"Erst" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and hot. It was as unmeasured and contemptuous as Francesco's erst recriminations, and it terminated in a challenge to the Count to meet him on horse or foot, with sword or lance, and that as soon ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... touch the chords of joy, but low And mournful answer notes of woe; 125 And the proud march, which victors tread, Sinks in the wailing for the dead. O well for me, if mine alone That dirge's deep prophetic tone! If, as my tuneful fathers said, 130 This harp, which erst Saint Modan swayed, Can thus its master's fate foretell, Then welcome be the ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... grass; And what though robins flock and pass, With subdued and sober call, To the old year's funeral; Though October's crimson leaves Rustle at the gusty door, And the tempest round the eaves Alternate with pipe and roar; I sit, as erst, unharmed, secure, Conscious that my store is sure, Whatsoe'er the fenced fields, Or the untilled forest yields Of unhurt remembrances, Or thoughts, far-glimpsed, half-followed, these I have reaped and laid away, A treasure of unwinnowed grain, To the garner packed and ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... nature in myths and symbols embodied in pathetic religious ceremonies was a spontaneous product. For how "Her fresh benignant look Nature changes at that lorn season when, With tresses drooping o'er her sable stole, She yearly mourns the mortal doom of man, Her noblest work! So Israel's virgins erst With annual moan upon the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... love, and children rose, The rough barbarians softened. The warm hearth Their frames so melted they no more could bear, As erst, th' uncovered skies. The nuptial bed Broke their wild vigor, and the fond caress Of prattling children from the bosom chased Their stern, ferocious manners." —LUCRETIUS, "ON THE NATURE OF ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... the back near the point with his thumb and finger, and twists it till it is like a ram's horn. Then he gives it back to John and says: "Thy knife is now stranger than it was, John, but 'tis not of so much use as erst." All marvelled at this feat, all save the fool Surly John, who raises a great outcry that his knife is marred. But Hardcastle, whose head was now pretty much filled with drink, cried out: "Hold thy peace, John; doubtless this youngling here ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... bluid was nevir sae reid, Edward, Edward. Your haukis bluid was nevir sae reid, My deir son I tell thee, O.' 'O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid, Mither, mither: O, I hae killed my reid-roan steid, That erst was ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Golden seen through tear-dimmed spectacles as she pores over the family Bible. He will meet her at the gates of death with a wonderful smile of love; and, as she walks upon the heavenly Jordan's shining waters, hand in hand with Him, she will see her erst-wrinkled face reflected from them in angelic beauty. Ah, but to tackle a Johann Wolfgang Goethe or a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—what an ordeal for the celestial Professor of Apologetics! Perhaps that's what the Gospel means—only by becoming little ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... I have brought for you; what is it?' To this he did not rap out 'salmon,' as we had all expected—good as it was to the smell, but 'erst riechen' (first let me smell it). This was a ruse on his part, and one to which I succumbed, for no sooner did I hold it nearer to his nose than he snatched it out of my hand! It was, however, promptly taken from him and he ...
— Lola - The Thought and Speech of Animals • Henny Kindermann
... I who erst beneath a tree Sung Bumkinet and Bowzybee, And Blouzelind and Marian bright, In apron blue or apron white, Now write my sonnets in a book, For my ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... your diviner airs, do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation? Tout au contraire! I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for his own use was invented by the Divinity of Healing and Poesy when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. The lightning of her ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... the Secret, flashed through the symbol obscure and mean, And I felt as a fire what erst I repeated with lips of clay; And I knew for the things eternal the things eye hath not seen; Yea, the heavens and the earth shall pass; but ...
— Ride to the Lady • Helen Gray Cone
... Grace auspicious wait, As erst thy Handmaids, when, with brow serene, Gay thou didst rove where Buxton views elate A golden Palace deck her ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... were clumps of trees, and scattered villages warned us that we were approaching a city. Far to the left rose the blue peaks of Taif, and the mountain road, a white thread upon the nearer heights, was pointed out to me. Here I first saw the tree, or rather shrub, which bears the balm of Gilead, erst so celebrated for its tonic and stomachic properties. I told Shaykh to break off a twig, which he did heedlessly. The act was witnessed by our party with a roar of laughter, and the astounded Shaykh was warned ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... my worthy lord; The faithful love that did us two combine In marriage and peaceable concord, Into your hands here do I clean resign, To be bestowed unto your children and mine; Erst were ye father, now must ye supply The mother's part ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... winds may stop thy luckless way, And spread fell famine through the suffering crew, Canst thou endure th' extreme of raging Thirst 45 Which soon may scorch thy throat, ah! thoughtless Youth! Or ravening hunger canst thou bear which erst On its own flesh hath ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Ein theologisches Buch erhaelt erst dadurch einen Platz in der Weltlitteratur, dass es Deutsch und Englisch gelesen werden kann. Diese beiden Sprachen zusammen haben auf dem Gebiete der Wissenschaft vom Christenthum das Lateinische abgeloest. Es ist mir daher eine grosse Freude, dass mein Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte in ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... new yoke, And from the vassal brook what never king Dared in the fulness of his power attempt? This soil we have created for ourselves, By the hard labor of our hands; we've changed The giant forest, that was erst the haunt Of savage bears, into a home for man; Extirpated the dragon's brood, that wont To rise, distent with venom, from the swamps; Rent the thick misty canopy that hung Its blighting vapors on the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the mild Indian Summer flooded hill and valley now. Where the sombre shades of green had erst clothed the forest, brilliant pennons of flame-colored, and crimson-dyed, and paler tints, shading into amber, and gray, and russet brown, lit up the woods with their ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... Whom erst in anguish lying For an unborn life's desire, As a dead thing in the Thunder His mother cast to earth; For her heart was dying, dying, In the white heart of the fire; Till Zeus, the Lord of Wonder, Devised ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides
... remaineth splendid and serene The hemisphere of air, when Boreas Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest, Because is purified and resolved the rack That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs With all the beauties of its pageantry; Thus did I likewise, after that my lady Had me provided with a clear response, And like a star in Heaven the truth was ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... traditions of the classical past, which now seemed to belong to another hemisphere, abandoned the attempt to realize pure forms, postponed high art; melody gave way to prose, the romance degenerated into the novel, and prose fiction, which erst had flitted only between the tongue and ear, entered, a straggling and reeling constellation, into the firmament of literature. Hence the novel is the child of human impotency and despair. The race thereby, with merriment and jubilee, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... in a certain land there once did dwell (How long ago it needs not I should tell) At the king's court a great astrologer, Ev'n such as erst was I, but mightier And far excelling; and it came to pass That he fell sick; and very old he was; And knowing that his end was nigh, he said To him that sat in sorrow by his bed, 'O master well-beloved and matchless king, Take thou and keep this lowly offering In memory of thy servant;' ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... love I'll ne'er forget, * Though lost my life for stress of pine and fret: I weep and wail through livelong day and night * As moans the dove on sandhill-tree beset. O fairest friends, your absence spoils my life; * Nor find I meeting-place as erst ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... give a glance at the old monastery, where Spanish monks once lorded it over their copper-skinned neophytes; at the church, where erst ascended incense, and prayers were pattered in the ears of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... words, Ottilia, blame my falsehood? Oh! in each feature of thy beauteous face I blush to read reproaches far more keen. Those glittering eyes, though now with lightnings armed, Which erst were used to pour on blest Caesario Kind looks, and fondest smiles, and tears of rapture; That voice, by wrath untuned, once only breathing Sounds like the ringdove's, amorous, soft, and sweet; That snowy breast, now swelled by storms of passion, But which in happier days by love was heaved, By ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... our boasted claim To nurse the precious juice 3. That maddened erst the Theban dame, ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she lived, I did. Now I shall do whatever erst I did not. The past is the past. There lies my hair, and with it my way of life. I have served one Master as well as I could. You see my reward. Now I'll serve another, and give him a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... it be so, not vainly have long years sent forth their heralds on the trackless deep, where high endeavors of exalted will which in themselves find no accomplishment, shall build at length perfection. Peacefully he[20] sleeps, who erst beheld the rifted shores of Greenland "glister in the sun, like gold:" and that deserted chief[21] whose angry moan once mingled wildly with the screaming winds and the hoarse gurgle of ingulfing waves, is unremembered now. But high Emprise died not with them. Have not our latter days beheld, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... mother I have little doubt but that she imagined it to be a visitation—a punishment upon her for having strayed for that brief season of her adolescence from the narrow flinty path that she had erst claimed to tread in the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... stood! Round it no palisade of wood Ran now as erst; A railing stronger, fairer than the first, And all of hammer'd iron—each bar Gold-tipp'd and regular— Walls Balder's sacred House. Like some long line Of steel-clad champions, whose bright war-spears shine And golden helms afar—so stood This glitt'ring ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... stealth, Scaling a slippery side, and scaled it well. The most left Love ship, hauling wealth Up Worm ship's side; While some few hollow-eyed Left either for the sack-sailed boat; But this, though not remote, Was worst to mount, and whoso left it once Scarce ever came again, But seemed to loathe his erst companions, And ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Sindbad the Seaman continued:—So I left the City of the Apes and embarked my cocoa-nuts and what else I possessed. We weighed anchor the same day and sailed from island to island and sea to sea; and whenever we stopped, I sold and traded with my cocoa-nuts, and the Lord requited me more than I erst had and lost. Amongst other places, we came to an island abounding in cloves[FN67] and cinnamon and pepper; and the country people told me that by the side of each pepper-bunch groweth a great leaf which shadeth it from the sun and casteth the water off it in the wet season; but, when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... entreated him with high regard and blessed him. Then said the Prince, "O assembly, I am in the presence of your worships, and be ye my witnesses. O Mubarak, thou art now freed and all thou hast of goods, gold and gear erst belonging to us becometh henceforth thine own and thou art endowed with them for good each and every. Eke do thou ask whatso of importance thou wouldst have from me, for I will on no wise let or stay thee in thy requiring it." With this Mubarak arose and kissed the hand of Zayn al-Asnam ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... instant in thy cruellest guise; * Here is my heart 'twixt fears and miseries: Pity, O lords, a thrall who, felled on way * Of Love, erst wealthy now a beggar lies: What profits archer's art if, when the foe * Draw near, his bowstring snap ere arrow {lies: And when griefs multiply on generous man * And urge, what fort can fend from destinies? How much and much I warded parting, but * 'When Destiny ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... Through that noble thane of AEthelred. There stood by his side a youth not grown, A boy in the fight, who very boldly Drew from the warrior the bloody spear, The son of Wulfstan, Wulfmaer the young; 155 He let the hard weapon fly back again; The point in-pierced, that on earth he lay Who erst his lord strongly had struck. Went then an armored man to the earl, He would the warrior's jewels fetch back, 160 Armor and rings and sword well-adorned. Then Byrhtnoth drew his sword from its sheath, Broad and brown-edged, ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... before I was able to rise and health returned to me. At the end of that time I went to the house where all this had happened and found it a ruin; the street had been pulled down endlong and rubbish heaps rose where the building erst was; nor could I learn how this had come about. Then I betook myself to this my sister on my father's side and found her with these two black bitches. I saluted her and told her what had betided me ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... with spoil. When the Oueen-mother heard this, her wit took wings for joy and she adorned the slave-girls of Al-Abbas after the finest fashion. Now he had ten hand-maids, as they were moons, whereof his father had carried five with him to Baghdad, as hath erst been set forth, and the remaining five abode with his mother. When the dromedary-posts[FN430] came, they were certified of the approach of Al-Abbas, and when the sun easted and their flags were seen flaunting, the Prince's mother ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... shines the silver queen of night, Upon fair Wye's soft stream; Which throws a ray of heavenly light Reflected from her beam. Yet this smooth water, wide and clear, This scene of sweet repose; Erst filled the villagers with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... neither wife, nor any hope of this world, standing in that rule of faith, where Thou hadst showed me unto her in a vision, so many years before. And Thou didst convert her mourning into joy, much more plentiful than she had desired, and in a much more precious and purer way than she erst required, by having ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... and bears together drew From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley, As erst, if pastorals be true, Came beasts from every wooded valley; And random passers stayed to list,— A boxer AEgon, rough and merry, A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst With Nais at the ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... erst had done To that proud bane of Troy, her god-resembling son [Achilles]. Drayton, ...
— 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.
... in even's parting beams, From his red trunk reflects a ruddier ray; While, flickering through the lengthen'd shadow, gleams Of gold athwart the dusky branches play. The jackdaws, erst so bustling on the tower, Have ceased their cawing clamour from on high; And the brown bat, as nears the twilight hour, Circles—the lonely tenant of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... overfilled with love's increase, There is no memory of the bygone year But growth in heart's and spirit's perfect ease: How hath our love, half nebulous at first, Rounded itself into a full-orbed sun! How have our lives and wills (as haply erst They were, ere this forgetfulness begun) Through all their earthly distances outburst, And melted, like two rays of light ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... she has concealed herself so effectually from my researches, that I might as well look for justice and clemency in the French Convention, as for this former friend in the plains and lanes of Chesington where, erst, she met me whether I would ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Erst, they're short. Then they breathe in their mystical tone An essence, a spirit, a draught which alone Can content Billy's lust, for the weird and unknown (Billy's out of his depth) they've an undefined sense Of the infinite 'mersed in their sorrow ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... angeblichen Luftsiege nicht mehr angegeben. Ueber seine Kampfmethode haben gefangene franzoesische Flieger berichtet: Entweder liess er, als Geschwaderfuehrer fliegend, seine Kameraden zuerst angreifen un stuerzle sich dann erst auf den schwaechsten Gegner; oder er flog stundenlang in groessten Hoehe, allein hinter der franzoesischen Front und stuerzte sich von oben herab ueberraschend auf einzeln fliegende deutsche Beobachtungsflugzeuge. Hatte Guynemer beim ersten Verstoss keinen ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... Noodoo;[FN85] and Awley[FN86] named the Good; And Feeho[FN87] called the Broad-backed; and Corpre Cromm the Bent; An Ailill, he from Breffny to help of Ailill went; A three whose name was Angus-fierce was each warrior's face; Three Eochaid, sea-girt Donnan[FN88] had cradled erst their race; And there fell seven Breslen, from plains of Ay[FN89] who came; And fifty fell beside them who all had ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... we are still in the soft Shakespearean mood, comes "Twelfth Night"—traditionally devoted to dismantling the Christmas Tree; and indeed there is no task so replete with luxurious and gentle melancholy. For by that time the toys which erst were so splendid are battered and bashed; the cornucopias empty of candy (save one or two striped sticky shards of peppermint which elude the thrusting index, and will be found again next December); the dining-room ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... while thou Achilles train'st, And new sworn soldiers' maiden arms retain'st, We, Macer, sit in Venus' slothful shade, And tender love hath great things hateful made. Often at length, my wench depart I bid, She in my lap sits still as erst she did. I said, "It irks me:" half to weeping framed, "Ay me!" she cries, "to love why art ashamed?" Then wreathes about my neck her winding arms, And thousand kisses gives, that work my harms: 10 I yield, and back my wit from battles ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... Nature, ever buoyant, ever young, If let alone, will sing as erst she sung; The course of circumstance gives back again The Picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain; Shows us the fount of Romance is not wasted,— The lights and shades ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... since coming to this land First in your sanctuary I bent the knee, Frown not on me or Phoebus, who, when erst He told me all my miseries to come, Spake of this respite after many years, Some haven in a far-off land, a rest Vouchsafed at last by dread divinities. "There," said he, "shalt thou round thy weary life, A blessing to the land wherein thou ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... pristine, quondam, ci-devant[Fr], late; ancestral. foregoing; last, latter; recent, over night; preterperfect[obs3], preterpluperfect[obs3]. looking back &c. v.; retrospective, retroactive; archaeological &c. n. Adv. paleo-; archaeo-; formerly; of old, of yore; erst[Ger], whilom, erewhile[obs3], time was, ago, over; in the olden time &c. n.; anciently, long ago, long since; a long while, a long time ago; years ago, yesteryear, ages ago; some time ago, some time since, some time back. yesterday, the day before yesterday; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... poor little soul, to squirl away books and slates, and scamper after the soldiers. Scarlet has been said to be like the sound of a trumpet; surely then a drum must be taken as the exponent of that ferocious mixture yclept thunder and lightning, erst dear to country bumpkins, and rendered classical by Master Moses Primrose's coat. It can scarcely be described as music, but rather as sound with an idea in it—the connecting link between mere noise and musical ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... currents woo the shade By the lofty pine-trees made, That cast a gloom like night, Ere day's last glories fade. Thy solitary voice The same bold anthem sung When Nature's frame was young. No longer shall rejoice The woods where erst it rung! ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... again, Thou rannest down into the lane To seek the doer of this wrong, Nor under hedgerow hunted long, When, sturdy, rude, and sun-embrowned, A child thy earnest seeking found. To him in sweet and modest tone Thou madest straight thy errand known. With gentle eloquence didst show (Things erst he surely did not know) How great an evil he had done; How, when next year the mild May sun Renewed its warmth, this shady lane No timid birds would haunt again; And how around his mother's door The robins, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... which they are eaten. It is no contemptible combination on a frosty morning. No wonder strong men forget the simple act of manslaughter they come there to achieve and sit sullenly down to be pandered to by him who was erst their torturer. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... that admits of no audible response from the people;' and all his genteeler hearers, sympathizing with the worthy man, felt how pleasant a thing it would be were the congregation permitted to do for him in the church what the Rev. Mr. Macfarlane, erst of Stockbridge, does for him in the presbytery. Corporal Trim began one of his stories on one occasion, by declaring 'that there was once an unfortunate king of Bohemia;' and when Uncle Toby, interrupting him with a sigh, exclaimed, 'Ah, Corporal Trim, and was he unfortunate?' ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... knew not, destiny cruel, As to many an earlman early it happened, When evening had come and Hrothgar had parted 45 Off to his manor, the mighty to slumber. Warriors unnumbered warded the building As erst they did often: the ale-settle bared they, 'Twas covered all ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin
... "With crest of gold should sultry SIRIUS glare, And with his kindling tresses scorch the air; With points of flame the shafts of Summer arm, 500 And burn the beauties he designs to warm;— —So erst when JOVE his oath extorted mourn'd, And clad in glory to the Fair return'd; While Loves at forky bolts their torches light, And resting lightnings gild the car of Night; 505 His blazing form the dazzled Maid admir'd, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... membres." 4 "Arnoul, verses du vin, "Arnold, gyue us wyne Et nous donnes a boire." And gyue vs to drynke." "Non feray; ie poyle des aulx. "I shall not, I pylle the gharlyk. Alles ainchois[1] lauer; Goo erst wasshe; 8 Vous beuuries bien a temps." Ye shall drynke ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... again where erst I haunted; Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted, And the low green meadows Bright with sward; And when even dies, the million-tinted, And the night has come, and planets glinted, Lo, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... old-fashioned skinkers and drawers, all with portentously red noses, were spreading a banquet on the leaf-strewn earth; while a horned and long-tailed gentleman (in whom I recognized the fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O'Shanter) tuned his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a dance, before partaking of the festal cheer. So they joined hands in a circle, whirling round so swiftly, so madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the Satanic ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... last clause, for I was now in a condition to feel a rather warm shame over my erst weak-knee'd collapse before a sheet and an illuminated turnip. I took the packet to my bedroom, shut the door, and sat myself down by the open window. The garden lay below me, and the dewy meadows beyond. In the one, bees were busy ruffling ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... that deck'd thy garland erst, Upon thy grave be wastefully dispersed? O trees, consume your sap in sorrow's source, Streams turn to tears your tributary course. Go not yet hence, bright soul of the sad year, The earth is hell when thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the house of God Has ceased to be a divine abode? That the Holy Spirit, which erst did brood O'er the Son of Man by Jordan's flood, In thine own pure form to the eye of sense, From its resting place has departed hence, And twitters the swallow, and wheels the bat O'er the mercy-seat ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... that was erst a husband pierc'd with sense of wife's distress, Whose tender heart did bear a part of all her grievances. Shall mourn no more as heretofore, because of her ill plight, Although he see her now to ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight 15 Ever so happy as when verse he write: So self admires he with ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... choke the crop's luxuriance, here, Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand. Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering pod, Pulse, or the slender vetch-crop, thou hast cleared, And lupin sour, whose brittle stalks arise, A hurtling forest. For the plain is parched By flax-crop, parched by oats, by poppies parched In Lethe-slumber drenched. Nathless by change ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... came pledge of perfect peace, This day to man came perfect unity, This day man's grief began for to surcease, This day did man receive a remedy For each offence and every deadly sin, With guilty heart that erst he ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... of derring-do, Burdeners of ocean's steeds, Strength enough it seems they needed All to slay a single man; When shall we our hands uplift? We who brandish burnished steel — Famous men erst reddened weapons, When? ...
— Njal's Saga • Unknown Icelanders
... victor in the field, What thanks, dread sovereign, shall thy toils reward! Such honours as delivered nations yield, Such for thy virtues justly stand prepar'd: When erst on Oudenarde's decisive plain, Before thy youth, the Gaul defeated fled, The eye of fate[6] foresaw on distant Maine, The laurels now that shine around thy head: Oh should entwin'd with these fresh Olives bloom! Thy Triumphs then would shame the ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... The wind, that erst had joined him in his grief, Now whispered strangely to the walnut leaf; Into the bird's song pleading notes had crept, The happy fountains in the gardens wept, And e'en the river, with its restless roll, Seemed calling "pity" unto ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... was one of the bowlers in the Wolcombe Eleven, whose cricket-ground was the very meadow in which he had erst gathered cowslips with Ruperta Bassett; and he had a canoe, which he carried to adjacent streams, however narrow, and paddled it with singular skill and vigor. A neighboring miller, suffering under drought, was heard ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... am slowly treading the mazy track That leadeth, through sunshine and shadows, back— Through freshest meads where the dews yet cling As erst they did to each lowly thing, Where flowers bloom and where streamlets flow With the tender music of long ago— To the far-off past that, through mists of tears, In its spring time loveliness still appears, ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)
... supply the light's lost ray; E'en a poor dog's willing service, Love, and guidance are denied; Till one day his groping finds him By the paralytic's side. There he hears the sufferer's moaning, And his very soul is moved. He's the truest sympathizer Who, like sorrow, erst has proved. ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Her lippes, erst like the corall redde, Did waxe both wan and pale, And for the sorrow she conceivde Her vitall ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... The savages—erst so active and lively—taken aback at his sudden appearance, now stood sullenly huddled together, somewhat apart in the gloom of the dingle. The fire extinguished, the chieftain—for such his dress and bearing bespoke him—wrathfully, scornfully, sternly rebuked them for their unmanly and barbarous ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... Therefore I am returned, lest confidence 140 Of my success with Eve in Paradise Deceive ye to persuasion over-sure Of like succeeding here. I summon all Rather to be in readiness with hand Or counsel to assist, lest I, who erst Thought none my equal, now be overmatched." So spake the old Serpent, doubting, and from all With clamour was assured their utmost aid At his command; when from amidst them rose Belial, the dissolutest ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... cottage driven— Worshipping her one relic, sad and dreamily, And whispered to the withered flowers Pascal had loving given: "Dear nosegay, when I saw thee first, Methought thy sweetness was divine, And I did drink it, heart athirst; But now thou art not sweet as erst, Because those wicked thoughts of mine Have blighted all thy beauty rare; I'm sold to powers of ill, for Heav'n hath spurned my prayer; My love is deadly love! No hope on earth have I! So, treasure of my heart, flowers of the meadow fair, Because I bless the ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Gothic sculpture fair, Did long Lord Marmion's image bear, (Now vainly for its sight you look; 'Twas levell'd when fanatic Brook The fair cathedral storm'd and took; But, thanks to Heaven, and good Saint Chad, A guerdon meet the spoiler had!) There erst was martial Marmion found, His feet upon a couchant hound, His hands to heaven upraised: And all around, on scutcheon rich, And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... that after come shall leave it. Then shall it be high time to cease from this So long, so great, so tedious exercise; For the great waters told you now by me, Will make each think where his retreat shall be; And yet, before that they be clean disperst, You may behold in th' air, where nought was erst, The burning heat of a great flame to rise, Lick up the water, and the enterprise. It resteth after those things to declare, That those shall sit content who chosen are, With all good things, and with celestial man (ne,) And richly recompensed ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... ihm, sie sprach zu ihm: Was lockst du meine Brut 10 Mit Menschenwitz und Menschenlist Hinaus in Todesglut? Ach, wuesstest du, wie 's Fischlein ist So wohlig auf dem Grund, Du stiegst herunter, wie du bist, 15 Und wuerdest erst gesund. ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... All over the continent of Europe, among the nations whose language is of Latin and Celtic origin, his muse inspires deep interest and pleasure. His extraordinary oriental poem, "Lalla Rookh," has been translated into Persian, and delights the literary sons of Iran as it erst thrilled the imagination and heart of all persons of poetic temperament in the British Isles. In the city of Dublin, a statue has been erected to his memory, close by the old senate, now used as the Bank of Ireland, and near the poet's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... warped our miserie. The Comets flaming through the scat'red clouds With fiery beames, most like vnbroaded haires: The fearefull dragon whistling at the bankes, And holie Apis ceaseles bellowing (As neuer erst) and shedding endles teares: Bloud raining downe from heau'n in vnknow'n showers: Our Gods darke faces ouercast with woe, And dead mens Ghosts appearing in the night. Yea euen this night while all the Cittie stoode Opprest with terror, horror, seruile ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... deluge on the South, and spread Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. Forthwith, form every squadron and each band, The heads and leaders thither haste where stood Their great Commander—godlike Shapes, and Forms Excelling human; princely Dignities; And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones, Though on their names in Heavenly records now Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... calm and solemn night: A thousand bells ring out and throw Their joyous peals abroad, and smite The darkness—charmed and holy now! The night that erst no name had worn, To it a happy name is given; For in that stable lay, newborn, The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven, In the solemn ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... my voice doth crave, Who erst, unsung, unwept, unfriended, In the grim Terror-days descended From the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... hath its merchandize; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet's forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,— As purply black, as erst to Pindar's eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . . The bay crown's shade, Beloved, I surmise, Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black! Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath, I tie the shadows safe from gliding back, And lay ...
— Sonnets from the Portuguese • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
... spot Where tears and silence long have been my lot. Time, to my heart, that higher love hath brought With which the lower can no more be sought; Time hath the latter into exile driven, And, to the first, myself hath wholly given, And consecrated to its service true The heart and hand I erst had given ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... Keyser—I was born at Spring, hys Garden, My father toe make me ane clerke erst did essaye, But a fico for ye offis—I spurn ye losels offeire; For I fain would be ane butcher ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... means." [428] So he said to Alaeddin's mother, "Go and tell thy son that I abide by the promise which I made him, but an if he avail unto my daughter's dowry; to wit, I require of him forty dishes of pure gold, which must all be full of jewels [such as] thou broughtest me [erst], together with forty slave-girls to carry them and forty male slaves to escort and attend them. If, then; thy son avail unto this, I will marry him ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte abgeleitet and rein von Selbstsucht vertheidigt haben.—WEINGARTEN, Revolutionskirchen, 447. Wie selbst die Idee allgemeiner Menschenrechte, die in dem gemeinsamen Character der Ebenbildlichkeit Gottes gegrundet sind, erst durch das Christenthum zum Bewusstsein gebracht werden, wahrend jeder andere Eifer fur politische Freiheit als ein mehr oder weniger selbstsuchtiger and beschrankter sich erwiesen hat.—NEANDER, Pref. to Uhden's Wilberforce, p. v. The rights of individuals and the justice due to them are as dear ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... suffyce to wryghte, Of mirry Margaret, As mydsomer flowre, Jentyll as fawcoun Or hawke of the towre: As pacient and as styll, And as full of good wyll As faire Isaphill; Colyaunder, Swete pomaunder, Goode Cassaunder; Stedfast of thought, Wele made, wele wrought; Far may be sought, Erst that ye can fynde So corteise, so kynde, As mirry Margaret, This mydsomer floure, Jentyll as fawcoun Or ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin |
