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verb
Reft  past, past part.  Bereft. "Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Reft" Quotes from Famous Books



... This was a difficult and doubtful business. Funds had to be collected to buy instruments. Musicians who could play the instruments had to be picked out from among the men, and nobody knew how to find them. Hardly anybody stayed long in these base camps, and a good musician might at any moment be reft away and ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham

... and then with infinite despondency. Once or twice he pshawed his melancholy vapours, gave a pace back and forward on the oaken floor, with a bent head, a bereaved countenance, and sat down again, indulging in the passionate void that comes to a bosom reft of its joys, its hopes and loves, and only mournful recollection left. A done man! Not an old man; not even an elderly, but a done man none the less, with the heart out of him, and all the inspiration ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro

... Camus, reverend Sire, went footing slow, His Mantle hairy, and his Bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe. Ah; Who hath reft (quoth he) my dearest pledge? Last came, and last did go, The Pilot of the Galilean lake, Two massy Keyes he bore of metals twain, 110 (The Golden opes, the Iron shuts amain) He shook his Miter'd locks, and stern bespake, How well could I ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... the mind shall be all free, From what it hates in this degraded form, Reft of its carnal life, save what shall be Existent happier in the fly or worm; When elements to elements conform, And dust ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... thee unweeting reft; There as thou sleptst in tender swadling band, And her base elfin brood there for thee left: Such men do changelings call, so chang'd by Fairies theft. ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... silent room where late she played, Setting a steady course toward the light, Swifter than thistledown the little shade, Reft from the nooks that she had made her own And from the love that sheltered, fared alone Forth through the gloomy spaces of the night, Until at last she lit before the gate Where all the suppliant ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... the wisest and most beautiful of cherubim, A god betrayed by fate and reft of worshipping, O Satan, have pity on my ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson

... when his spirit was by treachery and violence reft from his body, there was no rest ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... peoples each in turn awake From virtue, as a man from his brief love, And, roughly shaken, face the useless truth; No answer to brute fact has e'er been found. Slaves of your slaves, caged in your furnished rooms, Ushered to meals when reft of appetite— Though hungry, bound to wait a stated hour— Your dearest contemplation broken off By the appointed summons to your bath; Racked with more thought for those whom you may flog Than for those dear; obsessed by your possessions With a dull round of stale ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various

... Palinurus the steersman, who of late, while he watched the stars on their Libyan passage, had slipped from the stern and fallen amid the waves. To him, when he first knew the melancholy form in that depth of shade, he thus opens speech: 'What god, O Palinurus, reft thee from us and sank thee amid the seas? forth and tell. For in this single answer Apollo deceived me, never found false before, when he prophesied thee safety on ocean and arrival on the Ausonian coasts. See, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... From nature and man's passions still are made. The music of their motion as they pranced Lulled me to flawless ease as of a God; Never upon me pain or pleasure chanced; Unknown the dew of bliss, or fate's hard rod. Thus dreamed I ... But I know our mother Earth Waits to give back the peace she reft ...
— Songs, Sonnets & Miscellaneous Poems • Thomas Runciman

... gods do not esteem, Being authors of sweet peace and unity, But pleasing to th' infernal empery, Under whose ensigns Wars and Discords fight, Since an even number you may disunite In two parts equal, naught in middle left To reunite each part from other reft; And five they hold in most especial prize, Since 'tis the first odd number that doth rise From the two foremost numbers' unity, That odd and even are; which are two and three; For one no number is; but thence doth flow The powerful race ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman

... But now to my matter retourne agayn And tu begyn new where I left. whan al the goddis had done her besy payne. The way to contryue how it shuld be reft Of his lyf Attropos had no cause eft To co{m}pleyn than Phebus stert vpon her fete / And sayd I pray you let me speke ...
— The Assemble of Goddes • Anonymous

... proud with hawk in hand. Prithee why should dungbeard boys, Reft of reason, dare to hammer Handle fast on battle shield? For these lads of loathly feature— Lady scattering swanbath's beams[20]— Shall not shun this ditty shameful Which I shape ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous

... is fled. Proud harbinger of day, Who scar'dst the vision with thy clarion shrill, Fell chanticleer; who oft hath reft away My fancied good, and brought substantial ill! Oh, to thy cursed scream, discordant still, Let harmony aye shut her gentle ear: Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill, Insult thy crest, and glossy pinions ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... knew the mountain valleys of the Cumberland, and had wandered, sometimes footsore and hungry, under the giant ramparts of the Selkirks and the Rockies, but he had never seen a fairer spot than the reft in the hills which sheltered Savine's villa, and was known by its Indian name, "The ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... Reft of a carriage, life is poor: A well-conducted set Needs ready money to procure Their butler and Debrett. The country totters to its fall, Disgraced to all intents, Unless you instantly recall Our ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... Seers they saw visions, and they spoke of strange ill: "A Palace, a Palace; and a great King thereof: A bed, a bed empty, that was once pressed in love: And thou, thou, what art thou? Let us be, thou so still, Beyond wrath, beyond beseeching, to the lips reft of thee!" For she whom he desireth is beyond the deep sea, And a ghost in his castle ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... plenty of scientific men whose hard arrogance, whose cynical materialism, whose dogmatic intolerance, put them on a level with the bigoted mediaeval ecclesiasticism which they denounce. Yet our debt to scientific men is incalculable, and our civilization of to-day would have reft from it all that which most highly distinguishes it if the work of the great masters of science during the past four centuries were now undone or forgotten. Never has philanthropy, humanitarianism, seen such development as ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt

... Reft the charm of the social shell By the touch of the sorrowful mood; And already the worm, in her cell, Is preparing ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... the heart's with anguish cleft, Revere the doom of heaven. Her soul is from her body reft; Her spirit ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... her sitting bowed and black, Stricken and seared with slavery's mortal scars, Reft of her children, lonely, anguished, yet Still looking ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson

... her, These hands shall tear her; if they wrong her honour, The proudest of them shall well hear of it. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find, awak'd in such a kind, Both strength of limb, and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To quit ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... tell thee!" cried one voice, high and querulous, "three great, fair and goodly bags full crammed of sweet gold pieces! All my lord Duke's revenue of Winisfarne and the villages adjacent thereunto! Taxes, see ye, my lord Duke's taxes—and all stolen, reft, and ravished from me, Guido, Steward and Bailiff of the northern Marches, by clapper-claws and raveners lewd and damned! Woe's me ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... sacred head of thine. Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge, Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. "Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge?" Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake, Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain). He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: "How well could I have spared for ...
— Verses and Translations • C. S. C.

... or of the laws according to which that price rises and falls. I am not going to take you to the green fields in which the creature which yielded the Veal was fed, or to discourse of the blossoming hawthorn hedges from whose midst it was reft away. Neither shall I speak of the rustic life, the toils, cares, and fancies of the farm-house near which it spent its brief lifetime. The Veal of which I intend to speak is Moral Veal, or (to speak with entire accuracy) ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... personality as because it is a factor in jeopardizing the victory of the Greeks. Considered as types of individual character, most of Homer's heroes are mere boys. It is the cause for which they fight that gives them dignity: embattled Greece must repossess the beauty which a lesser race has reft away from it. Even Helen herself is merely an idea to be fought for; she is not, as a woman, interesting humanly. It is only in infrequent passages, such as the scene of parting between Andromache and Hector, that the ancient epics reveal ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton

... ye go? From home and kin for many a year Our steps have wandered wide, And never may our bones be laid Our fathers' graves beside. No sisters have we to lament, No wives to wail our fall; The traitor's and the spoiler's hand Have reft our hearths of all. But we have hearts, and we have arms As strong to will and dare As when our ancient banners flew Within the northern air. Come, brothers; let me name a spell Shall rouse your souls again, And send the old blood bounding free Through pulse, and heart, ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... a second course again, They forward came with might and main, Yet which had better of the twain, The seconds could not judge yet; Their shields were into pieces cleft, Their helmets from their heads were reft, And to defend them nothing left, These ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick

... beautee, what science, 1255 What wratthe of iuste cause have ye to me? What gilt of me, what fel experience Hath fro me raft, allas! Thyn advertence? O trust, O feyth, O depe aseuraunce, Who hath me reft ...
— Troilus and Criseyde • Geoffrey Chaucer

... full of kingly awe And high disdaine, whenas his soveraine Dame So rudely handled by her foe he sawe, With gaping jawes full greedy at him came, And ramping on his shield, did weene the same 365 Have reft away with his sharpe rending clawes: But he was stout, and lust did now inflame His corage more, that from his griping pawes He hath his shield redeem'd, and foorth his swerd ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser

... any one who would deliver up the duke, Banastar betrayed him to John Mitton, sheriff of Shropshire, and he was conveyed to Salisbury, where he was beheaded. The ghost of the duke prayed that Banastar's eldest son, "reft of his wits might end his life in a pigstye;" that his second son might "be drowned in a dyke" containing less than "half a foot of water;" that his only daughter might be a leper; and that Banastar himself might "live in death and die in life."—Thomas ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... and suppliant, whose own hands their very bosoms bruised, While fixed, averse, the Goddess kept her eyes upon the ground. Thrice had Achilles Hector dragged the walls of Troy around, And o'er his body, reft of soul, was chaffering now for gold. Deep groaned AEneas from his heart in such wise to behold The car, the spoils, the very corpse of him, his fellow dead, To see the hands of Priam there all weaponless outspread. ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil

... of grief upon the grave Of all that Fortune gave The loiterer takes—then turns him to depart, And grasps the wanderer's staff and mans his heart: Whatever else the element bereaves One blessing more than all it reft—it leaves The face that he loves!—He counts them o'er, See—not one look ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... she went with me, pouring still with patient spirit Balm upon my wounded feelings, peace upon my burning soul; So that though man's love was reft me, 'twas the better to inherit That which far transcends man's favour,—sentience of Heaven's ...
— Eidolon - The Course of a Soul and Other Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... mother dead! Her one true guide and friend! Her heart seemed reft in twain. Would she had died! A year at least it meant ere yet again, She needs must list to suits to be denied. O death, or Harold, come and let there ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer

... had reft her suddenly at the age of seventeen from the educational care of an English gentlewoman warranted to fit her for marriage with any prince in Europe, and thrust her for the mornings and a moiety of the afternoons of the better part of a year, after a swift but competent training, into a shirt waist ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... fair person, which in its Bloom was ta'en from me, yet the mode offends. or, Seized him for the fair form, of which in its Bloom I was reft, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... foremost of ages called the Kirta is said to set in" (ibid., p. 228). "The King must be skilful in smiting" (ibid., p. 174). "Fierceness and ambition are the qualities of the King" (ibid., p. 59). "The King who is mild is regarded as the worst of his kind, like an elephant that is reft of fierceness" (ibid., p. 171). Indeed, failure to treat subjects with rigour is visited with penalties as tremendous as failure to protect them. "They forget their own position and most truly transcend ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... the new-sprung flower to smell, Comparing it to her Adonis' breath; 1172 And says within her bosom it shall dwell, Since he himself is reft from her by death: She drops the stalk, and in the breach appears Green dropping sap, which she ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... Christian's distress that for a time his reason trembled in the balance. He vowed that he would not be separated from her even by death; he threatened to put an end to his own life since it had been reft of all that made it worth living. And when cooler moments came, he swore a terrible vengeance against those who had robbed him of his beloved. She had been poisoned beyond a doubt; but who had ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... still midnight—hark'—that startling sound Tells of deed of blood! a soldier's hand With aim too true himself hath reft of life! * * * Beneath that roof For many days none had heard sounds of gladness. He was distressed—each fond retainer then Softened his voice to whispers—each pale face Did but reflect the sadness fixed in his: Save where the two—two fair and lovely ones, Too young ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... will turn to desert places Shadowless, reft of rain and dew, Where stars stare down with sharpened ...
— Rivers to the Sea • Sara Teasdale

... wood. No mould nor peat surrounds it; there is absolutely nothing save the roots that twine round their support, and the wire that sustains it in the air. It asks no attention beyond its daily bath. From the day I tied it on that block last year—reft from home and all its pleasures, bought with paltry silver at Stevens' Auction Rooms—I have not touched it save to dip and to replace it on its hook. When the flowers fade, thither it will return, ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... still exist some fragments of the ancient Catholic families of Ireland; but, alas! what VERY fragments! They linger like the remnants of her aboriginal forests, reft indeed of their strength and greatness, but proud even in decay. Every winter thins their ranks, and strews the ground with the wreck of their loftiest branches; they are at best but tolerated in the land which gave them birth—objects ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... with such hideous deed?" So saying he showed him the two papers written in the handwriting and sealed with the seal of the accused who, when he looked upon them, trembled in every limb, and his tongue was knotted for a while, nor could he find power to speak a word, and he was reft of all his reason and of his knowledge. Wherefor he bowed his brow groundwards and held his peace. But when the King beheld this his condition, he bade them slay him by smiting his neck without the city, and Nadan cried aloud, "O Haykar, O blackavice, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... back with a reft in the jetty sky, the faint shine of a little pale blue there, and—a while later—a glimpse of water, or what seemed to ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... Proud harbinger of day, Who scar'dst the vision with thy clarion shrill, Fell chanticleer! who oft hast reft away My fancied good, and brought substantial ill! O to thy cursed scream, discordant still, Let Harmony aye shut her gentle ear: Thy boastful mirth let jealous rivals spill, Insult thy crest, and glossy pinions tear, And ever in thy dreams ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie

... me, Sir,' muttered the unhappy boy. 'They have been reft—reft from me, and I have done nothing for them. Walter of Albany has them, and I ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge

... inconsistence faint and frail? And art thou He of Lodi's bridge, Marengo's field, and Wagram's ridge! Or is thy soul like mountain-tide, That, swelled by winter storm and shower, Rolls down in turbulence of power, A torrent fierce and wide; Reft of these aids, a rill obscure, Shrinking unnoticed, mean and poor, Whose channel shows displayed The wrecks of its impetuous course, But not one symptom of the force By ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott

... bowl, The rich repast prepare; Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast: Close by the regal chair Fell Thirst and Famine scowl{25} A baleful smile upon their baffled guest. Heard ye the din of battle{26} bray, Lance to lance, and horse to horse? Long years of havoc urge their destined course, And thro' the kindred ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin

... to desolate cities. Roman camps still crowned hill and down. The old divisions of the land remained to furnish bounds of field and farm for the new settlers. The Roman church, the Roman country-house, was left standing, though reft of priest and lord. But Rome was gone. The mosaics, the coins which we dig up in our fields are no relics of our English fathers, but of a world which our fathers' sword swept utterly away. Its law, ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... grove, The lily chaste, the rose that breathes of love, The myrtle leaf, and Laura's hallow'd bay, The deathless flowers that bloom o'er Sappho's clay; For thee, Callirhoe! yet by love and years, I learn how fancy wakes from joy to tears; How memory, pensive, 'reft of hope, attends The exile's path, and bids him fear new friends. Long may the garland blend its varying hue With thy bright tresses, and bud ever new With all spring's odours; with spring's light be drest, Inhale pure ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... tangled web is reft, The kid-gloved villain scowls and sneers, And hapless innocence is left With no assets ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle

... that he imagined her an injured beauty, reft from her faithful adorer by her stern aunt or duenna, and that he considered himself to be doing her a kindness by keeping her informed of her hero's vicinity, while he denied it to her companion; but she scorned to enter into an explanation, or make any disavowal, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... at the Acropolis, and with the banner at their head, go in procession along the walls and to every threatened gate, never doubting that at the sight of it the Sultan and his unbaptized hordes will be reft of breath of body or take to flight.... This we pray of Your Majesty, that the Mother of God may in these degenerate days have back the honor and worship accorded her by the Emperors and Greeks ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... at other times go by sea; but now that the Spaniards are seeking to win back the rock of Gibraltar, which we have lately reft from them, and which Marlborough says must never be yielded up again, we cannot safely try that way; for we might well fall into the hands of some Spanish vessel, and languish, unknown and uncared for, in Spanish dungeons. We cannot travel through France, ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green

... the flames have done their work, I would fain go to God bearing with me your forgiveness. But if this be too much to hope—why, then, Martin, I will beseech God to pluck you forth of this place of horror and to give you back to England, to happiness, to honour and all that I reft ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol

... my soule riper fate reft me, Why stay I heere the other part he left me? Nor so deere, nor entire, while heere I rest: That day hath in one mine ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various

... hand; thou seest I cannot see: Blessing betide thee, little feel'st thou want; With me, good child, food is both hard and scant. These smooth even veins assure me he is kind, Whate'er he be, my girl, that thee doth find. I, poor and old, am reft of all earth's good, And desperately am crept into this wood To seek the poor man's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various

... waking and waking's pain? Lying so peacefully, placidly still. With the old, sweet smile on his quiet face, Dead to the sting of a heart's disgrace.... How should I wish him a lesser grace, How should I strive with a wiser Will? Yet how can the heart that is reft divine Death's mystical, measureless charity? The cry of the stricken king is mine: "Would ...
— The Path of Dreams - Poems • Leigh Gordon Giltner

... round human life. We are now to look at him equally alone; equally majestic, shedding by martyrdom, almost a brighter glory round human death. He has hitherto been receiving the homage of almost unequalled popularity. We are now to observe him reft of every admirer, every soother, every friend. He has been hitherto overcoming the temptations of existence by entire seclusion from them all. We are now to ask how he will stem those seductions when ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson

... Flores is a man so ample In every complement of entertainement, That guests with him are, as in Bowers enchanted, Reft of all power and thoughts ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... that thou art God I do not fear,— Speak to me, raise me from my life's long dream. "The whole night through thou liest here Beside the well that waters Lethe's stream, And still thou dost not drink; O Man make haste; Ere long the dawn will pour adown the waste, And show thee, reft from the embrace of night, The barren world, barren of revelry. Happy art thou, O Man, happily free, Who wilt never see A thousand ages shed their life and light As petals fall at eventide. Thou shalt not see the radiant stars subside Into the frozen ocean of the Vast, Nor see thy world absorbed ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... I think on the lads an' the land I hae left, An' how love has been lifted, an' friendship been reft; How the hinnie o' hope has been jumbled wi' ga', Then I sigh for the lads an' ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... way, And, "O my sire!" did Ellen say, 565 "Why urge thy chase so far astray? And why so late returned? And why"— The rest was in her speaking eye. "My child, the chase I follow far, 'Tis mimicry of noble war; 570 And with that gallant pastime reft Were all of Douglas I have left. I met young Malcolm as I strayed Far eastward, in Glenfinlas' shade, Nor strayed I safe; for all around, 575 Hunters and horsemen scoured the ground. This youth, though still a royal ward, Risked life and land to be my guard, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... third part of Gallia as Gal. Mon. saith.] After that Leir was fallen into age, the two dukes that had married his two eldest daughters, thinking it long yer the gouernment of the land did come to their hands, arose against him in armour, and reft from him the gouernance of the land, vpon conditions to be continued for terme of life: by the which he was put to his portion, that is, to liue after a rate assigned to him for the maintenance of his estate, which in processe ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (2 of 8) - The Second Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed

... this same moment he Is as softly moved—"no rose Would he pluck before the storm Reft it of ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... dear Voice which did thy sounds approve, Which wont in such harmonious strains to flow, Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above, What art thou but a harbinger ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... black then through the sacred grove Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length. I knew Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth, White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth, God, immortal and dead! Therefore I go; never to rest, or win Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke

... at all times the question of human liberty to be superior to considerations of mere expediency. If the question be, who gains or loses most, there never can be a doubt that the man whose freedom has been reft from him has the greatest of all claims for indulgence. Accordingly, Lord Mansfield, the presiding judge, looking in the face all the threatened evils to property, held that nothing but absolute law could trench on personal freedom. He used on the occasion a Latin expression, to the effect ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... William at that, seeing himself reft of his arms. "It were great villainy to do to ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)

... joy and my comfort wast thou 'neath the sun, Dark gloom, now I'm reft of thee, filleth my mind; I shall know no more happiness now thou art gone, O my Mary, of wit and of ...
— Targum • George Borrow

... mingled, and if men forbore the shout, Yet the din of steel and iron in the grey clouds rang about; But how to tell of King Volsung, and the valour of his folk! Three times the wood of battle before their edges broke; And the shield-wall, sorely dwindled and reft of the ruddy gold, Against the drift of the war-blast for the fourth time yet did hold. But men's shields were waxen heavy with the weight of shafts they bore, And the fifth time many a champion cast earthward Odin's door And gripped the sword two-handed; ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris

... Knight. And for this carried they off the body piecemeal and the head, for that they well knew you were wounded; and of the head shall I have right sore need, for thereby shall a castle be yielded up to me that was reft from me by treason, so I may find the knight that I go seek, through whom it ought to be yielded up ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown

... drew from Gylfi, Rich in stored up treasure, The land she joined to Denmark. Four heads and eight eyes bearing, While hot sweat trickled down them, The oxen dragged the reft mass ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... who shall be brave and good, yet will he cause you to weep tears as bitter as those my mother wept for me. So! take this grain of rice; eat it, and you shall bear a son that will be no son to you, for even as I was reft from my mother's eyes, so will he be reft from yours. Go in peace; your fault is forgiven, but ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel

... were twa brethren fell on strife; Sweet fruits are sair to gather: The tane has reft his brother of life; And the wind ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... has reft us But the brave and kindly clay ('Tis but dust where Lander left us, And but turf where ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... spring, ah happy day! Underneath a leafy spray With her sister stands my may. O sweet love! He who now is reft of thee ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various

... the days of their greatest influence been scrupulously withheld from the cognizance of the Houses were now absolutely forced on their attention. It was by Parliament that England was torn from the great body of Western Christendom. It was by parliamentary enactment that the English Church was reft of its older liberties and made absolutely subservient to the Crown. It was a parliamentary statute that defined the very faith and religion of the land. The vastest confiscation of landed property which England had ever witnessed was wrought ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... the hour has come! That false traitor Sir Res has risen in revolt against England's king. Loyal men are called upon to put down the rebellion, and such as do so will be rewarded with the lands reft from the traitor. Vychan, Vychan, lose not a moment; arm and take the men, and fly to Dynevor! Now is the time to strike the blow! And I will to Edward's court, to plead with him for the lands and ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green

... would that I had ne'er to Susa gone, To ask that fatal boon of thee, Hystaspes' generous son. Oh, deadly fight! oh, woeful sight! to greet a monarch's eyes! All desolate—my native land, reft of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... beetling cliff—where the mad waves Rush echoing thro' the high-arched caves below, I view some love-reft fair Whose sighing warms the air, Gaze anxious on the ocean as it raves And call on thee-alone, of power to ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... make it known thou art a heretic. The sacrament of kirk I shall him give: Syne[3] take thy choice, to starve[4] or let him live. It were more 'vail, in worship of thy crown, To keep such one in life in thy bandoun,[5] Than all the land and good that thou hast reft, But cowardice thee aye from honour dreft.[6] Thou hast thy life rougin[7] in wrongous deed; That shall be seen on thee, or on thy seed.' The king gart[8] charge they should the bishop tae,[9] But sad[10] lords counselled ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... terrible thing, my friend, to be thus reft of all you hold dearest in life. If I had seen her touched by the hand of disease, and watched the rose fading from her cheek, leaf after leaf falling away, until death claimed at last his victim, I could have ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... Lower him to the mould below; With the well-known sailor ballad, Lest he grow more cold and pallid At the thought that Ocean's child, From his mother's arms beguiled. Must repose for countless years, Reft of all her briny tears, All the rights he owned by birth, In the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... this a combat or a council? Are ye my masters, or my lord the King? Ye make this clashing for no love o' the customs Or constitutions, or whate'er ye call them, But that there be among you those that hold Lands reft from Canterbury. ...
— Becket and other plays • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... plead against thy wrong, Who hast reft me of my love, my wife, And art not satiate yet with strife, But needs wilt hold me lingering long. No strength since then has kept me strong: But what could hurt thee in ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... my father. Go then, for having proceeded to salute[34] thy sister, whose breast I first sucked, Jocasta I mean, deprived of my mother, and reft from her, an orphan, I will depart and save my life. But haste, go, let not ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... And this reft house is that, the which he built, Lamented Jack! and here his malt he pil'd, Cautious in vain! these rats, that squeak so wild, Squeak not unconscious of their father's guilt. Did he not see her gleaming thro' the glade! Belike 'twas she, the maiden all forlorn. What the she milk no ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... raise she up, And slowly, slowly left him, And sighing said, she could not stay, Since death of life had reft him. ...
— Ballad Book • Katherine Lee Bates (ed.)

... career is, I believe, at this moment revived into fresh notoriety as the heroine of some drama on the stage of Paris—a woman who, when years paled her fame and reft her spoils, as a courtesan renowned for the fools she had beggared, for the young hearts she had corrupted, sought plunder still by crimes, to which law is less lenient; charged with swindling, with fraud, with forgery, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the honour of France is lost." Hotly Sir Olivier's anger stirs; He pricked his steed with golden spurs, Fairly dealt him a baron's blow, And hurled him dead from the saddle-bow. Buckler and mail were reft and rent, And the pennon's flaps to his heart's blood went. He saw the miscreant stretched on earth: "Caitiff, thy threats are of little worth. On, Franks! the felons before us fall; Montjoie!" 'Tis ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... Well, you can understand me. I want my brother. He has been basely reft from me. Tell me where he is, and I will forgive all. Restore him to me, and I will bless you and yours." And Philip fell on his knees and grasped the train of her gown. "I know nothing of your brother, Mr. Morton," cried Mrs. Beaufort, surprised and alarmed. ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... restrain'd are, as 't were, full Of holy divination in their dreams, Then in a vision did I seem to view A golden-feather'd eagle in the sky, With open wings, and hov'ring for descent, And I was in that place, methought, from whence Young Ganymede, from his associates 'reft, Was snatch'd aloft to the high consistory. "Perhaps," thought I within me, "here alone He strikes his quarry, and elsewhere disdains To pounce upon the prey." Therewith, it seem'd, A little wheeling in his airy tour Terrible as the lightning rush'd he ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... winde, And in our sight they three were taken vp By Fishermen of Corinth, as we thought. At length another ship had seiz'd on vs, And knowing whom it was their hap to saue, Gaue healthfull welcome to their ship-wrackt guests, And would haue reft the Fishers of their prey, Had not their backe beene very slow of saile; And therefore homeward did they bend their course. Thus haue you heard me seuer'd from my blisse, That by misfortunes was my life prolong'd, To tell sad stories of my ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... think that the holding of this stone, reft from our crown, had something to do with the hold of these English upon our ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn

... even in free speech; Patient and lordly; generous to bestow Beyond all givers; scorning to be base, Yea, even in secret—such Nishadha was. Alas! when, day and night, I think of him, How is my heart consumed, reft of its joy!" So meditating, like one torn by thoughts, She mounted to the palace-roof to see; And thence, in the mid-court, the car beheld Arriving. Rituparna and Vahuka She saw, with Vrishni's son, descend and loose The panting horses, wheeling back the car. Then Rituparna, alighting, sought ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... brighte sun had lost his hue, For th' horizon had reft the sun of light, (This is as much to say as: it ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... while my lonely watch I keep, Dear heart that wak'st though senses sleep To thee my heart turns gratefully. All it can give to thee is given. From all besides, its heartstrings riven. Could ne'er be reft more fatefully. ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... colonies, Pitt followed the course successfully adopted by England in several wars. But here again his difficulties were greater than those of Chatham. Indeed, they were enhanced by the triumphs of Chatham. Where now could he deal the most telling blow? Not against Canada; for his father had reft that prize. The French settlements in the East Indies were of small account. It was in Hayti, Martinique, and Guadeloupe that French commerce could be ruined. At them, therefore, he struck. But in so doing he reopened the old disputes with Spain. In vain did he seek to avert bickerings by suggesting ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... It was at Christmas-time that the Danish boy acquired his supernatural strength by giving back to the elf-maiden the horn he had taken from her. The Halsteengaard horn and the golden beaker of Aagerup were both reft from the trolls on Christmas Eve, and the horn of Wexioe on Christmas morning. The night of St. John's Day is mentioned as the time when the horn now at Arendal was obtained. The saint here referred to is probably St. John the Evangelist, whose feast is on December the 27th. And ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... the fond recollections of former years; And shadows of things that have long since fled Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,— Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon; Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon; Attachments by fate or falsehood reft; Companions of early days lost or left; And my native land, whose magical name Thrills to the heart like electric flame; The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime; All the passions and scenes of that rapturous time When the feelings were young, and the world was new, Like ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... Still I fancy I can see Thee amid the daffodils. Golden wealth thy basket fills; Golden blossoms at thy breast; Golden hair that shames the West; Golden sunlight round thy head! Ah! the golden years have fled; Thee have reft, and me have left Here alone, ...
— Primavera - Poems by Four Authors • Stephen Phillips, Laurence Binyon, Manmohan Ghose and Arthur Shearly Cripps

... sighs, that to my heart are dear, Since ease from them alone it hopes to prove. Ye verses, weep!—ye rhymes, your woes renew! For Cino, master of the love-fraught lay, E'en now is from our fond embraces torn! Pistoia, weep, and all your thankless crew! Your sweetest inmate now is reft away— But, heaven, rejoice, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... answer was: "Mother, I go." Perfect as son. Perfect as husband; if He had not limited Himself by His own will to show out what husband should be to wife, how could He in the forest, when Sita had been reft away by Ravana, have shown the grief, have uttered the piteous lamentations, which have drawn tears from thousands of eyes, as He calls on plants and on trees, on animals and birds, on Gods and men, to tell Him where His wife, His other self, the life of His life, had gone? How could he have taught ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant

... O Prince of True Believers, was thus keening over the folk of the house,[FN341] behold, out came a black slave therefrom and said to me, 'Hold thy peace, O Shaykh! May thy mother be reft of thee! Why do I see thee bemoaning the house in this wise?' Quoth I, 'I frequented it of yore, when it belonged to a good friend of mine.' Asked the slave, 'What was his name?'; and I answered, 'Jubayr bin Umayr the Shaybani.' Rejoined he, And what hath befallen him? Praised be Allah, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... brothers, will ye go? From home and kin for many a year our steps have wander'd wide, And never may our bones be laid our fathers' graves beside. 50 No children have we to lament, no wives to wail our fall; The traitor's and the spoiler's hand have reft our hearths of all. But we have hearts, and we have arms, as strong to will and dare As when our ancient banners flew within the northern air. Come, brothers! let me name a spell shall rouse your souls again, 55 And send the old blood bounding free through ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... world from which our bodies were shut out became the playground of our fancy, which reveled there in frolicsome adventure. The very Lives of the Saints helped us to understand what was so carefully left unsaid! But the day when I was reft of your sweet company, I became a true Carmelite, such as they appeared to us, a modern Danaid, who, instead of trying to fill a bottomless barrel, draws every day, from Heaven knows what deep, an empty pitcher, thinking to find ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac

... aloft, in a movement of sweet, wild abandon, and, as if in response to an incantation, the sky was reft asunder and the moon rushed forth, free for the moment of the clutching clouds, fugitive, headlong, a shining Maenad of the heavens, surrounded by the rush and whirl that had whelmed earth and its waters and was hurrying them to an unknown, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Collier, was a favourite place for these performances. There was also a school of defence, or fencing school, here in Queen Elizabeth's time; so many a hot Tybalt and fiery Mercutio have here crossed rapiers, and many a silk button has been reft from gay doublets by the quick passadoes of the young swordsmen who ruffled it in the Strand. This quondam inn was also the place where Banks, the showman (so often mentioned by Nash and others in Elizabethan pamphlets and lampoons), ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... possible, by any disastrous miracle, ever to dispel the mist which romance has evoked about all human doings." Therefore romance has created the "dynamic illusions" of chivalry and love and common sense and religion and art and patriotism and optimism, and therein "the ape reft of his tail and grown rusty at climbing" has clothed himself so long that as he beholds himself in the delusive mirrors he has for centuries held up to nature he believes he is somehow of cosmic importance. Poor and naked as ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... stood beside! Dazzles the cloud when shines the sun, Reft of his radiance, see it glide A shapeless mass of vapours dun; So of thy courage,—or if not, The matter is far darker dyed, What makes thee loth to leave this spot? Is there a ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt

... the implacable sea vex me, Lysis hidden beneath a lonely rock, ever sounding harshly by my ear and alongside of my deaf tomb. Why, O fellow-men, have you made my dwelling by this that reft me of breath, me whom not trading in my merchant-ship but sailing in a little rowing-boat, it brought to shipwreck? and I who sought my living out of the sea, out of the sea likewise ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... rigged with curses dark, That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow, His mantle hairy and his bonnet sedge, Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe. 'Ah! who hath reft,' quoth he, 'my dearest pledge?' Last came, and last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain— The golden opes, the iron shuts amain. He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake: 'How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various

... under. Incompletion is force fighting; completion is force quiescent, its work done. Nature's forces are patent enough in some scarred volcanic moon in which no creature can breathe; only the sage, in some soft green earth, can discover the same forces reft of fierceness and terror, and translated into sunshine, and falling dew, and the rainbow gleaming on the shower. It is somewhat in this way that the propriety of Hazlitt's criticism is to be vindicated. Chaucer ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... and no aid was nigh, He sought not then the cottage of his birth, The peace and comforts of his father's hearth? That also thou shalt hear. Scarce had he left His parents' home, ere ruthless fortune reft His friend and father of his little all. Crops failed, and friends proved false; but, worse than all, The wife of his young love, bowed down with grief For her sole child, like an autumnal leaf Nipped by the frosts of night, drooped day by day, As a fair morning ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton

... neighbor's gold, mildewing wheat, And blistering the pure skin of chastest maid,— Edwin and Bertha sat in marriage joy, From all removed, as heavenly creatures winged, Alit upon a hill-top near the sun, When all the world is reft of man and town By distance, and their hearts the silence fills— Not long: for unto them, as unto all, Down from love's height unto the world of men Occasion called with many a sordid voice. So forth they fared ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various

... reft of rest no repose I command, * And my grief is redoubled in this far land: Erst I had a father, a kinder ne'er was; * But he died and to Death paid the deodand: When he went from me, every matter went wrong * Till my heart was nigh-broken, my nature unmanned: He bought me a handmaid, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... jutting out over the road; but the church which the old houses knew has gone. They pulled it down in the forties—that unhappy decade for anything ancient and quiet in Surrey villages; all they left was the tower, a mighty mass of stone and ivy that stands with its nave reft from it, the forlornest and most meaningless of ruins. If the tower might stand, why not the nave? They pulled the nave down, and left the tower standing, so Mr. C.J. Swete, one of Epsom's historians, tells you, in order that it "should remain to beautify the landscape." They acted, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker

... principallie, thought that thei could do no wrong to no Scottishe man; for a certane French man delivred a coulvering to George Tod, Scottisman, to be stocked, who bringing it throwght the streat, ane other French man clamed it, and wold have reft it from the said George; but he resisted, alledgeing that the Frenche man did wronge. And so begane parties to assemble, asweall to the Scottishman, as to the French; so that two of the French men war stryckin doune, and the rest chassed from the Croce ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... left of all his store! No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. There reft of health, of fortune, friends, And fame, this lord of ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... the peasant has shot away his last arrow, and the wolf has reft the last lamb from the fold, then is there peace between them. But 'tis a strange friendship. Well well; let that pass. It is fitting, as I said, that the harness hang bright in the hall; for you know the old saw: "Call none ...
— Henrik Ibsen's Prose Dramas Vol III. • Henrik Ibsen

... and gems in dust. His head the trenchant blade cleaves to the teeth, And dead the Kalif falls.—"Pagan accursed," He cries, "not here shalt thou say Carle lost aught; To wife nor lady shalt thou ever boast In thine own land, that thou hast reft from Carle One denier's worth, or me or others harmed!" And then he called ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier

... to believe themselves to be self-acting, when in fact they are the merest shuttlecocks bandied about between the battledores of knavish devils on one side, and devilish knaves upon the other, and between the two the poor fallen wretches are nearly heart-reft and destroyed." ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... and she had deceived him, too. He felt for corners of his being untouched by his disaster; but there was no limit to the flood of damage; not one of his possessions was safe now. Katharine had deceived him; she had mixed herself with every thought of his, and reft of her they seemed false thoughts which he would blush to think again. ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... call our life. Think of how he gives, who takes away. Out of the bottom of the miry clay I write this; and I look forward confidently; I have faith after all; I believe, I hope, I will not have it reft from me; there is something good behind it all, bitter and terrible as it seems. The infinite majesty (as it will be always in regard to us the bubbles of an hour) the infinite majesty must have moments, if it were no more, of greatness; must sometimes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... his sword, and gone forth to the war; now he was returning from the field laden with the spoils of the foe. The cob, the cameos, the violoncello and the pianoforte, were all as it were trophies reft from the tent of his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... abstract; disjunctive; secant; isolated &c v.; insular, separate, disparate, discrete, apart, asunder, far between, loose, free; unattached, unannexed, unassociated, unconnected; distinct; adrift; straggling; rift, reft^. [capable of being cut] scissile [Chem], divisible, discerptible^, partible, separable. Adv. separately &c adj.; one by one, severally, apart; adrift, asunder, in twain; in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... pilot of his people through the strife, With his strong purpose turning scorn to praise, E'en at the close of battle reft of life And fair ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various

... your skies. 'Gainst wind and wave we pile our stone and mold. Powered of genius, panoplied of gold, We build the bastions of our high emprise. But yet, but let the plunging torrent rise, The winds awake on glutted rivers rolled— We die as the reft robin fledgeling dies— We perish as the beast in ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall

... she / ere she a word did say, And reft of all her pleasure / there the fair lady lay. Soon had Kriemhild's sorrow / all measure passed beyond: She shrieked, when past the swooning, / that did ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... loved one blotted from Life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er Hearts divided and o'er Hopes destroyed: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoyed,[gf] And with the ills of Eld mine ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron

... it for you, Barbarian, that if only for a while Fate has reft power from my hands. Oh! this is the bitterest drop in all my cup, that I who for a score of years ruled the world must live to suffer the insults of ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... king, Gandhari, O bull of Bharata's race, and the other ladies of the household, all fell down on the earth, deprived of their senses. Then Sanjaya, O king, began to comfort those ladies stricken with grief, bathed in tears, and reft of consciousness. Comforted (by Sanjaya), those ladies began to tremble repeatedly like a plantain grove shaken by the wind. Vidura also, sprinkling that descendant of Kuru with water, began to comfort the puissant ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... all that I have felt, and feel, Betoken love—that love was mine, 1110 And shown by many a bitter sign. 'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh, I knew but to obtain or die. I die—but first I have possessed, And come what may, I have been blessed. Shall I the doom I sought upbraid? No—reft of all, yet undismayed[eg] But for the thought of Leila slain, Give me the pleasure with the pain, So would I live and love again. 1120 I grieve, but not, my holy Guide! For him who dies, but her who died: She sleeps beneath ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... chill of night, the manifold rays of stars and silence, silence reft of winds, yet alive with the tense immobility of the crouching beast, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... the charred and reeling prow Reft of hope, they gather now, Finding, one by one, a grave In the vexed and sullen wave. Here the child, as if in sleep, Floats on waters dark and deep; There the mother sinks below, Shrieking in her ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various

... woman had scanned Shibli Bagarag, she called to him, 'O thou! what is it with thee, that thou rollest as one reft of his wits?' ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... once raised his pinions An eaglet; A huntsman's arrow came, and reft His right wing of all motive power. Headlong he fell into a myrtle grove, For three long days on anguish fed, In torment writhed Throughout three long, three weary nights; And then was cured, Thanks to all-healing Nature's Soft, omnipresent balm. He crept away ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... The sea-breeze moans Through yon reft house! O'er rolling stones In bold ambitious sweep The onward-surging tides supply The silence of the cloudless sky 35 With mimic ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... so fair, So ripe with joy for Daisy Dare, Fate's cruel sickle swept, and left Life of its golden harvest reft. ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey

... set his lips, and pulled up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped, and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss

... treasure's reft. I know not if by force or theft, Or part by violence, part by gift; But misery is all that's left To ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... just before the war, and one of the men in it reminded me of this man. But the dancing was the least part of it. It was neither sound nor movement nor scent that wrought the spell, but something far more potent. In an instant I found myself reft away from the present with its dull dangers, and looking at a world all young and fresh and beautiful. The gaudy drop-scene had vanished. It was a window I was looking from, and I was gazing at the finest landscape on earth, lit by the pure ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... the might of stout-heart Aeacus' son: As kine they were, that midst the copses shrink From faring forth to meet a lion grim, But in dense thickets terror-huddled cower; So in their fortress shivered these to see That mighty man. Of those already dead They thought of all whose lives he reft away As by Scamander's outfall on he rushed, And all that in mid-flight to that high wall He slew, how he quelled Hector, how he haled His corse round Troy;—yea, and of all beside Laid low by him since that first day whereon O'er restless seas he brought the Trojans ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus

... broughtest thyself to woe, * Thou art slain and worse sorrows my bosom rend! Thou hast reft me of fairest companionship, * Made her home Earth's womb till the world shall end. To Time, who hath wrought me such grief, I say, * 'Allah grant in her ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... still regarded herself as the messenger from Heaven, the angel of the realm of France. Possibly the illusion, so cruelly reft from her, returned at last to enfold her in its beneficent veil. At any rate, she appears to have been crushed; all that remained to her was an infinite horror of death and a ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... rang out so shrilly that even Slivers started. She was pointing stiffly. The men all stared at the storm of dust. For one brief second the swirling clouds were reft, revealing, far out eastward, in the dead-land of white, a small dark object—the ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... same enforced composure on her face, that there had been when she was dressing; and the wreath upon her head encircled the same cold and steady brow. But it would have been better to have seen its leaves and flowers reft into fragments by her passionate hand, or rendered shapeless by the fitful searches of a throbbing and bewildered brain for any resting-place, than adorning such tranquillity. So obdurate, so unapproachable, so ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens



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