"Swoon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spectres of your victims pursue you even to the platform. Your voice fails you, your eyes start from your head in terror. You gasp for mercy—and imagination splashes your outstretched hands with gore. The audience thrill, women swoon, strong men are breathless with emotion." Suddenly he smote the table with his big fist, and little Quinquart nearly fell off his chair, for he divined the inspiration of his rival. "Listen!" cried Robichon, "are ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... found him in a swoon. He was on his knees; his head was lying on the arm-chair; his outstretched arms hung powerless; his pale face was radiant with the ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... thing. Come on, and bring all you can raise or borrow." It is wonderful, the faith of the racetrack gamblers in a tip! Their belief in the "hunch" is blind and absolute; hope never dies on the racetrack, even though, once in a while, it goes into a very deathlike swoon. ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... lips, that we could wish its employment were forbidden henceforth to voices which vulgarize it. But his special, constitutional, word is "fine," meaning something like dainty, as Shakespeare uses it,—"my dainty Ariel,"—"fine Ariel." It belongs to his habit of mind and body as "faint" and "swoon" belong to Keats. This word is one of the ear-marks by which Emerson's imitators are easily recognized. "Melioration" is another favorite word of Emerson's. A clairvoyant could spell out some of his most characteristic traits by the aid of his use of these three words; his inborn fastidiousness, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... wattle-blooms are drooping in the sombre she-oak glade, And the breathless land is lying in a swoon, He leaves his work a moment, leaning lightly on his spade, And he hears the bell-bird chime the Austral noon. The parrakeets are silent in the gum-tree by the creek; The ferny grove is sunshine-steeped and still; But the dew will gem the myrtle in ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... Arthur would have gone I never knew, for at that moment a trampling of feet and a hoarse command outside announced the arrival of our escort, and Marko, still in a sort of walking swoon of amazement, went out to give them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... Meantime, do as you see me do; clap your hand thus on the weasand of this high and mighty prince, under his ruff, and if he offer to struggle or cry out, fail not, my worthy Ranald, to squeeze doughtily; and if it be AD DELIQUIUM, Ranald, that is, till he swoon, there is no great matter, seeing he designed your gullet and mine ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... very quickly from the shock of amazement. She was a woman not easily to be startled by the vagaries of human nature. She had often heard of bigamy, and that her husband should prove to be a bigamist did not throw her into a swoon. She at once, in her own mind, began to make excuses for him. She said to herself, as she inspected the real Mrs. Henry Leek, that the real Mrs. Henry Leek had certainly the temperament which manufactures bigamists. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... that his friends cried aloud with delight. But with finger upraised for silence, and eyes full of ecstatic delight, Otto stood like a statue until the last note died away. Then his friends caught him as he fell forward in a swoon,—a swoon so like death that no one ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the landlord, shrugging his bulky shoulders. "The reverend father said nothing, save that she swooned away. But what of that? Women swoon at everything—from a mouse to a corpse. As I said, the good Cipriano attended the count's burial—and he had scarce returned from it when he was seized with the illness. And this morning he died at the monastery—may his soul ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... than all, a gulf with which words had nothing to do, a gulf of pure separation, of impassable nothingness, across which no device, I say not of human skill, but of human imagination, could cast a single connecting cord. There lay Mary, and here lay I—both in God's arms—utterly parted. As in a swoon I lay, through which suddenly came the words: 'What God hath joined, man cannot sunder.' I lay thinking what they could mean. All at once I thought I knew. Straightway I rose on the cloudy arm, looked down on a measureless darkness beneath me, and up on a great, ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... of the Ober-Amtmann's agitation and apparent swoon, a howl of execration burst from the crowd below, mingled with the cries of "Tear the wretch in pieces! She has poisoned him! Tear her in pieces!" Consternation prevailed through the whole assembly. Bertha sprang to her father's side; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... was thus employed Frank was somewhat surprised to observe at a little distance the same man who had offered him a drink of brandy as he was recovering from his swoon at ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... lusty sailors who were lying in wait behind a coil of rope; and the precious freight he carried was borne in triumph down to the cabin. What a scene it was! The poor mother was just recovering from the long death-like swoon in which she had lain, when the infant was placed in her arms, perfectly uninjured, although cold, and its little face blanched as if with terror. At first it seemed as though the sudden revulsion of feeling was too much for her, and she appeared about to sink once more into ...
— Georgie's Present • Miss Brightwell
... muffled ship lying at anchor within it. The tide serving, Thorstan ran in between low hills all smothered in snow. A settlement of white, muffled houses lay on the shore of a bay, a deserted quay, a few boats drawn up on the beach: not a soul was to be seen; the winter swoon was over all. ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... about to pass out into the world again, away from her, away even from knowledge of how she came out of her swoon. He had no further right there now. His duty was done. He had been allowed to save ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... at every little sound her heart grew sick with horror, and when the night wind swept through the craggy peaks and its moans were echoed in loneliness, she fell on her face in deadly fear and lay on the cold rock in a swoon. ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... thought, "Alas! now cometh Noe's flood." He sat him up withoute wordes mo' And with his axe he smote the cord in two; And down went all; he found neither to sell Nor bread nor ale, till he came to the sell*, *threshold Upon the floor, and there in swoon he lay. Up started Alison and Nicholay, And cried out an "harow!" in the street. The neighbours alle, bothe small and great In ranne, for to gauren* on this man, *stare That yet in swoone lay, both pale and ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... The swoon of Athos had merely been occasioned by loss of blood. The surgeon declares there is no danger, and D'Artagnan, who has stood his ground with true Gascon tenacity, at length obtains an audience. The loss ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... a few days later in my room at Corgarff Castle, and reflecting on the affair, I said to myself that it was only the beginning. A drama of real life rarely closes with the hero in heroics, the heroine a-swoon in her beauty, and the ...
— The Black Colonel • James Milne
... old milk-house Rose Mary's gentle heart throbbed with pain as she pressed the great cakes of the golden treasure back and forth in the blue bowl, for it was a quiet time and Rose Mary was tearing up some of her own roots. Her sad eyes looked out over Harpeth Valley, which lay in a swoon with the midsummer heat. The lush blue-grass rose almost knee deep around the grazing cattle in the meadows, and in the fields the green grain was fast turning to a harvest hue. Almost as far as her eyes could reach along Providence Road and across the pastures ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... had gone out again in his restlessness and unhappiness. Elinor, who had become paler and paler as the carriage approached Ebury Street, and who by the time she reached the house looked really as if at last she must swoon, her heart choking her, her breathing quick and feverish, had taken hold of John to support herself, clutching at his arm, when she was told that Philip was out. She came to herself instantly on the strength ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... heard not and the man, touched with the deepest pity, carried him down tenderly into his hammock, and wrapped him up in a clean blanket, and sat by him till the swoon ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... to pass into her throat. At the end of half an hour, the inhalation of the salts began to produce a little effect; the breath came more regularly, but that was the only symptom which announced that the swoon might soon terminate. The landau with the high springs arrived. The General ordered the top laid back, and helped to lift and place upon the cushions on the back seat the thin mattress on which Zibeline lay; then he took his place on the front seat, made the men draw the carriage-top ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... it gave them! Fortunately Nonna, after a lifetime spent in the care of babies, had laid aside what we call nerves, else she had certainly fallen in a swoon like her mistress; she was consequently able to support the duchess and soothe her ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... that he was frightened. He caught her passionately in his arms, and knew no better way to bring her to consciousness than to rain kisses on her cheeks. As might be expected this only served to prolong her swoon, which was not a very genuine one, if the truth must be told, and it was some seconds before she opened her eyes and caught him, as one ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... long after midnight, in the cold hours of the morning, when she woke from her swoon. She raised herself feebly upon her elbow, and looked dazedly up at the cold, unfeeling stars that go on shining through the ages, making no sign of sympathy with human griefs. Perseus had risen to his meridian, and Algol, her natal star, alternately darkened and ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... existence. He abandoned himself to the power of love and of faith, those twin levers which move the world. And despite all the struggles of his reason this bedroom of Nana's always filled him with madness, and he would sink shuddering under the almighty dominion of sex, just as he would swoon before ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... with shame. To exhibit various emotions in the drawing-room was one of the Elegant Exercises in which these young ladies were drilled thoroughly. And their habit of simulation was so rooted in sense of duty that it merged into sincerity. If a young lady did not swoon at the breakfast-table when her Papa read aloud from The Times that the Duke of Wellington was suffering from a slight chill, the chances were that she would swoon quite unaffectedly when she realised her omission. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... spirit felt that unuttered cry, and that it brought her back? Be this as it may, while he was recovering from his deadly swoon he dimly felt her presence beside him, and the soft cool touch of her fingers on his brow. Then—or did he imagine it?—her lips, cold as those of the dead, touched his own. But when consciousness entirely returned, he was alone in ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... limitless Saharas to him. Death, where is thy sting?" I continued, as an outraged ant assaulted my nose. The world came throbbing back. I felt myself being dragged violently away from my resting place. I was choking. Bidding farewell to the ants, I prepared myself to swoon when gradually, as if from a great distance, I heard the voice of my P.O. ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... assumed the name of Halycon Church, and proclaimed himself the millennial messenger. He professed to see visions, fall into trances, and to converse with angels. We had a camp meeting near Marietta, and this fellow came to it. He wanted to preach, and upon being refused pretended to swoon away. One night he lit a cigar and got some powder, and walked away about one hundred yards where stood a large stump. He put the powder on the stump and touched it with his cigar. The flash was seen by many in the camp, and they came up to find Sargent lying on the ground. ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... beauty and speed with light Fast-flashing, soft, and bright. 1040 Thou beacon of love! thou lamp of the free! Guide us far, far away, To climes where now veiled by the ardour of day Thou art hidden From waves on which weary Noon 1045 Faints in her summer swoon, Between kingless continents sinless as Eden, Around mountains and islands inviolably Pranked on the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... was only partially relieved, for his aunt said that Grace's swoon was obstinate, and would not yield to the remedies she was using. "Come in," she cried. "This is no time for ceremony. Take brandy ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... torn by the certainty that those dear ones had really been slain, that her little niece was dead, that her little cousins Posy and Birdy were dead, that little Gottschalk too was dead—all murdered and dead! And she, too, would have succumbed to the agony of this realization, had not a kind swoon poured forgetfulness ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... numbness with shooting pains in his back and legs tortured him. He did not budge. His mind hovered on the borders of delirium. He heard himself suddenly saying, "I confess," as a person might do on the rack. "I am on the rack," he thought. He felt ready to swoon. The faint deep boom of the distant clock seemed to explode in his head—he heard it so ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... Barbarian women. Thus prostrate in dismay; Upon the earth ye've fallen! See ye not as ye may, How Bacchus Pentheus' palace In wrath hath shaken down? Rise up! rise up! take courage—Shake off that trembling swoon. Chor. O light that goodliest shinest Over our mystic rite, In state forlorn we saw thee—Saw with what deep affright! Dio. How to despair ye yielded As I boldly entered in To Pentheus, as if captured, into that fatal gin. Chor. How could I less? ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... truth; also it is the same whether you say good or love, since everything of love is good.{1} The great power that angels have by means of truths from good is shown also from this, that when an evil spirit is merely looked at by the angels he falls into a swoon, and does not appear like a man, and this until the angel turns away his eyes. Such an effect is produced by the look of the eyes of angels, because the sight of angels is from the light of heaven, and the light of heaven is Divine truth (see above, n. 126-132). ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... of the manner in which she had first met with Grace, and of the accident which had followed had served Mercy's purpose but too well. It was simply impossible for persons acquainted with that statement to attach a guilty meaning to the swoon. The false Grace Roseberry was still as far beyond the reach of suspicion as ever, and the true Grace was quick enough to see it. She sank into the chair from which she had risen; her hands fell in hopeless despair on ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... a sound that would have startled the bravest man, and Nellie was transfixed for the moment. She did not turn and run, nor did she sink in a swoon to the ground, but she stood just where she had stopped, until she could find out what ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... the enthralled command, she fell in a dead swoon when she looked upon the pallid face of Graydon Bansemer. She had gone eagerly from one pallet to another, coming upon his near the last. One glance was enough. His face had been in her mind for months—just as she was seeing it now; she had lived in ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... lost His moon and stars awhile, almost his life; For, in one furious bout, his enemy's blade Dashed like a scribble of lightning into the face Of Tycho Brahe, and left him spluttering blood, Groping through that dark wood with outstretched hands, To fall in a death-black swoon. They carried him back To Rostoch; and when Tycho saw at last That mirrored patch of mutilated flesh, Seared as by fire, between the frank blue eyes And firm young mouth where, like a living flower Upon some stricken tree, youth lingered still, He'd but one thought, Christine would ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... to recover Hero from her swoon, saying, "How does the lady?" "Dead, I think," replied Beatrice in great agony, for she loved her cousin; and knowing her virtuous principles, she believed nothing of what she had heard spoken against her. Not so the poor old father; he believed ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... asked the patient, who had caused such a stir, and to whom no one seemed to be paying any attention in the excitement caused by Grace's swoon. The man had not caught a good look ...
— Larry Dexter's Great Search - or, The Hunt for the Missing Millionaire • Howard R. Garis
... letters that we catch glimpses of the complete transmutation. Thus, in one of her later letters we read: "I cried with ardor, 'Lord! join me to Thyself, transform Thyself into me!' It seemed to me that that lovable Spouse was reposing in my heart as on His throne. What makes me almost swoon with love and admiration is a certain pleasure which it seems to me that He takes when all my being flows into His, restoring to Him with respect and love all that He has given to me. Sometimes I have permission to speak to our Lord with more familiarity, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... sufferings, which threw my sister Liddy into a swoon, extracted some sighs from the breast of Mrs Tabby: when she understood he had been rendered unfit for marriage, she began to spit, and ejaculated, 'Jesus, what cruel barbarians!' and she made wry faces at the lady's nuptial repast; but she was eagerly curious ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... rest have in some measure come to themselves again, and can find words and smiles, Barbara—that soft-hearted, gentle, foolish little Barbara—is suddenly missed, and found to be in a swoon by herself in the back parlour, from which swoon she falls into hysterics, and from which hysterics into a swoon again, and is, indeed, so bad, that despite a mortal quantity of vinegar and cold water she is hardly a bit better at last than she was at ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... JUDITH (waking; for her swoon has passed into the sleep of exhaustion after suffering). Yes. Did you call? What's ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... picture it to themselves under the form of an intense night, a bottomless pit, a continual swoon. Anything would be better than such an existence—monotonous, absurd, ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... first. The other three—the coxswain and two oarsmen—were left in the boat to keep her from being crushed by the ship. What the others saw when they first boarded La Grace de Dieu I don't know; what I saw was the woman whom I had lost, the woman vilely stolen from me, lying in a swoon on the deck. We lowered her, insensible, into the boat. The remnant of the crew—five in number—were compelled by main force to follow her in an orderly manner, one by one, and minute by minute, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... him, Khalid, after the fatal episode, makes away from Baalbek. He suddenly disappears. But where he lays his staff, where he spends his months of solitude, neither Shakib nor our old friend the sandomancer can say. Somewhither he still is, indeed; for though he fell in a swoon as he saw Najma on her caparisoned palfrey and the decorated Excellency coming up along side of her, he was revived soon after and persuaded to return home. But on the following morning, our Scribe tells us, coming ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... jewel hanging on the very heart of the air. Far away down in the depths of the "coombe," a church bell rang softly for some holy service,—and when David Helmsley awoke at last from his death-like swoon he found himself no longer alone. A woman knelt beside him, supporting him in her arms,—and when he looked up at her wonderingly, he saw two eyes bent upon him with such watchful tenderness that in his weak, half-conscious state he fancied he must be wandering somewhere through heaven ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... goodness, who had fallen into a long swoon on learning her sentence of repudiation, and who since that fatal day had dragged out a sad life in the brilliant solitude of Malmaison; this devoted wife who had shared for fifteen years the fortunes of her husband, and who had assisted so powerfully in his elevation, was not the last ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... thoughts hope came back, and I could think no more, but dropped off into a deep sleep that was greatly like a swoon. ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... Jaimihr-sahib!" she said, shuddering. A year ago she would have fallen from her pony in a swoon, but one year of Howrah and its daily horrors had so hardened her that she could look and loathe without the saving grace ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... the sound of his own name as if I had struck him—he started back, and turned so deadly pale that I feared he was going to drop at my feet in a swoon. Oh, my tongue! my tongue! Why had I not controlled my miserable, mischievous ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... when I felt soft arms embracing me, and somebody sobbed and laughed, "You have saved her, Maestro; praise be to God and all His saints in heaven! May the Madonna bless you forever and ever—" I heard no more, but fell into a death-like swoon. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... "Yes, yes ... to swoon in the scent of you and die ... to feel the strands of your hair twined round my throat, and die.... Well for me if ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... uttered a low, moaning sound, swaying dizzily. Thinking she was about to swoon, I threw my arm round her shoulder to support her, but she smiled sadly, and pushed me ...
— The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... beneath—“Senza olio, senza olio,” reversing the phrase in the Baron de Grimm's story of the Frenchman, who, having sacrificed his own goût to his guest's penchant for asparagus au naturel, on his friend's falling down in a swoon, rushed to the top of the staircase, shouting to his cook, “Tout ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... But he looked mighty near it then. "The deep cut in his head" was the worst I then had ever seen, and the blow confused everything. When McGregor got round, he said it was not hopeless; but we were all turned out of the room, and with one thing and another he got the boy out of the swoon, and somehow it proved his head was ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... conspirators dispersed the unarmed multitude, and assaulted with blows and wounds the sacred person of the pope. But their enterprise on his life or liberty was disappointed, perhaps by their own confusion and remorse. Leo was left for dead on the ground: on his revival from the swoon, the effect of his loss of blood, he recovered his speech and sight; and this natural event was improved to the miraculous restoration of his eyes and tongue, of which he had been deprived, twice deprived, by the knife of the assassins. [91] From his prison he escaped to the Vatican: ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... brothers and friends," fellow-thieves and murderers as above described. He curses Madame Barbe-Marbois who comes to take leave of her husband, dismissing on the spot the commandant of the gendarmerie who supports her in a swoon, and, noticing the respect and attentions which all the inhabitants, even the functionaries, show to the prisoners, he cries out, "Well, what airs and graces for people that will perhaps be dead in three ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... That tempests still and sea-winds turn and plough; For rosy and fiery round the running prow Fluttered the flakes and feathers of the spray And bloomed like blossoms cast by God away To waste on the ardent water; the wan moon Withered to westward as a face in swoon Death-stricken by glad tidings; and the height Throbbed and the centre quivered with delight And the deep quailed with passion as of love, Till, like the heart of a new-mated dove, Air, light, and wave seemed full ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... opera-glass, and drank a glass of punch between the acts. But when he got home again, the sight of his study, of his furniture, in the midst of which he found himself for the last time, made him feel ready to swoon. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... out-grieved the whole town for her husband. They are certainly coming. Oh, no! here let me—thus let me sit and think. [Widow on her couch; while she is raving, as to herself, TATTLEAID softly introduces the ladies.] Wretched, disconsolate, as I am!... Alas! alas! Oh! oh! I swoon! I expire! [Faints. ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... himself a part of blame. Being guiltless, as an innocent prisoner, Who when the woful sentence hath been past, And all the clearness of his fame hath gone Beneath the shadow of the curse of men, First falls asleep in swoon. Wherefrom awaked And looking round upon his tearful friends, Forthwith and in his agony conceives A shameful sense as of a cleaving crime— For whence without some guilt should such grief be? So died that hour, and fell into the abysm Of forms outworn, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... cicerone to the small party, who look with interest around them. Mrs. Talbot, affecting nervousness, clings closely to Sir Adrian's arm. Indeed she is debating in her own mind whether it would be effective or otherwise to subside into a graceful swoon within his arms. "Yonder is the door of the chamber," continues Sir Adrian. "Come, let us go ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... and people speak in hushed thin voices, and move as in a lethargy, dreaming too! No heat, cold, or wind, nothing emphasised or italicised, it is truly a region of endless afternoons, "a land where all things always seem the same." Life is dead, and existence is a languid swoon. ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... the brave Roland! False tidings reach'd the Rhenish strand That he had fall'n in fight! And thy faithful bosom swoon'd with pain, Thou fairest maid of Allemain. Why so rash has she ta'en the veil In yon Nonnenwerder's cloister pale? For the fatal vow was hardly spoken, And the fatal mantel o'er her flung. When the Drachenfels' echoes rung— 'Twas her own dear warrior's horn! . . . . . . She died; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... desdichado, -a unhappy, unfortunate, wretched. desear desire, covet. desembozar unmuffle. desengao m. disillusion. deseo m. desire, longing. desesperacin f. despair. desesperado, -a desperate, despairing, hopeless. desfallecer weaken, swoon, fail, give way. desgarrar rend. desgracia f. misfortune, sorrow, unhappiness. desgraciado, -a unfortunate, hapless, miserable. deshacer undo, break. deshojado, -a leafless, petalless, blighted. desierto, -a deserted, lonely. desierto m. desert. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... answered her again, And from their cloistral basements in dismay The servants rushed, and from the upper rooms The pallid maidens trembling flew; all came. Thy lady's face was with reviving essence Sprinkled, and she awakened from her swoon. Anger and grief convulsed her still; she cast A lightning glance upon the guilty menial, And thrice with languid voice she called her pet, Who rushed to her embrace and seemed to invoke Vengeance with her shrill tenor. And revenge Thou ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... and swoon'd in his arms, But the PAINT-KING, he scoff'd at her pain. "Prithee, love," said the monster, "what mean these alarms?" She hears not, she sees not the terrible charms, That ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... up the very same tree, went to sleep. When it began to grow light he looked down, and there were the three narts, who, having hoppled their horses and turned them out to graze, were themselves resting under the tree. Naznai's soul went down into his very toes: he almost fell from the tree in a swoon. Suddenly one of the narts said to another, "Now that the king has in his service the hero Naznai, who kills five hundred at a blow, we must be more careful than we have been, and not turn our horses out in this way to graze."—"We have never been afraid of any living thing yet," rejoined the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... periodical tempestuous quarrels. But that day she felt too tired and unwell to quarrel. His warning against a repetition of 'fuss' had reference to the gastric dizziness from which she had been suffering for two years. It would take her usually after a meal. She did not swoon, but her head swam and she could not stand. She would sink down wherever she happened to be, and, her face alarmingly white, murmur faintly: "My salts." Within five minutes the attack had gone and left no trace. She had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... through the frosty mist Most like a dead-white moon; Thy soothing tones I seemed to list, As voices in a swoon. ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... for no other reason than because it is the shortest, will serve as a specimen of these catastrophes "One of the sweetest smiles that ever animated the face of mortal now diffused itself over the countenance of Lord St. Orville, as he fell at the feet of Julia in a death-like swoon." ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... night she had been reading to him, and a taper still burned in a candlestick on the table; but for the last two hours he had lain either in a sleep or a swoon, and she had laid the book down ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... from his horse and killed, at the age of fifty-three. He had proceeded to the pageant of opening a new bridge over the Sagami River, and it was popularly rumoured that he had fallen from his horse in a swoon caused by the apparition of Yoshitsune and Yukiiye on the Yamato plain and that of the Emperor Antoku at Inamura promontory. Just twenty years had elapsed since he raised the Minamoto standard in Sagami. His career was short but meteoric, and he ranks among the three greatest statesmen ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... she seemed to swoon and float, like a drowsy, drowning thing, the hard note of misery struck on Amabel's ear. She opened her eyes and looked at Lady Elliston. Power, freedom, passion: it was not these that looked back at her from the bereft and haggard eyes. "After twenty years he has grown tired," Lady ...
— Amabel Channice • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... seeing him still seated on the floor, rocking himself in a savage manner to and fro, took Chuffey's arm, and slowly followed Nadgett out. John Westlock and Mark Tapley accompanied them. Mrs Gamp had tottered out first, for the better display of her feelings, in a kind of walking swoon; for Mrs Gamp performed swoons of different sorts, upon a moderate notice, ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... the chant of sacrifice was done, Her father bade the youthful priestly train Raise her, like some poor kid, above the altar-stone, From where amid her robes she lay Sunk all in swoon away— Bade them, as with the bit that mutely tames the steed, Her fair lips' speech refrain, Lest she should speak a curse on Atreus' home ...
— The House of Atreus • AEschylus
... at that apparition, that owl-eyed phantom, in plaid skirt and stiff shirtwaist, with hair skewed back and no powder on her nose. I threw a protecting husbandly arm about her to catch her when she should faint. But she didn't swoon. A broad, satisfied ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... be forgotten, when she stood before me with her upraised hand, she was like a sacred presence in my lonely house. When the Angel of Death alighted there, my child-wife fell asleep—they told me so when I could bear to hear it—on her bosom, with a smile. From my swoon, I first awoke to a consciousness of her compassionate tears, her words of hope and peace, her gentle face bending down as from a purer region nearer Heaven, over my undisciplined heart, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... opened, and the castellan came in with a torch in his hand, the red glare of which made his face look the colour of blood. He cast a terrified glance at the crazy pilgrim, who had just sunk back in a swoon, and was supported on his seat and tended by Rolf; then he stared with astonishment at the chaplain, and at last murmured, "A strange meeting! I believe that the hour for confession and reconciliation is ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... through Perpignan. My father went in quest of news wherever Spaniards were to be found. He entered a cafe at the moment when a prisoner officer drew from his fob the watch which I had sold at Rosas. My good father saw in this act the proof of my death, and fell into a swoon. The officer had got the watch from a third party, and could give no account of the fate of the person to whom ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... narrow squeak," he thought. He felt faint, inclined to swoon, but held on to his ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... Rustem fell down in a swoon. The gentleman of Cashmere, supposing that he was liable to fits, had him carried to his own house, where he lay some time unconscious. The two cleverest physicians of the district were called in; they felt their patient's ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... did but swoon; though my two eyes grew blurred, Dimly yet I followed you and heard your every word. And my love a spouse's strength again unto me gave;— Breast to breast, my Catiline, we go ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... quality; which awaken on Winterfeld, as he rushes out double-quick on the advancing Austrians; and are fatal to Winterfeld's attempt, and nearly to Winterfeld himself. Winterfeld, heavily wounded, sank in swoon from his horse; and awakening again in a pool of blood, found his men all off, rushing back upon the main Schwerin body; "Austrian grenadiers gazing on the thing, about eighty paces off, not venturing to follow." Winterfeld, half dead, scrambled across to Schwerin, who has now come up ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... was soon seized with so violent a fit of the seasoning fever, that my Brethren, expecting my immediate dissolution, commended me in prayer to the Lord, and took a final leave of me. After this transaction, I fell into a swoon, which being mistaken for death, I was removed from the bed, and already laid out as a corpse, when I awoke and inquired what they were doing, and why they wept? They told me, that, supposing me to be quite dead, they were preparing for my burial. My recovery was very slow; and indeed, during ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... hot August morning. The broad streets glowed in the sun, and the white-shuttered houses stared at the hot thoroughfares like closed bakers' ovens set along the highway. Philip was oppressed with the heavy air; the sweltering city lay as in a swoon. Taking a street car, he rode away to the northern part of the city, the newer portion, formerly the district of Spring Garden, for in this the Boltons now lived, in a small brick ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... of a strong odor diffusing itself about me, and an overpowering sleepiness getting the better of me. I had drawn the bottle out, recorked it, and put it away again; but this was no sooner done than I fell in a sleepy swoon on the roadside. ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... arranges to have his own hired servant in the dress of a gentleman ascend a ladder and enter the house of Lionato at night, Timbreo being placed so as to witness the proceeding. The next morning Timbreo accuses the lady to her father, and rejects the alliance. Fenicia sinks down in a swoon; a dangerous illness follows; and, to prevent the shame of her alleged trespass, Lionato has it given out that she is dead, and a public funeral is held in confirmation of that report. Thereupon Girondo becomes so harrowed with remorse, that he confesses his villainy to Timbreo, and ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... accurately in words, the old man took me by the arm and dragged me violently towards him. This made me cry out for aid, because he was going to fling me under hatches in his hideous boat. On saying that last word, I fell into a terrible swoon, and seemed to be sinking down into the boat. They say that during that fainting-fit I flung myself about and cast bad words at Messer Giovanni Gaddi, to wit, that he came to rob me, and not from any motive of charity, and other insults of ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... whom from an infant—and you—both of you, what have you done? . . . Yesterday, only yesterday! . . . But to-day. . . . Four and twenty thousand sequins!" His arms on a sudden failed him, and he sank back in a deep swoon, his colorless face drooping on his shoulder. Now, while we did all in our power to revive him, and while one serving-man ran for the leech and another for the friar, meseemed that the old man's left side was strangely stiff and numb; ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... bower, Where nightly now they mix their sighs; And thought some spirit of the air (For what could waft a mortal there?) Was pausing on his moonlight way To listen to her lonely lay! This fancy ne'er hath left her mind: And—tho', when terror's swoon had past, She saw a youth of mortal kind Before her in obeisance cast,— Yet often since, when he hath spoken Strange, awful words,—and gleams have broken From his dark eyes, too bright to bear, Oh! she hath feared ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... galleon, was to direct Dyer to take the ship to the spot for which they had been aiming when they were intercepted by the galley, and anchor her there; then he descended to the sick bay, to find that under Chichester's skilled hands his brother had not only been revived from his swoon, but also that his terrible wounds had been bathed, treated with a soothing and healing ointment, bound up, and the patient made as comfortable as was possible upon a swinging pallet which the surgeon had caused to be rigged up in order that Hubert might not be disturbed by the motion ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... easily enough after that; but she was found to be in a swoon; and not the least bruised, though ten villagers had been pulling at her ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the moon Meets the deep shadow of this world, And laboring on doth seem to swoon Through awful wastes of dimness whirled— Emerged at length, no trace hath she Of that dark hour of destiny, Still ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... "Thou didst swoon, child," said Lord Shrope. "'Tis a matter that is of frequent occurrence among thy sex. Didst never ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... from paddle tip Myriad ripples swirl and swoon; Shiv'ring 'mid the ruddy stars, Mirrored in the deep lagoon, Faintly ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... After a veritable swoon, which lasted a few minutes, the captain, who was the first to regain consciousness, soon collected his ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... wear, child?' pursued Miss Fisher. 'Stephen Kingsland fell back in a swoon when he found he had missed ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... house softly closed, and he was gone. A few moments later the servants found her limp form lying in a swoon on the floor. ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... "Thus interrogated, in the midst of the Kurus and in their very hall, the son of Gavalgana became thoughtful for a moment and seemed to draw repeatedly deep and long sights; and suddenly he fell down in a swoon without any apparent reason. Then in that assembly of kings, Vidura said loudly, 'Sanjaya, O great king, hath fallen down on the ground senseless, and cannot utter a word, bereft of sense and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... wife would leave the locality without making a search for Old Mag. During the search, Captain Godfrey, whose strength had been severely tested since his arrival at Grimross in July, sank to the ground in a swoon. At this crisis his wife displayed the greatness of her character. As troubles thickened about her she seemed to develop qualities that only woman cast in an heroic mould are capable of exhibiting. She whispered to her husband, "We cannot find Mag, ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... methought these last words were uttered in the gruff tones of the big publisher. 'A thing merely to be sneezed at,' a voice like that of Taggart added; and then I seemed to hear a sternutation,—as I probably did, for, recovering from a kind of swoon, I found myself shivering with cold. The next day I brought ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... rise from her chair; she leaned her head, almost in a swoon, against the back of her chair, and stared, as if unconscious of what was going on around her, at the priest and the young man, who fixed his eyes on her at this moment with ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the coffin. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... back into her eyes, but it was as if she had come from a death-like swoon. He poured into her dull ears the story of the visit to Grace Vernon, but he was compelled to repeat it. Her ears ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... the words that fell upon the ears of Henry and Murtagh, when Saloo, swimming back to the shore, related to them what had transpired. And more too. She had recovered from her swoon, a long-protracted syncope, which had fortunately kept her in a state of unconsciousness almost from the moment of her capture to ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... vigorously, and rubbed the nerveless hands, I asked in much alarm, seeing how long and deathlike was her swoon: "Is she ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... their blood was flowing clear! In blood his arms were and his hauberk steeped, And bloodied o'er, shoulders and neck, his steed. And Oliver goes on to strike with speed; No blame that way deserve the dozen peers, For all the Franks they strike and slay with heat, Pagans are slain, some swoon there in their seats, Says the Archbishop: "Good baronage indeed!" "Monjoie" he cries, the call of Charles ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... to Zenda. And as she drove up the hill, with the Marshal riding by the wheel and still imploring her to return in obedience to the King's orders, Fritz von Tarlenheim, with the prisoner of Zenda, came to the edge of the forest. I had revived from my swoon, and walked, resting on Fritz's arm; and looking out from the cover of the trees, I saw the princess. Suddenly understanding from a glance at my companion's face that we must not meet her, I sank on my knees behind a clump of bushes. But there was one whom we had ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... his authority, though great, was circumscribed by ancient and noble laws which even the Tories would not patiently have seen him infringe. Here he could not hurry Dissenters before military tribunals, or enjoy at Council the luxury of seeing them swoon in the boots. Here he could not drown young girls for refusing to take the abjuration, or shoot poor countrymen for doubting whether he was one of the elect. Yet even in England he continued to persecute the Puritans as far as his power extended, till events which will hereafter ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... terrified that he nearly fell into a swoon; for he had only this one child. They therefore consulted together, and decided to send, not the princess, but a miller's daughter, who was very beautiful; and leading her out, they gave her a knife, ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... that tore thee now?— Why didst thou swoon and talk of murder, kings, Of hell and sulphur ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... in the icy winterbourne Floweth unheard: And half I pitied you your trance forlorn: You could not hear, I thought, the voice of any bird, The shadowy cries of bats in dim twilight Or cool voices of owls crying by night ... Hunting by night under the horned moon: Yet half I envied you your wintry swoon, Till, on this morning mild, the sun, new-risen Steals from his misty prison; The frozen fallows glow, the black trees shaken In a clear flood of sunlight vibrating awaken: And lo, your ravaged bole, beyond belief Slenderly fledged anew with tender leaf As pale as those twin vanes that break at ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... reunite me was standing on Arafat, with him. Whilst I was one plucked me from behind, standing on Arafat one so I turned and pulled me from behind, so behold, it was Abou Jaafer. I turned and behold, it At this sight I gave a loud was my man. At this cry and fell down in a sight I cried out with a swoon; but when I came loud cry and fell down in to myself, he was gone. a fainting fit; but when I came to myself he had disappeared from ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... prisoners, and has lately taken Lord Lovat, and Murray the secretary. There are flying reports of the Boy being killed, but I think not certain enough for the father(1232) to faint away again-I blame myself for speaking lightly of the old man's distress; but a swoon is so natural to his character, that one smiles at it at first, without considering when it proceeds from cowardice, and when from misery. I heard yesterday that we are to expect a battle in Flanders soon: I expect it with all the tranquillity that the love of one's country admits, when one's heart ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... sons of God. But, I say, how will they fail? how will they faint? how will they die and languish in their souls? when they shall still as they look, see their names wanting. What a pinch will it be to Cain to see his brother there recorded, and he himself left out. Absalom will now swoon, and be as one that giveth up the ghost, when he shall see David his father, and Solomon his brother written here, while he withal is written in the earth, among the damned. Thus, I say, will sadness be added to sadness, in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... my name Floweth; and then, as in a swoon, With dinning sound my ears are rife, My tremulous tongue faltereth, I lose my colour, I lose my breath, I drink the cup of a costly death, Brimm'd with delirious ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... is nothing more, perhaps, than a fond imagination. It matters not. Who knows not the cogency of faith? That the pulses of life are at the command of the will? The bearer of these tidings will be the messenger of death. A fatal sympathy will seize her. She will shrink, and swoon, and perish, at ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... promise that Count Ammiani should be tried in Milan, and as the bearer of a paper to that effect, he called on his sisters to get them or Wilfrid to convey word to Vittoria of her husband's probable safety. He found Anna in a swoon, and Lena and the duchess bending over her. The duchess's chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz had been returning from Moran, when on the Brescian high-road he met the spy Luigi, and acting promptly under the idea ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fainted he would resuscitate her. She could not add that to her other ignominies. She clenched herself like one great fist of resolution till the swoon was frustrated. She sat still for a while—then rose, put on her hat, swathed her face in the veil, and went down the flights of stairs and out into ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... my own room. While my swoon continued Samaritans had borne me hither. Gentle hands soothed my brow; a physician was preparing wrappings for the injured limb, my right ankle being in a severely sprained state. I learned that I had been discovered lying mute and insensible upon the public highway. My lineaments had been recognised; ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... weight on his chest, grappling with his hands as if the dog were at his throat; but at last he uttered those words once more, "Christ has conquered;" then with a gasp, as from a freed breast, for his strength was going fast, fell back in a kind of swoon. Yes, he was delivered from the power of the dog, for after that, when he woke, it was in a different mood. He knew Ben, but he thought he had little Ambrose sitting on his pillow; held his arm as if his baby were in it, and talked to them smiling and tenderly, as if ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bedevilled with the task of the superlatively damned, to make one guinea do the business of three, that I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of my very short surname are in it." The rest of the letter goes off in a wild rollicking strain, inconsistent enough with his more serious thoughts. But the part of it above given ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... and the onset. Earth lies in a sunny swoon; Stiller splendor of noon, Softer glory of sunset, Milder ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... lay on the ground—her face turned to the floor. She stirred not. She seemed to have fallen into a deep swoon. ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach |
