"Lightsome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Helen sighed. "How long the hours!" my tortured heart replied. Joy, like a child, with lightsome steps doth glide By Father Time, and, looking in his face, Cries, snatching blossoms from the fair roadside, "I could pluck more, but for thy hurried pace." The while her elder brother Pain, man grown, Whose feet are hurt by many a thorn and stone, Looks to some distant ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... feeling was only called up by a train of melancholy meditations. While sitting there to-night, gazing upon the many bounding forms—some full of beauty and grace, and some of strength—noting their joyous faces, and listening occasionally to the lightsome jest, and merry, ringing laugh—I could not avoid contrasting with the present the time when I was as happy and full full of mirth as they. I pictured to myself how they would stare and shudder and draw away from me, did they know my hand was stained with the blood of my own kin. ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... B.C.). The epithet is used to describe the lightsome and genial tone of Horace's poetry. Ausonian lyre Italian song. Ausonia is a poetical ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... our gallant bark Across the ocean drear, While manly cheeks are pale wi' grief, And wet wi' sorrow's tear. The flowers that spring upon the Clyde Will bloom for us in vain; Nae mair wi' lightsome step we 'll climb Our ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... dwell in hope. I read, and kindled; nor found I what to do to those deaf and dead, of whom myself had been, a pestilent person, a bitter and a blind bawler against those writings, which are honied with the honey of heaven, and lightsome with Thine own light: and I was consumed with zeal at the ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... architecture which covered Christendom, embracing and symbolically expressing all its ideas and institutes. Therefore some vice of imperfection, a character of frivolity, or an artificially serious treatment of lightsome subjects marked all the literature of the time, which resembled that grotesque and unaccountable mathematical figure that has its centre ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... concert strife She heard the blithesome call of quail, The scornful cry of blue-jay dressed In splendid robes, with lordly crest. 'Twas joy to see, 'twas joy to hear, 'Twas joy to wander without fear. O lightsome heart! O peaceful breast! Where yet no passion brought unrest! Gayly she tripped, unconscious all That any danger might befall. But suddenly the song-birds fled From all the branches overhead. Then on her startled hearing rang The sharp and vengeful bow-string's twang A whizz—a yell—a writhing ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... had come to me, this warning which as yet was only imperfectly explained. What did she know? Whom did she suspect? Was it possible that she, a mere child, had even the glimmering of a suspicion as to the truth? My eyes followed her every movement. She walked with all the lightsome grace to which her young limbs and breeding entitled her, her head elegantly poised on her slender neck, her face mostly turned towards her companion, to whom she was talking earnestly. Even at this distance I seemed to catch the inspiring flash of ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... one of those lightsome moods which, in that varying month, had not unfrequently followed a day of doubt and restless despondency. As he turned into the Quai des Bergues he actually hummed a bar or two of opera. He had not done that ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... sunbeam, struggling with the mist, penetrated into its wreath so far as to show a projecting turret upon one of the angles of the old fortress, which, long a favourite haunt of the raven, was popularly called the Corbie's Tower. Beneath, the scene was open and lightsome, and the robin redbreast was chirping his best, to atone for the absence of all other choristers. The fine foliage of autumn was seen in many a glade, running up the sides of each little ravine, russet-hued and golden-specked, and tinged frequently ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... melancholy loneliness, and swept The desert of those ocean solitudes, But vocal to the sea-bird's harrowing shriek, The bellowing monster, and the rushing storm, Now to the sweet and many-mingling sounds 395 Of kindliest human impulses respond: Those lonely realms bright garden-isles begem, With lightsome clouds and shining seas between, And fertile valleys resonant with bliss, Whilst green woods overcanopy the wave, 400 Which like a toil-worn labourer leaps to shore, To meet the kisses of the ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... sirs, I may well heave such a suspiration, who have, as it were, exchanged heaven for purgatory, leaving the lightsome sphere of the royal court of England for a remote nook in this inaccessible desert—quitting the tilt-yard, where I was ever ready among my compeers to splinter a lance, either for the love of honour, or ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... infinitely mean and small, and, for the most part, infinitely, unredeemedly ugly. Heaven knows I have no need to remind myself by the act of writing of all those dismal details. Mere poverty, starvation itself, even, may be lightsome things, by comparison with the fetid misery which surrounded me during the major part ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... like a discussion of infinitesimals, but I think M. Halevy's co-operation has given M. Meilhac's plays a fuller ethical richness. To the younger writer is due a simple but direct irony, as well as a lightsome and laughing desire to point a moral when occasion serves. Certainly, I shall not hold up a play written to please the public of the Palais Royal, or even of the Gymnase, as a model of all the virtues. Nor need it be, on the other hand, an embodiment of all the cardinal ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... spoke; the other slipped adown the lightsome air of heaven, With wrapping cloak of mirky cloud ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... a page-boy handsome, With lightsome heart and curly hair, The silken train he carried Of the queen so ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the paper, and he paid for it right there. Oh, things are getting pretty bright when trusts and corporations begin to bid for your influence. But what are you going to do with that fellow Sawyer?" he asked, becoming grave, or rather, more serious, for gravity could hardly spread over his lightsome face. ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... besought his divine goodness to conduct my future life in such a manner, as should make me a happy instrument of his glory. After this, being now left to my own recollection, I grew a little more assured and lightsome; and the pen and paper being before me, I amused myself with ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Mrs. Ritson. It was strange that Paul's mother had sent for her. They were friends, but there had never been much intimacy between them. Mrs. Ritson was a grave and earnest woman, a saintly soul, and Greta's lightsome spirit had always felt rebuked in her presence. Paul loved his mother, and she herself must needs love as well as reverence the mother of Paul. It was Paul first and Paul last. Paul was the center of her world. She was a woman, and love was her ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... man to breathe a delicious thrill in an atmosphere of peril, to feel a leap of the blood, a gladness, but it was at a time of intense excitement, a sort of epic joy; but how could a man, lying in the dark, waiting for he knew not what—how could he put down a weighty care and take up a lightsome tune? ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... of the eminence, close to the Hill-house and its beautiful garden. On the outer edge of the paling, hanging over the bank that skirts the road, is an old thorn—such a thorn! The long sprays covered with snowy blossoms, so graceful, so elegant, so lightsome, and yet so rich! There only wants a pool under the thorn to give a still lovelier reflection, quivering and trembling, like a tuft of feathers, whiter and greener than the life, and more prettily mixed with the bright blue sky. There should indeed ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... Scripture refers to such graces as these when it recommends "the law of God" or "the example of Christ" as fit subjects for meditation. Cfr. Ps. XVIII, 8 sq.: "The law of the Lord is unspotted, converting souls, ... the commandment of the Lord is lightsome, enlightening the eyes."(43) 1 Pet. II, 21: "Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps."(44) St. Augustine probably had in mind the grace of mediate illumination when he wrote: "God acts upon us by the incentives of visible objects to will and to ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight: For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild but ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... glass in the golden street Of the city fair, And the tree of life it maketh sweet The lightsome air:" And ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... cliff, Not to be come at by the willing hand. Here are the prude severe, and gay coquette, The sober widow, and the young green virgin, Cropp'd like a rose before 'tis fully blown, Or half its worth disclosed. Strange medley here! Here garrulous old age winds up his tale; And jovial youth, of lightsome vacant heart, 530 Whose every day was made of melody, Hears not the voice of mirth.—The shrill-tongued shrew, Meek as the turtle-dove, forgets her chiding. Here are the wise, the generous, and the brave; The just, the good, the worthless, the profane; The downright clown, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... rest, as borne of salvage brood, And having beene with acorns alwaies fed, 590 Can no whit savour this celestiall food, But with base thoughts are into blindnesse led, And kept from looking on the lightsome day: For whome I waile and weepe ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... upon which Aunt Mary's nephew went was something lurid and awful. It lasted until Monday, and then its owner returned to college, as ill of body and as embittered of spirit as it was in him to be. The lightsome devil who had ruled him up to his meeting with Mrs. Rosscott resumed its sway with terrible force. The authorities showed a tendency to patience because young Denham had appeared to reform lately and had been working hard; but young Denham felt no thankful sentiments for their leniency, ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner
... her corporeal part might be a direct inheritance from her Burgomeister father and his substantial brewery, her spirit had been designed for an artful fairy of half her size, in order that it might go pirouetting into airy realms of the imagination. For she was gay enough and lightsome enough in her demeanor. She came in with a skip which would have been entrancing in some elfish mignonne who could dance light-foot on spring flowers without crushing them. But when this our solid Burgomagisterial Katrin tripped in, it nearly ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... vouchsafed only to those souls fortified to survive them. To one who had tamed the proud spirit of Sharon Whipple's hellion it was but lightsome child's play to guide this honest and amiable new bus. To the Mansion he returned in triumph with a load of passengers, driving with zest, and there receiving from villagers inflamed by tales of his prowess an ovation that embarrassed him with its heartiness. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... due proportion of them, are either quite or nearly extinct. Thus in Wiclif's Bible alone you might note the following, 'lovesum', 'hatesum', 'lustsum', 'gilsum' (guilesome), 'wealsum', 'heavysum', 'lightsum', 'delightsum'; of these 'lightsome' long survived, and indeed still survives in provincial dialects; but of the others all save 'delightsome' are gone; and that, although used in our Authorized Version (Mal. iii, 12), is now only employed ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... the sons of men, but nothing to surpass this scene in living interest. They come back to me now—the line of blue-and-white troopers, still with levelled carbines; the stolid Welshman, as indifferent as Snowdon; the dapper nobleman, still polished and lightsome, no longer play-acting but rather vaguely anxious; the high-minded troubled Jacobite, fear for his wife and babe gnawing at his heart; the spy, Weir or Turnditch, with the noose he had made for another drawn round his own neck; Master John Freake, the quiet, Quakerlike merchant, whose power was ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... thou woulds't view fair Melrose aright Go visit it by the pale moonlight, For the gay beams of lightsome day Gild, but ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... poor, vain boy was speeding him on his lone and perilous way. His flight was as swift as the wind, yet so smooth and lightsome that he could gaze upon his moccasins and delight his eyes with their glitter and gleam, as completely at his ease as were he perched on his three-legged stool at home. Of course, then, rambling on thus, with neither eye nor thought but for the red allurements ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... for he loved his joke, As well as he loved, with slashing stroke, The haughtiest helm to hack at: Wine or blood he laughingly poured; 'Twas a lightsome word or a heavy sword, As he found a foe or a festive board, With a skull or a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... lightsome birds, For ye are glad as I; Come frisk, ye sunlit flocks and herds And cherubs ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... saw the lightsome sun, This was appointed me; Shall mortal man repine or grudge What ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Emily and Martyn were at tea in the nursery, in a certain awe that hindered them from coming down; indeed, Martyn seems to have expected to see some strange transformation in his brother. Indeed, there was alteration in the absence of the blue and gold, and, still more, in the loss of the lightsome, hopeful expression from ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... carven-stones lie scatter'd in briar and nettle-bed; The only feet are those that come at burial of the dead. A little rocky rivulet runs murmuring to the tide, Singing a song of ancient days, in sorrow, not in pride; The boortree and the lightsome ash across the portal grow, And heaven itself is now the roof of ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... young men chatted on in lightsome fashion, and Cuthbert, who listened to every word, could not gather that the smallest uneasiness had penetrated the minds of those who moved in these high places. Culverhouse talked with equal gaiety and security. Certainly he had no suspicion of coming ill. The mutterings of discontent the ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... house; and behind is a spacious garden, with vines (I assure you), pears, strawberries, parsnips, leeks, carrots, cabbages, to delight the heart of old Alcinous. You enter without passage into a cheerful dining room, all studded over and rough with old Books, and above is a lightsome Drawing room, 3 windows, full of choice prints. I feel like a great Lord, never having ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... what the old proverb says, Master Willie: "Change is lightsome,"' said John, beginning to dig, as if he would fain stave ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various
... hushed, and at once the strain abandoned the woods-note and took another motif. At first it played softly in the higher notes, a tinkling, lightsome little melody that stirred a kindly surface-smile over a full heart. Then suddenly, without transition, it dropped to the lower register, and began to sob and wail in the full vibrating power of a ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... sore and weary hour. Through dreary beds of tangled fern, Through groves of nightshade dark and dern, Over the grass and through the brake, Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake; Now o'er the violet's azure flush He skips along in lightsome mood; And now he thrids the bramble bush, Till its points are dyed in fairy blood. He has leapt the bog, he has pierced the briar, He has swum the brook, and waded the mire, Till his spirits sank, and his limbs grew weak, And the red waxed fainter in his cheek. He had fallen to the ground outright, ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... among Celts, these shadows had edges of the lightsome. The tithe-gatherers would be out to distrain in a particular parish, and find loads of the humble chattels, which they meant to seize, already carted over the boundary into the next parish. That, Sir George explained, was a familiar trick to play upon the tithe-gatherer, ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... came the shirts and petticoats, and miscellaneous linen of the inhabitants; fluttering out to dry publicly on certain days of the week, and enlivening the treeless little gardens where they hung, with lightsome avenues of pinafores, and solemn-spreading foliage of stout Welsh flannel. Here that absorbing passion for oranges (especially active when the fruit is half ripe, and the weather is bitter cold), which distinguishes the city English girl of the lower orders, flourished ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... it might blossom in Paradise, since it could not be matured on earth; for women worship such gentle dignity as his, and the proud, contemplative, yet kindly, soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings, of a maiden's nature, the wind through the Notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the choral strain of the spirits of the blast who ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... honor's field 'Tis thine to find a grave; Yet, when from life's worst ill 'twould shield, It comes not to the slave. The lightsome to the heavy heart, The laugh changed to the sigh; To live from all we love apart— ...
— The Liberty Minstrel • George W. Clark
... opens with a duet ("Schelm! halt fest") in which Agatha's fear and anxiety are charmingly contrasted with the lightsome and cheery nature of Annchen, her attendant, and this in turn is followed by a naive and coquettish arietta ("Kommt ein schlanker Bursch gegangen") sung by the latter. Annchen departs, and Agatha, opening her window and letting the moonlight flood the room, sings ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... their garments' glancing sheen, As if nothing were between, Pierced the moon's benignant beam To a grove of stunted pines; In whose distant lightsome shade, With their ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... schooled to feel, Prometheus, came thy tongue's appeal; Therefore we leave, with lightsome tread, The flying cars in which we sped— We leave the stainless virgin air Where winged creatures float and fare, And by thy side, on rocky land, Thus gently we alight and stand, Willing, from end to end, to know Thine history of woe. [The CHORUS alight from their winged cars. ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... King's majesty's ordainment concerning books and such like serious matters, it may peradventure please your highness to ease your time with lightsome entertainment, lest you go wearied to the banquet ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ears Of Agamemnon's queen, that she anon Start from her couch and with a shrill voice cry A joyous welcome to the beacon-blaze, For Ilion's fall; such fiery message gleams From yon high flame; and I, before the rest, Will foot the lightsome measure of our joy; For I can say, My master's dice fell fair— Behold! the triple sice, the lucky flame! Now be my lot to clasp, in loyal love, The hand of him restored, who rules our home: Home—but I say no more: upon my tongue Treads hard the ox ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... settlement to comfort her. But from the first the widow's heart was sustained by the loving Hand that dealt the blow, and when time blunted the keen edge of her feelings her face became as sweet and mild, though not so lightsome, as before. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... and how sad the turning tide Of human life, when side by side The child and youth begin to glide Along the vale of years: The pure twin-being for a little space, With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face, Too young for woe, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... The lightsome lad wi' yellow hair, The elfin lad that is so fair, He comes in rich and braw attire— To loose the ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... The lightsome lammie little kens What troubles it await— Whan ance the flush o' spring is o'er, The fause bird lea'es its mate. The flowers will fade, the woods decay, And lose their bonnie green; The sun wi' clouds may be o'ercast, Before that ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... lightsome Rondeau with a dramatic Introduction, is, like the Bolero, not without its beauties; but in spite of greater individuality, ranks, like it, low among the master's works, being patchy, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... represent it. We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the apartment sufficiently lightsome. And to confess a truth, this man's mind seems fitted to his station; for I never heard any one more sprightly than he was to-day, when he conversed with you.'—This was said without the least design, however it excited a blush, which she strove ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... and spacious hall. He was then well rubbed and washed with various scented waters. After he had passed through several degrees of heat, he came out quite a different man from what he was before. His skin was clear as that of a child, his body lightsome and free; and when he returned into the hall, he found, instead of his own poor raiment, a robe, the magnificence of which astonished him. The genie helped him to dress, and when he had done, transported him back to his own chamber, where he asked him if he had any other commands. "Yes," ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... golden light. It brought to mind her walk of last Sunday afternoon—and evening;—the hymn, and those other lines Mr. Linden had repeated and which had run in her head fifty times since. And Faith's step grew rather slower and less lightsome as she neared home, and when she got home she went straight up to her room without turning to the right or the left. Her mother was just then in the kitchen and heard her not, and shielded by her bonnet Faith saw ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... for the world's heart! It is because man's hope is so low, and his imaginations so poor, that he is earthly and evil. Wings for these unfledged hearts! Transformation for these grubs! Give us animation, inspiration, joy, faith! Give us enlivening, lightsome airs, to which our souls shall, on a sudden, begin to dance, keeping step with the angels! What else is worth having? Each one of these sordid sons of men—is he not a new-born Apollo, who waits only for the ambrosia from Olympus, to spring forth in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... was opened in the rear, and lo, I beheld a series of rooms filled with baubles of every conceivable kind, enough to satisfy all who came for such lightsome things. One of extraordinary beauty was next offered. "What do I hear for ...
— Mr. World and Miss Church-Member • W. S. Harris
... up, 'Longside of the leader, an' hit him flat On his steamin' flank with a lightsome stroke Of the end of my limber lariat; He never swerv'd, an' we thunder'd on, Black in the blackness, red in the red Of the lightnin' blazin' with ev'ry clap That bust from the black ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford
... is the form, the eye, the word, The bearing of that stranger lord, His stature, manly, bold, and tall, Built like a castle's battled wall, Yet molded in such just degrees His giant strength seems lightsome ease. Weather and war their rougher trace Have left on that majestic face; But 'tis his dignity of eye! There, if a suppliant, would I fly, Secure, 'mid danger, wrongs, and grief, Of sympathy, redress, relief— That glance, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... almost a solar splendor to the nocturnal darkness of our cities; in the arts of Heating and Ventilation, which at once supply warmth for comfort and pure air for health; in the art of Building, from the hollowed trunk of a tree or the roof-shaped cabin, to those commodious and lightsome dwellings which betoken the taste and competence of our villages and cities; in the art of Copying or Printing, from the toilsome process of hand-copying, where the transcription of a single book was the labor of months or years, and sometimes almost of a ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... visitors long ago, which paled thus, sympathetically, at the decease of their old owners; for, in spite of its new-fashionedness, all this array is really less like a new thing than the last surviving result of all the more lightsome adornments of past times. Only, the very walls seem to cry out:—No! to make delicate insinuation, for a music, a conversation, nimbler than any we have known, or are likely to find here. For himself, he converses well, but very sparingly. He assures us, indeed, that ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater
... certain differences of structure that need not be described. Simple and severe, San Maurizio owes its architectural beauty wholly and entirely to purity of line and perfection of proportion. There is a prevailing spirit of repose, a sense of space, fair, lightsome, and adapted to serene moods of the meditative fancy in this building which is singularly at variance with the religious mysticism and imaginative grandeur of a Gothic edifice. The principal beauty of the church, however, is its tone of color. Every square inch is covered ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... hope for the May I waited As gay as the joyous hours That sped so fast, on their lightsome wings Thro' flowers, and sunlight, and glorious things That lived ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl
... spell from kind Nature thou bearest, Some magic of tone or enchantment of eye, That hearts that are hardest, from forms that are fairest, Receive such impressions as never can die! The foot of the fairy, though lightsome and airy,[13] Can stamp on the hard rock the shapes it doth wear; Art cannot trace it, nor ages efface it: And such are thy glances, ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... a loop with Gill the Grip, With Pinky Smith and Handsome Hank she heeled; With all the dossy bunks she took a skip Each time the German tune-professor spieled. But nix with me the lightsome toe she sprung - As Caesar said to ...
— The Love Sonnets of a Car Conductor • Wallace Irwin
... prisoners of that regiment all in place between the two files of it. A band (one of those which played lightsome music on the birthday of the camp) is marched around to the head of the column. The regiment with its freight moves on to make place for a battalion of regulars, amid imprecations and cries of "Hurrah for Jeff Davis!" and "Damn the Dutch! ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her room with a great homesickness surging at her heart. Only last night all had been lightsome and happy, now the old darkness seemed to have settled down about her again. She knelt before her window and looked at the strip of sky which was all a Marlborough residence allowed her. "Happy stars!" she murmured, "for you ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... Gunnar, A word must I say to thee Of the life's ruin Of thy lightsome bride— —Nor shall thy ship Swim soft and sweetly For all that I Lay ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... the rebuff. After all, he was no nearer to Rickman drunk than to Rickman sober. Half an hour later, he was asleep in the adjoining room, dreaming a lightsome dream of ladies and mousselines de laine, when suddenly the dream turned to a nightmare. It seemed to him that there descended upon him a heavy rolling weight, as of a bale of woollens. He awoke and found ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... dominant, Egeria with the lightsome eyes profound, Sudden Erato, Genius quick to grant, Old picture Angel ...
— Poems of Paul Verlaine • Paul Verlaine
... delicate,—of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew,—of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of "mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author other than he is, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... transept Fuller says: "The cross aisle of this church is the most beautiful and lightsome of any I have yet beheld. The spire steeple (not founded on the ground, but for the main supported by four pillars,) is of great height and greater workmanship. I have been credibly informed that some foreign artists beholding this building brake forth into tears, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... delicious food; every dawn and sunset stored her heart with dreams; each fresh intimacy with Michael placed a new jewel in the casket of her soul; every hour with Freddy was a privilege and a reward. In her veins the dance of youth tripped a lightsome measure. Happiness made ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... weeks of his imprisonment, the murderer of old man Colton had maintained a lightsome air, but as the time for his trial drew near he appeared to lose the command of that self-hypnotism which had seemed to extract gayety from wretchedness. To one who has been condemned to death there comes a resignation that is deeper ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... which elapsed before the day nominated could not have been very lightsome for the unfortunate agent for the Massachusetts Bay. Not only had he the task of selecting and instructing competent counsel, but even his self-possessed and composed nature must have been severely harassed by the rumors of which ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... rhythmical harmony. She glanced up once more at her partner, this time with a lustrous look of confidence. Was it possible that he had become inspired through her? Certainly it seemed as if the feeling of the tune were discernible in his face as well as hers; it was even betokened by the lightsome pose of his figure, and a scarcely subdued buoyancy in his step. Moment by moment did the occult sympathy between one another and the cadence of the music grow more assured and complete; and at length—though precisely how it came about neither Cornelia nor Bressant could have told—they ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... said I,—"Though dark is falling, And far the camp must be, Yet my heart it would be lightsome, If I ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... when we two dreamed together? Days marvellously fair, As lightsome as a skyward floating feather Sailing on summer air— Summer, summer, that came drifting through Fate's hand to ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... moment he remained motionless on that spot, so agitated by conflicting thoughts and feelings that he could read neither heart nor mind clearly. Then, as he turned towards the city, all Paris spread itself out at his feet, a limpid, lightsome Paris, beneath the pink glow of that spring-like evening. The endless billows of house-roofs showed forth with wonderful distinctness, and one could have counted the chimney stacks and the little black streaks of the windows by the million. The edifices rising ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... it can well be imagined, the gayety of our company had been utterly checked by the coming of our sad guest. In the presence of such a wreck of human happiness, perhaps of human hope, what person of any sensibility could maintain a lightsome mood? Had it not been for one peculiarity,—a peculiarity, I am confident, all of us observed,—the depression of our spirits would have been as profound as it was universal. This peculiarity was the stranger's appetite. This, fortunately, ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... the will of her parents, who had destined her to be the third wife of old Dr. M'Mull) when very young. Many sorrows she had had, including poverty, the captain's imprisonment for debt, and his demise; but she was of a gay and lightsome spirit. She was but three-and-thirty years old, and looked five-and-twenty. She was active, brisk, jovial, and alert; and so good-looking, that it was a wonder she had not taken a successor to Captain Mackenzie. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imaging may produce a rudderless steamer, while the trained faculty is the graceful sloop, skimming the seas at her skipper's will, her course steadied by the helm of reason and her lightsome wings ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... less lightsome heart that Jock went to his quarters to prepare for a fancy ball, where he expected to meet Elvira, though whether he should approach her or not would depend on ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sometimes too dull, and therefore I have whetted it, helping him to ebb and helping him to rise." With his reader Drant is equally high-handed. "I dare not warrant the reader to understand him in all places," he writes, "no more than he did me. Howbeit I have made him more lightsome well nigh by one half (a small accomplishment for one of my continuance) and if thou canst not now in all points perceive him (thou must bear with me) in sooth the default is thine own." After this one is somewhat prepared for Drant's remarkable summary of his methods. "First I have now done ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... had not been spoken; but—to gain time till Loge shall arrive—when the giant has quite finished, he inquires, "What, after all, can the charm of the amiable goddess signify to you clumsy boors?" Fasolt enlarges, "You, reigning through beauty, shimmering lightsome race, lightly you offer to barter for stone towers woman's loveliness. We simpletons labour with toil-hardened hands to earn a sweet woman who shall dwell with us poor devils.... And you mean to call the ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Indian-summer youth In bleak November, and, with thankful heart, Smile on its ample stores of garnered fruit, As full of sunshine to our aged eyes As when it nursed the blossoms of our spring. Such is true Love, which steals into the heart With feet as silent as the lightsome dawn That kisses smooth the rough brows of the dark, And hath its will through blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... most part intellectual, and something like it can be found in others, though the happy fecundity and lightsome gaiety of it belonged to the individual temperament and perished with him. I remember once trying to give an idea of the different sides of his humour, just to see how far it could ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... family prayers, had retired from the cares of this world—and a peasant of the neighborhood. The charcoal burners were too busy with their own affairs. From the sill, as I put on my boots, I watched with complacence the cording of the loads, and then, with quite a lightsome gait, followed the lengthened file out into the street. One after the other we tramped forth past the few houses of the place, whose people watched us go, with the buoyant tread of those about to do great things, and so ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... them one is aware that their attitude towards life is quite as courageous as the women's, if not quite so playful. I confess that I rarely see them until they have put a day's work behind them; and they may be more lightsome when they start in the morning, at five o'clock or soon after it. Be that as it may, in the evenings I find them taciturn, nonchalant rather than cheerful, not much disposed to be sprightly. Long-striding and ungainly, they walk home; between ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... stood some five full storeys high, not counting lofts. Well, as I advanced, it seemed to me the stair grew airier and a thought more lightsome; and I was wondering what might be the cause of this change, when a second blink of the summer lightning came and went. If I did not cry out, it was because fear had me by the throat; and if I did not fall, it was more by Heaven's mercy than my own strength. ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the neighbouring trees, thus he To th'Fountaines talk'd, and streames ran by, And after, seekes the great Creator out By these faire traces of his foot. But if a lightsome Country house that's free From care, such as Luciscu's bee, Or Nemicini's, if Besdan's fruitfull field Can Grace to his rude table yeild, To his plaine board with country dainties set, In August's ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... the same fire to boil their pottage, Two poor old Dames, as I have known, Will often live in one small cottage; 35 But she, poor Woman! housed [3] alone. 'Twas well enough when summer came, The long, warm, lightsome summer-day, Then at her door the canty Dame Would sit, as ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... hear the music float Along the gloaming lea; 'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note Come pealing frae the tree; To see the lambkins lightsome race— The speckled kid in wanton chase— The young deer cower in lonely place, Deep in her flowing den; But sweeter far the bonny face That smiles ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... the hunter lead! He wakes with the dawn of day; He whistles his dog—he mounts his steed, And scuds to he woods away! The lightsome tramp of the deer he'll mark, As they troop in herds along; And his rifle startles the cheerful lark As ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... round and round, They crossed click-clacking, The Parish bound, By Tupman's meadow They did their mile, Tee-t-tum On a three-barred stile. Then straight through Whipham, Downhill to Week, Footing it lightsome, But not too quick, Up fields to Watchet, And on through Wye, Till seven fine churches They'd seen skip by - Seven fine churches, And five old mills, Farms in the valley, And sheep on the hills; Old Man's Acre And Dead Man's Pool All left ...
— Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes • Walter de la Mare
... intervals. More cheerful; anxious that I should not go without prayer. Has much knowledge; complete command of the Bible. 19th—Spoke on 'Convincing of sin and righteousness.' Rather more heart to hear. 20th—Psalm 51. Her look and her words were lightsome. 23d—Faintish and restless; no sign of peace. 'I am the way,' and Psalm 25. 24th—Still silent and little sign of anything. 26th—Psalm 40, 'The fearful pit.' Very plain. Could not get anything out of her. February 1—Died at twelve noon; no visible mark of light, or comfort, ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... Crusoe and Gil Blas are in close confinement. Baron Trenck, who managed to escape from the fortress of Clatz, can't for the life of him get out of our sittingroom closet. Even the Rivermouth Barnacle is suppressed until Monday. Genial converse, harmless books, smiles, lightsome hearts, all are banished. If I want to read anything, I can read Baxter's Saints' Rest. I would die first. So I sit there kicking my heels, thinking about New Orleans, and watching a morbid blue-bottle fly that attempts to commit ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... O lightsome day, the lampe of highest Jove, First made by him, mens wandring wayes to guyde, 195 When darkenesse he in deepest dongeon drove, Henceforth thy hated face for ever hyde, And shut up heavens windowes shyning wyde: For earthly sight can nought but sorrow breed, And late ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... the book of Laurentius Valla against Bartolus; but an evangelical testimony I hope will content you. Matth. 17 it is said that, at the transfiguration of our Lord, Vestimenta ejus facta sunt alba sicut lux, his apparel was made white like the light. By which lightsome whiteness he gave his three apostles to understand the idea and figure of the eternal joys; for by the light are all men comforted, according to the word of the old woman, who, although she had never a tooth in her head, was wont ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... is, there's fruit on her lip, And her teeth flash as white as the crescent moon's tip, And her form and her step like the red-deer's go past— As lightsome, as lovely, as ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... twilight had faded out, and the little figure, too, had vanished, leaving that one breast desolate, save when a lightsome shadow flitted across its ever-verdant memory. The summer cottage looked dreary, with its closed blinds, and the autumn leaves rustling about it in the bleak winds; but the little tombstone still gleamed in the sunlight, that cast a pleasant and warm halo upon it, and the birds and squirrels ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... camp blindfold in the opaque night; and I had felt no other inconvenience except when my feet encountered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's "Pastors of the Desert" among the mixed contents of my sleeping-bag; nay, more, I had felt not a touch of cold, and awakened with unusually lightsome and clear sensations. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... thou hast despised the operation of his hands, thou attemptest to murder souls. What! canst thou give no better counsel touching those whom God hath wounded, than to send them to the ordinances of hell for help? Thou biddest them be merry and lightsome; but dost thou not know that "the heart of fools is in the house of mirth?" ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... when old Jonesy lights on you," warned her new friend. "You won't find life so lightsome when his eagle eye ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... the mid-day sun, before the gaze of lawful possession. Nor shall the casual reader be led carelessly and wearily to note the many sweet memorials of private friendship, records of the living and the dead, which, standing forth from amid the lightsome glades and leafy shadows around, make the place sacred to many a strong affection. Romantic the scenery without is not, and for spacious halls and gorgeous canopies the eye may search in vain within. But for the warm cheer of the little oak library,—for the quaint carvings, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... with the goal obstructed by a thousand obstacles, my poor little head is quickly fatigued. I close the learned treatise, which tires my brain and dries up my heart, and I turn to the Sacred Scriptures. Then all becomes clear and lightsome—a single word opens out infinite vistas, perfection appears easy, and I see that it is enough to acknowledge our nothingness, and like children surrender ourselves into the Arms of the Good God. Leaving to great and lofty minds the beautiful books which I cannot understand, ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... could he press, And not a sob his toil confess. His form accorded with a mind 550 Lively and ardent, frank and kind; A blither heart, till Ellen came, Did never love nor sorrow tame; It danced as lightsome in his breast, As played the feather on his crest. 555 Yet friends, who nearest knew the youth, His scorn of wrong, his zeal for truth, And bards, who saw his features bold, When kindled by the tales of old, Said, were that youth to manhood grown, 560 Not long should ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... I pondered, her voice, clear, though somewhat sharp, broke out in a lightsome French song, trilling through the door still ajar: I glanced in, doubting my senses. There at the table she sat in a smart dress of "jaconas rose," trimming a tiny blond cap: not a living thing save herself was in the room, except indeed some gold fish in a glass globe, some flowers ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the laughter everywhere, From the lips that seemed too lightsome For the sigh of any care. And the dance went "Merry! Merry!" Whilst the feet that tripped along, Bore the hearts that were as happy As a wild ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)
... nothing out of the way about it, but now its note was discordant. It was good Arkansas journalism, but this was not Arkansas. Moreover, the next to the last line was calculated to give offense to the hermits, and perhaps lose us their advertising. Indeed, there was too lightsome a tone of flippancy all through the paper. It was plain I had undergone a considerable change without noticing it. I found myself unpleasantly affected by pert little irreverencies which would have seemed but proper and airy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... accommodations, and willing to begin your journey towards London to-morrow morning. The governor of this garrison has joined me to your escort; and it will be a duty I shall gladly undertake, to render your travel lightsome, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... souls and lightsome hearts have we, Feasting at the CHERRY TREE!" 330 This was the outside proclamation, This was the inside salutation; What bustling—jostling—high and low! A universal overflow! What tankards foaming from the tap! 335 What store of cakes in every lap! What thumping—stumping—overhead! ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... grass grows in the yard; just there, in October mornings, the keeper would wait with the dogs and the guns—no keeper now; you hurry away, and gain the small wicket that used to open to the touch of a lightsome hand—it is fastened with a padlock (the only new looking thing), and is stained with thick, green damp; you climb it, and bury yourself in the deep shade, and strive but lazily with the tangling briars, and stop for long ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... to greet him with a smiling countenance. He might as well, he thought, avoid the expense of lodging: the library fitted with an iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers, would serve his purpose for the night; while in the dining-room, which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and garden, he might very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of painting which he had recently determined to adopt. It did not take him long to make the change: he had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found something at last. Instantly the blood crept warmly over her body. Her nervous tension relaxed. She walked out into the busy street and discovered a new atmosphere. Behold, the throng was moving with a lightsome step. She noticed that men and women were smiling. Scraps of conversation and notes of laughter floated to her. The air was light. People were already pouring out of the buildings, their labour ended for the day. She noticed that they were pleased, and thoughts of her sister's home ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser |
