that sort of thing does more or less injury to a man's mind, however comparatively harmless the form of his dissipation may be. There are very few men whom John Saltram cannot drink under the table, and rise with a steady brain himself when the wassail is ended; yet I believe, in a general way, few men drink less than he does. At cards he is equally strong; a past-master in all games of skill; and the play is apt to be rather high at one or two of the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... appliance of ancient hospitality. Barrels of mighty ale were broached, and their nut-brown contents widely distributed, and the health of the bride and bridegroom was enthusiastically drunk in a brimming wassail cup of spicy wine with floating toast. Titus Tyrconnel acted as master of the ceremonies, and was, Mr. Coates declared, "quite in his element." So much was he elated, that he ventured to cut some of his old jokes upon the vicar, and, strange ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the level sky: No; better men still better love their country. 'Tis the old mansion of their earliest friends, The chapel of their first and best devotions; When violence or perfidy invades, Or when unworthy lords hold wassail there, And wiser heads are drooping round its moats, At last they fix their steady and stiff eye There, there alone—stand while the trumpet blows, And view the hostile flames above its towers Spire, with ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... for the boardin' parties," broke in Jean Lafitte, standing on one leg in his excitement; "—an' so made her a prize. An' then we made 'em walk the plank amid scenes of wassail—all but the fair captives." ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... Romance; and Satisfaction. For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects illustrative of Christmas, entitled, The Waits; Bringing in the Boar's Head; The Yule Log, and The Wassail Bowl; all afterwards engraved. For Mr. James Haywood, M.P., he executed a series of drawings illustrative of student life at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London, and Paris; while two vast subjects, The Origin of Music and The Triumph of Music (each ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... of mind there came a diversion in the guise of a reunion of the Gentle Riders of the city. There were not many of them—perhaps a score—and there was wassail and things to eat, and speeches and the Spaniard was bearded again in recapitulation. And when daylight threatened them the survivors prepared to depart. But some remained upon the battlefield. One of these was Trooper ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... green velveteen coat, and a different-colored flowing tie for every day in the week. His habits were in complete conformity with his philosophy of extremes. He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile of his own) for weeks at a time; and ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... lies heavy, and its gems Stud the luxuriant, grassy stems. The happy night with wassail rings; So feasted here ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... a palmer within the old baronial banqueting hall of Percy Du Bois. The wassail had not yet begun, and there was a pause in the feast. All eyes were bent upon the travel soiled pilgrim,—for he was telling a stirring tale of the martial deeds done in Palestine. The valiant Percy bent forward his anxious visage,—seamed by many a ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... the butler brought in a huge silver vessel of rare and curious workmanship, which he placed before the Squire. Its appearance was hailed with acclamation; being the Wassail Bowl, so renowned in Christmas festivity. The contents had been prepared by the Squire himself; for it was a beverage in the skilful mixture of which he particularly prided himself; alleging that it was too abstruse ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... bulk of my store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on ...
— Options • O. Henry
... unrivalled by its potent enemy the tea-kettle. The old hall in which we dined echoed to bursts of robustious fox-hunting merriment, that made the ancient antlers shake on the walls. By degrees, however, the wine and wassail of mine host began to operate upon bodies already a little jaded by the chase. The choice spirits that flashed up at the beginning of the dinner, sparkled for a time, then gradually went out one after another, or only emitted ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Lord Mayor's Days. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him—to the great greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... speedily, and Magnus being the man he was. One would like to give the date of this remarkable Treaty; but cannot with precision. Guess somewhere about 1040: [17] actual fruition of it came to Magnus, beyond question, in 1042, when Harda-Knut drank that wassail bowl at the wedding in Lambeth, and fell down dead; which in the Saxon Chronicle is dated 3d June of that year. Magnus at once went to Denmark on hearing this event; was joyfully received by the headmen there, who indeed, with their fellows in Norway, had been main contrivers of the Treaty; both ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... Morlischachen holds His bridal feast today: a wealthy man; Has half a score of glens i' th' Alps. They're going To fetch the bride from Imisee; tonight There will be mirth and wassail down at Kuessnacht. Come you! ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... day's wassail, most of the men went below at an early hour, leaving the deck to the steward and two of the men remaining on duty; the mate, with Baltimore and the Dane, engaging to relieve them at midnight. At that hour, the ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... marvelled as the aged hind With some strange tale bewitched my mind, Of foragers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurred their horse, Their Southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue; And, home returning, filled the hall With revel, wassail-rout and brawl."—"Marmion." Introduction to Canto Third. See Lockhart for a description of the view from Smailholme, a propos of the stanza in "The ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... tumble-bugs propel a single ball! Resurgam. Dawns dread and red the fateful morn— Lo, Resurrection's Day is born! The striding sea no longer strides, No longer knows the trick of tides; The land is breathless, winds relent, All nature waits the dread event. From wassail rising rather late, Awarding Jove arrives in state; O'er yawning graves looks many a league, Then yawns himself from sheer fatigue. Lifting its finger to the sky, A marble shaft arrests his eye— This epitaph, ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... implored, At times sought with self-pointed sword, Yet still a dark and hideous close To even intolerable woes, And welcome in no shape. And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, They who have revelled beyond measure In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Die calm, or calmer, oft than he Whose heritage was Misery. 740 For he who hath in turn run through All that was beautiful and new, Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; And, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... dispersed in a state like the afflatus of laughing-gas, the poet and a privileged clique proceeded to the house of the Baptist elder, to prolong the night with metaphysical wassail. From the froth of poetry, they rose to a contemplation of the old classics; Homer, Euripides, Sophocles, Virgil, rising grandly from their dust, ensphered in ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... in the proportion in which it conduces to our happiness, then we have cause to deplore the loss of the wassail-bowl, the sports and wrestlings of the town green, the evening tales, and the elegant pastimes of masque, song, and dance, of our ancestors, which the taste of our times has narrowed into a commercial channel, or pared down to a few formal visits ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... of Douay given over to the pillage of a brutal soldiery. The time appointed was the night of Epiphany, upon occasion of which festival, it was thought that the inhabitants, overcome with sleep and wassail, might be easily overpowered. (6th January, 1557.) The plot was a good plot, but the Admiral of France was destined to be foiled by an old woman. This person, apparently the only creature awake in the town, perceived the danger, ran shrieking through the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... exultant with success, encamped that night in the woods not far from Marlborough, and kept the forest awake with the uproar of their barbarian wassail. The colonists immediately assembled a small band of brave men, fell upon them by surprise in the midst of their carousals, shot forty and ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... mug, noggin, nipperkin, beaker, bumper, tankard, jorum, tig; pl. carousal, wassail, intoxication, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... heard of thee," he said "men say thou art a prompt fellow in thy service, but too much given to brawling and to wassail to be trusted with things ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... not some pallid face Look in upon the banquet, calling up Dread shapes of battles in the wassail cup, And trouble all ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... freeman has been cursing their stars and his own, ever since the receipt of solemn notification to this effect." But very grateful, when it came, was the enthusiasm of the greeting, and welcome the gift of the silver wassail-bowl which followed the reading of the Carol. "I had no opportunity of asking any one's advice in Edinburgh," he wrote on his return. "The crowd was too enormous, and the excitement in it much too great. But my determination is all but taken. I must do something, or I shall wear ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... goods on ice; the poor man's club is a place designed to brighten our darkened lives, and send us home, when we're halfway blind, in humor to beat our wives. So hey for the wicker demi-john and the free-lunch brand of grub! We'll wassail hold till the break of dawn, we friends of the poor man's club! It's here we barter our bits of news in our sweat stained hand-me-downs; it's here we swallow the children's shoes and the housewives hats ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... must pay the penalty In wrinkles and uncourted loneliness; The widow, who, but newly desolate, Would grasp a hand, then start to find it gone; The spendthrift and the sordid usurer, Who knew no sentiment save lust for gold; The bloated drunkard, sinking 'neath the weight Of wassail inclination dissolute; The youth, who, following his baleful steps, Reeled for the first time from intemperance; And she who had forgot her covenant, In brazen infamy and unwept shame;— The good, the bad, the impious and unjust, The energetic and the ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... feast was over in Haccombe Hall, And the wassail-cup had been served to all, When the Earl of Totnes rose in his place, And the chanters came ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... But men must be far more or far less than mortal ere they can blind their eyes, and dull their senses, and forswear their nature, and obey the dreariness of the commandment; and there is little need to force the sackcloth and the serge upon us. The roses wither long before the wassail is over, and there is no magic that will make them bloom again, for there is none that renews us—youth. The Helots had their one short, joyous festival in their long year of labour; life may leave us ours. It will be surely to us, long before its close, a harder ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... as to a "wretched village in Greece," bestowing its name upon the British monarch, the writer must be aware, according to his own account, that in ancient times Clarentza was no more a poor village, than Clare is what it was, when the wassail bowl cheered the baronial hall of its now ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... for vast conquests! "These rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by Cyrus from their herds and hunting-grounds to startle the pampered Lydians with their spare diet and clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; their fondness for social graces, their feudal ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... and persuasive style, and has commenced a system of moral instruction in detail, which, in our local history, constitutes an era. It has been written that "where vice abounds, grace shall much more abound," and St. Mary's may now be well included in the list of favorable examples. The lordly "wassail" of the fur-trader, the long-continued dance of the gay French "habitant," the roll of the billiard-ball, the shuffle of the card, and the frequent potations of wine "when it is red in the cup," will now, at least, no longer retain their places in the customs of this spot on ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... much of pensioners, and barons of beef, and yule-logs, and bay, and rosemary, and holly boughs cut upon the hillside, and crab-apples bobbing in the wassail bowl, and masques and mummers, and dancers on the rushes, that we need not here describe a Christmas Eve in olden times. Indeed, this last half of the nineteenth century is weary of the worn-out theme. But one characteristic of the age of Elizabeth may be mentioned: that is its love of music. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... cares 100 That chatter loudest as they mean the least; Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means nevermore; Impatient is her foot, nor turns again.' He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass Nor stayed her: and forthwith the frothy tide Of interrupted wassail roared along. But Bioern, the son of Heriulf, sat apart Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. 110 'A ship,' he muttered,'is a winged bridge That leadeth every way to man's desire, And ocean the wide gate to manful luck.' And then with that resolve ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... which he introduces us is, as before said, blackguardly and bleak. Paris swarms before us, full of famine, shame, and death; monks and the servants of great lords hold high wassail upon cakes and pastry; the poor man licks his lips before the baker's window; people with patched eyes sprawl all night under the stalls; chuckling Tabary transcribes an improper romance; bare-bosomed lasses and ruffling students swagger in the streets; the drunkard ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up regularly for the night, the "Lady Anastasia" withdrew, followed by Dinah; and I would hear, later, sounds of festivity, in which her well-known laugh was blended, in the dining-room below, where, with Bainrothe and his friends, she held wassail, frequently, until after midnight. The groans of Mrs. Clayton would then commence, and, with little ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... was always rather-a lad for the wassail-bowl. When I met him in Paris, I remember, he was ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... wrathful, reckless, from resting-places, thirty of the thanes, and thence he rushed fain of his fell spoil, faring homeward, laden with slaughter, his lair to seek. Then at the dawning, as day was breaking, the might of Grendel to men was known; then after wassail was wail uplifted, loud moan in the morn. The mighty chief, atheling excellent, unblithe sat, labored in woe for the loss of his thanes, when once had been traced the trail of the fiend, spirit accurst: too cruel that sorrow, too long, too loathsome. ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... this morning. It was eight before I rose—half-past eight ere I came into the parlour. Terry and J. Ballantyne dined with me yesterday, and I suppose the wassail, though there was little enough of it, had stuck ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... their wassail bowls About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls; The wild mare in is bringing; Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box; And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbours come by flocks, And ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... loud, And impatient of control, Boisterous in the market crowd, Boisterous at the wassail-bowl, Everywhere Would drink and swear, ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... old custom of carrying the wassail bowl from door to door, with songs and merriment, in Christmas week, is still observed in ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Harold," answered Hilda, quickly turning; "such was ever the ceremony due to Saxon king, when he slept in a subject's house, ere our kinsmen the Danes introduced that unroyal wassail, which left subject and king unable to hold or to quaff cup, when the board ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... compotation going on in the parlour waxed louder and wilder as the night wore on. There were unseen guests there, elate and inspiring, who sat with the revellers—phantoms who attend such wassail, and keep the ladle of the punch-bowl clinking, the tongue of the songster glib and tuneful, and the general mirth alive and furious. A few honest folk, with the gift of a second sight in such matters, discover their uncanny presence—leprous impurity, insane blasphemy, and the stony grin ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... was plainly furnished, but there was one exception—the chair in which the Earl sat. This was an old one, formerly the chair of state in which the old Barons his ancestors had presided at many a scene of wassail, with their retainers. It had been stuffed and new-covered to suit modern luxury, but the armorial bearings remained still carved in the wood of the high back, with the proud motto, ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... out that now forgotten expression of good-will. Many a feud was reconciled in the clinking of glasses; just as many another was begun when the cup was drained too deeply. The first quarter of the last century saw the end of all the social glories of the wassail in this country, and though men drank as much fifty years later, all its poetry and romance ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... come. The clergy are now hunted in the streets! Plunder and rapine reign! Orgies and wild wassail hold a mocking sway in the courts of death. Unsexed women, liberated thieves, and bloodthirsty tramps prey on the unwary, the wounded, or the feeble. On April 3Oth, the great fort of Issy falls into ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... wenches with their wassail bowls, About the streets are singing; The boys are come to catch the owls, The wild mare in is bringing. Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box, And to the dealing of the ox Our honest neighbors come by flocks, And here ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... better shorn Blest be t' day that Christ was born, Guy Fawkes Day A Stick and a stake, Awd Grimey sits upon yon hill, Christmas I wish you a merry Kessenmas an' a happy New Year, Cleveland Christmas Song A Christmas Wassail Sheffield Mumming Song Charms, "Nominies," and Popular Rhymes Wilful weaste maks weasome want A rollin' stone gethers no moss Than awn a crawin' hen Nowt bud ill-luck 'll fester where Meeat maks The Miller's Thumb Miller, miller, mooter-poke Down i' yon ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... the same day if possible; so that you may carry the impression of the one fresh and active into the other. They are the two most representative buildings in the kingdom. Haddon is old English feudalism edificed. It represents the rough grandeur, hospitality, wassail and rude romance of the English nobility five hundred years ago. It was all in its glory about the time when Thomas-a-Becket, the Magnificent, used to entertain great companies of belted knights of the realm in a manner that exceeded regal munificence in those days—even directing fresh straw to ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... boar's head there and boy to carry it; next, being taken with a crockery-shop-sign, "The Little Bason" (which, by-the-bye, was a very large one), he purchases that also, thinking it will do for a wassail-bowl; likewise some holly; and an old butcher's-block to serve as the yule-log; not forgetting the last new Christmas book of sympathy and sentiment, "The Black Beetle on the Hob," a faery tale of a register-stove, ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... in the Music Hall at Edinburgh. His audience consisted of the members of, or subscribers to, the Philosophical Institution. At the close of the evening the Lord Provost, who had been presiding, presented to the Beader a massive and ornate silver wassail bowl. Seventeen years prior to that, Charles Dickens had been publicly entertained in Edinburgh,—Professor Wilson having been the chairman of the banquet given then in his honour. He had been at that time enrolled a burgess and guildbrother ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... freeman, at the Music Hall, to give him hospitable welcome. Their brother freeman has been cursing their stars and his own, ever since the receipt of solemn notification to this effect." But very grateful, when it came, was the enthusiasm of the greeting, and welcome the gift of the silver wassail-bowl which followed the reading of the Carol. "I had no opportunity of asking any one's advice in Edinburgh," he wrote on his return. "The crowd was too enormous, and the excitement in it much too great. But my determination ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... power; And marvelled as the aged hind With some strange tale bewitched my mind, Of foragers who, with headlong force, Down from that strength had spurred their horse, Their Southern rapine to renew, Far in the distant Cheviots blue; And, home returning, filled the hall With revel, wassail-rout and brawl."—"Marmion." Introduction to Canto Third. See Lockhart for a description of the view from Smailholme, a propos of the stanza in "The Eve ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... concerted) betwixt Christmas and Lord Mayor's Days. Lord! how he laid about him! Nothing but barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him—to the great greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day was at his elbow, plying him the wassail-bowl, till he roared, and hiccup'd, and protested there was no faith in dried ling, but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy, acrimonious, censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-cri-tical mess, and no dish for a gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the middle of the great custard that stood before ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place; that I was possessed by the desire to treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Wassail; that the voice of Fame had been heard in that land, declaring my ability to make hot Wassail; that if I were permitted to hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, and good hours; in a word, ...
— The Seven Poor Travellers • Charles Dickens
... store of hard-wrung coin to the relief of this Ada Lowery. But I swore to myself that Tripp's whiskey dollar would not be forthcoming. He might play knight-errant at my expense, but he would indulge in no wassail afterward, commemorating my weakness and gullibility. In a kind of chilly anger I put on my coat ...
— Options • O. Henry
... even Mr. Pickwick himself, had never been more jovial at a Christmas party than were Miss Abingdon's guests. A silver bowl in the middle of the table suggested punch; Canon Wrottesley must brew a wassail bowl. A footman was sent for this thing and that, for lemons and boiling water—the water must boil, remember? And too much sugar would spoil the whole thing. The vicar stirred the ingredients with an air, and poured ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... rustling. At one end there was the raised dais, on which in ancient times the host and his guests used to spread their table, while a descent of a couple of steps led to the lower part of the hall, where the vassals and retainers held wassail. The floor was uncovered by any sort of carpet, but a layer of rushes had been scattered over it by my direction. In the whole room there was nothing to remind one of the nineteenth century; except, indeed, my own solid silver plate, stamped with the resuscitated ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... a wassail-bout Wore the long Winter out; Often our midnight shout Set the cocks crowing, As we the Berserk's tale Measured in cups of ale, Draining the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... bowl was the vessel out of which our Saxon ancestors took such copious draughts, that legislative measures were adopted with the view of enforcing temperance. Wassail not only refers to a certain liquid preparation, but it is a term applied to drinking songs, which in the cider-producing counties were sung on the eve of the Epiphany, when libations were poured out to the apple-trees for a fruitful season—a ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... his black and his brown, he had a green velveteen coat, and a different-colored flowing tie for every day in the week. His habits were in complete conformity with his philosophy of extremes. He was apt to tell me when he had been sitting up all night, whether in study or what he called wassail; but I could always guess the fact from his appearance. His method of work was equally irregular, and he lived from hand to mouth. He would be idle as a forced peach on a hot-house wall (to use a simile of his own) for weeks at a time; and yet when he was seized ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... Christmas! Pff! Sharp blows the frosty blizzard's whff! Pile on more logs and let them roll, And pass the humming wassail-bowl! ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... the surrounding lands among his victorious followers, the Saxons had been driven out, slain, or enslaved, and the brutal and barbarous victors dwelt in peace and revelry on their new lands, spending the winter in riot and wassail, and waiting for the spring-time budding of the trees to renew the war ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... arrives with two friends at the Count's castle. All three are in pilgrim's garb and bring a beautiful wassail-horn to the Count in token of friendship from the Sire of Rodenstein. The sentry and the Count consider these pious guests harmless, and the Count, being a great amateur of good wine, drinks and sings with them and soon gets drunk. The roundelays are full of wit and humor and particularly Wallfried's ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... the Plate; The First of September; The Introduction of Tobacco; The Biter Bit; The Romance; and Satisfaction. For Mr. Hogarth, of the Haymarket, he painted four small subjects illustrative of Christmas, entitled, The Waits; Bringing in the Boar's Head; The Yule Log, and The Wassail Bowl; all afterwards engraved. For Mr. James Haywood, M.P., he executed a series of drawings illustrative of student life at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, London, and Paris; while two vast subjects, The Origin of Music and The Triumph of Music (each twenty feet wide ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia meekly displaying the contents of her apron before her lord, the Landgrave—that heavy, sporadic type of whiskered ass whose only mission in life seems to be that of pulling the stars and all else down about his wassail-soaked head and ears through sheer avoirdupois and stupidity. Padre Antonio experienced a sudden thrill as he gazed at the picture. Clearly, it was the hand of God directing him. So did Saint Elizabeth deliberately ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail, and the swaggering up-spring reels; And, as he drains his draughts of Rhenish down, The kettle-drum and trumpet thus bray out The triumph ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... relief from the healthier purses of his friends. He was a scribbler for the newspapers, and latterly a dramatic critic, which had probably gained him an invitation to the dinner and reading. The wine and wassail, however, befogged his senses. Scarce had the author got into the second act of his play, when Hiffernan began to nod, and at length snored outright. Bickerstaff was embarrassed, but continued to read ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... had April and May, when a man can always be happy ashore; and August and September, which is the best of the fishing and all the harvest and harvest games; and again, December and January, with the courants and geesy-dancing, and carols and wassail-singing. Early one December, when he came to relieve us, Old John said to me in a haphazard way, "It's all very well for me and Robert, my lad; for us two can take equal comfort in singin' 'Star o' Bethl'em' ashore or afloat; but I reckon 'tis somebody's place to see that Bathsheba ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the day's wassail, most of the men went below at an early hour, leaving the deck to the steward and two of the men remaining on duty; the mate, with Baltimore and the Dane, engaging to relieve them at midnight. At that hour, the ship—now standing ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
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