"Poised" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gave the bride away: And when they married her, the little church Had seldom seen a costlier ritual. The coach and pair alone were two-pound-ten, And two-pound-ten apiece the wedding-cakes;— Three wedding-cakes. A Cupid poised a-top Of each hung shivering to the frosted loves Of two fond cushats on a field of ice, As who should say 'I see you!'—Such the joy When English-hearted Edwin swore his faith With ...
— Green Bays. Verses and Parodies • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... turned in at the various gates. Nobody, however, appeared to have gone in-doors, except for fans, armed with which immediately to return to rockers upon the shaded verandas. As Miss Tabor and Joe went by, the rocking-chairs stopped; the fans poised, motionless; and perspiring old gentlemen, wiping their ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... flowing / sleeves she backward flung, Then with grasp of power / the shield in hand she swung, And spear poised high above her. / So did the contest start. Gunther and Siegfried / saw ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... Across the top was a strong bar, which turned on a pivot made in the top of the post, so that it would go round and round. To one end of this cross-bar there was fixed a square board for a target; to the other end was hung a heavy club. The cross-bar was so poised upon the central pivot that it would move very easily. In playing the game, the competitors, mounted on horseback, were to ride, one after another, under the target-end of the cross-bar, and hurl their ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... confronting him a tall and beautiful young woman. It was not the Aline Proctor he knew. It was not the well-poised, gracious, and distinguished beauty he had seen gliding among the tables at Sherry's or throwing smiles over the footlights. This Aline Proctor was a very indignant young person, with flashing eyes, tossing head, and ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... as she launched these thunderbolts of invective; the staircase her rostrum, her left hand poised impressively on the baluster, and the three snaky strands of brown hair that had writhed out of the waving-pins hissing Medusa-wise on each ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the avenue on the left, about a mile from the town, as one advances towards Colorado City. The entrance to the Garden is past Balanced Rock, an immense boulder which stands directly to the left of the road, poised on such a slender base that it suggests an irregular pyramid standing on its apex. To the right, as one passes this curious formation, is a steep wall of stratified stone, draped with clinging vines, and overgrown with evergreens. Pausing a moment on the ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... her large earthenware jar, poised it on her shoulder, and went out of the tent into the hot light. Silka lay on the sheepskin where her sister had left her, and turned her face to it, shaken with a storm of feeling that convulsed her slender body from head to ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... The submarine commander and his followers had succeeded in eluding the crew of the Ventura and dashed to the rail. There they poised themselves a brief moment, and then flung themselves headlong into the sea. Directly, dripping, they appeared on the deck of the submarine and dashed for the ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... belong to the stern hostess, and yet it was upon Wilhelmine standing in the doorway that every eye was fixed. She stood perfectly motionless, one hand upon the lintel of the door, the other holding her fan; her head was poised imperiously, chin tilted as when she sang; her lips were parted in a half-smile, and her eyes were fixed upon her Highness with her strange compelling look. Was the Duchess victorious? surely not—the homage of the whole company was to the beauty of ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... toilet. The light fell on a superb-looking cavalier. He was clad in full dress uniform, with the braid and stars of a brigadier-general. The erect figure was clearly defined by the coat, buttoned from chin to waist. Above, rose the proudly-poised head, with the lofty brow, the brilliant black eyes, the dark imperial and mustache, beneath which you saw ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... the big gold-colored lions that live in the wilds of the Harpeth Mountains out beyond Paradise Ridge. His head, with its tawny thatch that ought to have waved majestically but which was sleek and decorous to the point of worldliness, was poised on his neck and shoulders with a singularly strong line that showed through a silk soft collar, held together by an exquisitely worldly amethyst silk scarf which, it was a shock to see, matched glints from eyes back under ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... over Glen St. Mary, like a great bird poised against the western sky—a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of freedom. The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an occasional ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... after world swept before his vision, and it reefed the high topsail that rustled over Columbus in the morning breezes of the Bahamas. It has held the sword with which freedom has fought her battles, and poised the axe of the dauntless woodman as he opened the paths of civilization, and turned the mystic leaves upon which Milton and ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Move softly o'er the bowers Where lies in happy sleep a girl so fair! For ye have power, men say, Our hearts in sleep to sway, And cage cold fancies in a moonlight snare. Round ivory neck and arm Enclasp a separate charm: Hang o'er her poised; but breathe nor sigh nor prayer: Silently ye may smile, But hold your breath the while, And let the wind ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various
... probably wouldn't notice him any more than now. There was nothing he could do to impress her. He had thought Mona had poise, but now he saw that her manner was just an inadequate carbon copy of a completely spontaneous original. The woman, Sheila, managed to be poised, aloof, and yet friendly to everyone, simultaneously ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... at the words and the tone of this statement; she so much desired that her classmates appear dignified and well-poised to the freshmen. ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... true as hell," promptly retorted the other; "or, rather, as true as there is one for such wretches as you. Mr. Phillips," he added, turning to the hunter, who stood a little in the background, with his rifle poised on his left arm, with an air of carelessness, but, as a close inspection would have shown, so grasped by his right hand, held down out of sight, as to enable him to bring it to an instant aim,—"Mr. Phillips, were you ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... word reputation; yet can save both without a duel. Whose entertainments to greater men are respectful, not complementary; and to his friends plain, not rude. A good husband, father, master; that is, without doting, pampering, familiarity. A man well poised in all humours, in whom nature shewed most geometry, and he has not spoiled the work. A man of more wisdom than wittiness, and brain than fancy; and abler to any thing than ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... heart. Oh, may thy sacred power control Bach fiercer working of my soul, Damp every spark of genuine fire, And languors, like thine own, inspire! Trite be each thought, and every line As moral and as dull as thine! 180 Poised in mid-air—(it matters not To ascertain the very spot, Nor yet to give you a relation How it eluded gravitation)— Hung a watch-tower, by Vulcan plann'd With such rare skill, by Jove's command, That every word which, whisper'd here, Scarce vibrates ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... with her arms folded in front across the lines of her voluptuous form, her head poised high, erect as an arrow. Her mass of dark red hair rolled upward in a great curling wave from her face. From its crest a bunch of orange blossoms gleamed, clasping the filmy veil which fell, a white cascade, over the wilderness of delicate lace forming her train. She had turned half around, and this ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... room, framed on canvas, wave with the gales lodged behind them every second. A pair of "silver cupids, nicely poised on their brands," support a wood fire, which it is an occupation to keep from extinguishing; and all the illusion of a gay orange-grove pourtrayed on the tapestry at my feet, is dissipated by a villainous chasm of about half an inch between the floor and the skirting-boards. Then we have so ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... some curious emotion that was compounded of resentment and jealousy and astonishment darkening his face. So dignified, so poised, so strangely, hauntingly lovely she seemed, so much in demand and so quietly equal to all demands. Jim flattered his vanity for a while with the assurance that she was trying to impress as well as evade him, but could not long preserve ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... cried. "Miss Benham is—" He hung poised so for a moment, searching, as it were, for words of sufficient splendor, but in the end he shook his head and the gleam faded from his eyes. He sank back in his chair, sighing. "Miss Benham," said he, "is ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Holy Spirit within the higher self. Your symbols urge you to noble deeds, yet you will never be blessed by woman's love, nor aid. Do you see the standing well-poised form of a woman? Rising power—creative force. See she has her feet firm on the back of the monster snake. You will soon become master of your higher destiny. I feel inspired by a mighty impulse. You will stand before many people—see the tall, straight ladder of fame—I should say ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... on Suffering Creek, but it does not tell half of what lay somewhere in the back of his quaintly-poised mind. No one who knew him failed to realize his worship for his wife. His was a love such as rarely falls to the lot of woman. And his devotion to his girl and boy twins was something quite beyond words. These things were the mainspring of his life, ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... stood with the hair-brush poised half-way down a strand of hair, and listened. Yes, the car had gone on to the garage. What ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... the foot of the peak, we ascended it by a sloping ridge on the south-east face. Huge blocks of granite—some poised on a point as if the slightest touch would send them rolling and thundering to the plains below—covered the sides and summits of this and the smaller peak, to the north of which are several others scattered over about ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... steps and he would have reached the well—then what must take place? Perk was asking himself as he crouched there, his muscles set and his breath coming in little noiseless gasps—he resembled nothing so much as a cat ready poised to make a deadly leap upon a fat robin struggling with a worm that it had pulled halfway ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... frail in form, and very gentle of manner; but she also possessed that rare species of courtesy which, never declining to fastidiousness nor lapsing into familiarity, checked all curious intrusion, was it ever so insinuating; and the milliner and dressmaker was not less self-poised and compelling of respect than the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... being of man,—only in proportion, therefore, as the total force of the state kneels before each individual soul, and, without foolish intermeddlings, or confusions of order, proffers protection, service, succor. Here is a socialization flowing, self-poised, fertilizing; it is full of gracious invitation to all, yet regulates all; it makes liberty by making law; it produces and distributes privilege. Here there is not only community, that is, the unity of many in the enjoyment of common privilege, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... spear, poised it for a second or two above his head, then darted it like an arrow into the sea. Down it went straight into the centre of the green object, passed quite through it, and came up immediately afterwards, pure and unsullied, while the mysterious ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... and Augustine) been understood as a sort of primal chaos. It embraced everything, and directed the movement of things, by which there grew up a host of shapes and differences. Out of the vague and limitless body there sprung a central mass,—this earth of ours, cylindrical in shape, poised equidistant from surrounding orbs of fire, which had originally clung to it like the bark round a tree, until their continuity was severed, and they parted into several wheel-shaped and fire-filled bubbles of air. Man ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... verge of natural life, how few escape the too common lot of wretchedness! The danger that most threatens you, in the fast-approaching future, is that which threatens every young maiden. Your happiness or misery hangs nicely poised, and if you have not a wise discrimination, the scale may take a wrong preponderance. Alas! if it ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... one of their favourite haunts, near Cagliari, all the inhabitants are attracted by the splendour of their appearance. Like a triangular band of fire in the air, they gradually come onwards, until within sight of the lake. Poised on the wing for an instant, they hang motionless over the end of their weary flight; then, by a slow circular movement, they trace a spiral descent and range themselves like a line of soldiers in battle array upon the borders of the lake. But no one dares ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... roses hang over the trellise of the cloister. And as they did four hundred years ago, so do we now, rejoice. The great stalwart naked forms of Greece no longer leap and wrestle or carry their well-poised baskets of washed linen before us; the mailed and vizored knights of the Nibelungen no longer clash their armour to the sound of Volker's red fiddle-bow; the glorified souls of Dante no longer move in mystic mazes of light before the eyes of our fancy. All that is gone. But here is the fairyland ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... word, smiled, kissed her neatly but noiselessly, took up a paper and sat down. In the hall room the old maid held her two plugs of cotton poised, filled with anxiety. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... ruined towers and castles in which the Apennines abound, and of which Canossa, far off and indistinguishable in the haze, was the chief example. It was called 'The Tower of Rugino'. Beyond the deep trench of the Enza, poised as it seemed on its southern bank (but really much further off, in the Secchia valley), stood that strange high rock of Castel-Nuovo, which the peasant had shown me that morning and which was the landmark of this attempt. It seemed made ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... seemed to be darting from peak to peak in a swift and dazzling flight as he talked rapidly and brokenly, kissing her cheek, her neck, straining her so close to him that she could hardly breathe. Suddenly it poised above the memory of an old book of Renan's, "The Abbess Juarre," in which the eminent skeptic had somewhat clumsily attempted to demonstrate that if the world unmistakably announced its finish within three days the inhabitants would give themselves ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... voyageurs leaped. The tow-line was then passed round trees growing on the edge of the precipice, and the canoe tracked up the raging cascade. The waves almost lashed the frail craft to pieces. Once a wave caught her sideways; the tow-line snapped like a pistol shot, for just one instant the canoe hung poised, and then the back-wash of an enormous boulder drove her bow foremost ashore, where the voyageurs regained ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... verse of, well, perhaps of every conscious artist in our language. For it is not, as in Blake, literally unconscious, and wavering on every breath of that unseen wind on which it floats to us; it is faultless; it is itself the wind which directs it, it steers its way on the wind, like a seagull poised between sky and sea, and turning on its wings ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... ducks. It was past ten before he gained the green-gleaming and foam-whitened pool, sunk in the shadow of a tall gray rock over whose flat top three pine-trees swayed in the fresh breeze. Under them, looking to the child like a white cloud in a green sky, stood a beautiful young man, poised on the sheer brink for a dive. A single instant he stood there, clad only in shadow and sunshine, the next he had dived so expertly that he scarcely splashed up the water around him. Then his dark, dripping head rose in sight, his glittering arm thrust up, and he swam vigorously ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... doggedly to the huge trunk which trembled and shivered and plunged wildly at the pounding impact, when suddenly it brought up against a half-submerged rock, stopped dead, grated and jarred at the crash of following logs, poised for an instant, and then slanted into deeper water, while up the man's leg shot a twisting, wrenching pain, ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... George poised his finger over the transmitting key. "This will set forces in motion that can never be recalled. What we do here this morning is going to cause a lot ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... had become the centre of all her hopes, joys and aspirations; now what remained? Bitter, rebellious feelings hardened her heart when she remembered that even while she was kneeling, thanking God for his preservation from illness, he had already passed away; nay, his sanctified spirit probably poised its wings close to the Eternal Throne, and listened to the prayer which she sent up to God for his welfare and happiness and protection while on earth. The souls of our dead need not the aid of Sandalphon ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... cathedral entrance was on it now, and seemed to put a new soul into her features, varied by the beaming smiles as she cried out joyously at each new object-the gliding sails on the water, the curious forms of the crags, or the hawks that poised themselves in the air. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... America's leading portrait painters—as a striking example of colour scheme and interesting line. Also we have here a woman who carries herself with form. Mrs. Hastings is an accomplished horsewoman. Her fine physique is poised so as to give that individual movement which makes for type; her colour—wonderful red hair and the complexion which goes with it—are set off by a dull gold background; a gown in another tone of gold, relieved by a note or two of turquoise green; ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... an oriel window fell on the childish face and figure, glinting the yellow hair, and lighting up the radiant face, that yet had a tender, loving glance for the two who waited for her below. One little foot was poised, just in the act of stepping down to the next lower stair, and the fat hand grasped the polished railing, expressive of just enough caution to make it truly childish. In after years Jasper never ...
— Five Little Peppers And How They Grew • Margaret Sidney
... it in silent admiration. On the central stalk stood poised the figure of a girl so exquisitely formed and colored and so lovely in the expression of her delicate features that Dorothy thought she had never seen so sweet and adorable a creature in all her life. The maiden's gown was soft as satin and fell about ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... be must inevitably double up if it were cast loose. He had under his arm a hat of great size and weight, shelving downward from the crown to the brim, and in his hand a pair of white gloves with which he flapped it as he stood poised on one leg in a high-shouldered, round-elbowed state of elegance not to be surpassed. He had a cane, he had an eye-glass, he had a snuff-box, he had rings, he had wristbands, he had everything but any touch of nature; he was not like ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... the suit hung poised a little above black uneven flooring, turned back half toward the entrance mouth. A black ceiling was less than twenty feet above ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... certain strong, bright sweetness of look in a spare, worn face, and underlying the sweetness a still and deadly determination. The mender of nets saw, in his turn, a figure lithe and straight as an Indian's, a well-poised head, and a handsome face set in one fixed expression of proud endurance. A determined face, too, with dark, resolute eyes and strong mouth, the face of a man who has done and suffered much, and who knows that he will both ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... than 9,000 offshore entities, many aimed at commerce in India and South Africa, and investment in the banking sector alone has reached over $1 billion. Mauritius, with its strong textile sector, has been well poised to take advantage of the Africa Growth ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... shaft did I behold, From sky to earth it slanted: And poised therein a bird so bold— Sweet bird, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... colour; a jaunty brown jacket of substantial cloth, a little brown hat, with a brown and white wing perked on one side of it; no colour, except a soft pink that the cold air had laid on the cheeks with delicate skill. His quick eye noted too, the neat glove, the well-fitting little boot poised on the hearth of the stove. She looked like a little brown thrush about to spread its wings; but she did not fly, she walked over to the delivery and received a package of letters and papers, asking in low, clear tones, "Is the Eastern mail in?" The voice was in keeping with eyes, ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... a big boulder just ahead, poised almost miraculously on its edge, on the sloping hill-side. It looked as if a moderate blast of wind would send it headlong to the bottom. But it had stood there for centuries, a shelter for sheep in winter ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed
... mixture between the Indian and the white, which spoils both. It was a lovely morning; not a breath of air stirred the wide expanse of the Huron, as far as the eye could scan; and the canoe, as it floated along side of the landing-place, appeared as if it were poised in the air, so light did it float, and so clear and transparent are these northern waters. We started, and in two hours arrived at Goose Island, unpoetical in its name, but in itself full of beauty. As ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... lightly scented with the pink geraniums and blue lobelia and coral fuchsias that poised, urgent with colour, in the window-boxes at the open windows. Sunshine paused delicately just inside, where forms of pale-blue birds and lavender flowers curled up and down the cretonne curtains; and a tempered, respectful ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... fellow, who, though only seventeen years of age, and about sixty-five inches high, with a constitution naturally rickety and much impaired by premature brandy and water, had an undoubted courage and a lion's heart, poised, tried, bent, and balanced a weapon such as he thought would do execution amongst Frenchmen. Shouting "Ha, ha!" and stamping his little feet with tremendous energy, he delivered the point twice or thrice at Captain Dobbin, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... greater part of Europe. Parties of Russian cuirassiers, Prussian lancers, and Hungarian hussars; Cossacks, old and young, from those whose beards were grey with age, to those who were yet beardless, cantering along after their singular fashion—their long lances poised on their stirrups, and loosely fastened to their right arms, vibrating over their heads; long files of Russian and Prussian foragers, and long trains of Austrian baggage waggons, winding slowly through the crowd; idle soldiers of all services, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... As he hung poised on a brink of memory the screen door flapped shut, the grocery-boy was hurrying back, the horse was moving away, and the boy leaped to his side-saddle seat on the wagon while it was in motion. The delivery-wagons and their Jehus were the only ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the feeble bleatings of a new-born calf. A vivid flash split the night. In the momentary illumination details were limned sharply—the buildings, the groups of men on one side, the running figures on the other. And poised, stationary, as it seemed, in mid-air, above the instant eruption, hung a mushroom cloud of smoke and dust, specked with fragments of riven wood and shattered concrete. Through the succeeding contrasted blackness the debris thudded ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... Butifer's movements, the sure-footed grace with which the hunter swung himself down the rugged sides of the crag, to the top of which he had so boldly climbed. The strong, slender form of the mountaineer was gracefully poised in every attitude which the precipitous nature of the path compelled him to assume; and so certain did he seem of his power to hold on at need, that if the pinnacle of rock on which he took his stand ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... stood up, he showed a fine-made, powerful frame, over six feet in height, and perfectly poised. With a great easy stride he swept silently out of the shop; nor from gait any more than look would one have thought he had been all day at work on the remnant of property ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... flash. The knife hung poised over the knot—even at that moment was falling. Nothing was asked of ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... crouched like beasts, or revolved about each other, the gleaming blades poised in the air, their left hands seeking holding-place. Skinner struck first, his knife shining bright against the light as he slashed at Tovotsky's throat, but the Russian doubled down between his legs, and the pair fell heavily a yard ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... deuce game, was hotly contested. Her face ablaze with interest, Keineth held her little body tensely poised on one toe, ready for instant action. The faces of the crowd around her blurred into nothing—there seemed only left in her small world those two beyond ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott
... no! for to John the wonder of the flower with wings lay in the life which gave it power to move about and pay calls upon the other blossoms that must be always stay-at-homes. John chased it gaily, as one brother plays with another. And when it lighted on a rose-bush or a yellow broom-flower, or poised on a swaying blade of grass, he crept up and admired its lovely colors without touching the fragile thing. But at last, as if suddenly remembering an errand which it had forgotten, the butterfly soared quickly up and away over the treetops ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown
... the critical moment of balancing the notched plank under the revolving wagon wheel, in Stonewall Jackson's young voice, which held in it quite a trace of Miss Lavinia's decisive tone of command. Stonie stood in the barn door, poised for instant return along the path of duty to the front walk, only waiting to be sure his summons would be obeyed. Stonie was sturdy, freckled, and in possession of Uncle Tucker's big gray eyes, Rose Mary's ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... happened that Helwyse had never before been openly accosted by a member of this class of the community. Was this infringement of the rule the result of his own fall, or of the girl's exceptional effrontery? He had an indignant glance ready poised, but forbore to hurl it! The worst crime of the young woman was that she disposed of herself at a rate of remuneration exactly corresponding to the value of the commodity; whereas he, less economical ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... collapse into the recesses of the great chair. His scepter fell from his nerveless hand and rolled down the steps of the dais; the impetus it gathered carried it, rolling still, across the floor to the edge of the open pit; for an instant it lay poised on the edge, and then fell with a jangle of sound on the carpet of golden coins that lined Captain ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... their trunks. The unbroken surface of the water reflected its rays back in our eyes. The current was barely indicated by the gentle oscillation of a few water-lily leaves. Two big blue dragonflies poised and quivered upon our floats, and not a fish seemed to care ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... though, if the head of the pin be stuck in, say, a piece of bread, no motion will occur. The secret is that the heat of the hand causes a very slight upward current of warmed air, which is sufficient to make the very delicately poised ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... but a necessary consequence of his mode of life. He had to use men, and therefore to watch how he used them; to watch every word, gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do the fitting thing. It was hard work: but necessary for a man who stood alone and self-poised in the midst of the universe; fashioning for himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some not intolerable condition; depending on nothing but himself, and caring for little but himself and the father whom, to do him justice, he never forgot. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... winter) is the more, but if it perspire (as it doth in summer) it is the less." This was Bacon the Lord. What a falling off—from the experimentalist's point of view—from Bacon the Friar! We can fancy him watching a falcon poised motionless in the sky, and reflecting on that problem which to this day fairly puzzles our ablest scientists, settling the matter in a sentence: "The cause is that feathers doe possess upward attractions." During four hundred years preceding Lord Verulam philosophers would have flown by ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... highway and struck south. On my going through the woods I had chosen me a cudgel in place of the one lost, shortish and knotted and very apt for quick wrist-play, and I plucked forth my sailor's knife meaning to trim my staff therewith; but with it poised in my hand, I stopped all at once, for I saw that the point of the stout blade (the which I had sharpened and whetted to an extreme keenness), I perceived, I say, that the blade was bent somewhat and the point turned, hook-like. Now ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... hand, is the power of doing work. Falling water possesses energy; so does a stone poised on the edge of a cliff. In the case of water, it is called kinetic energy; in the stone potential energy. A pound of pressure against the stone will cause the latter, in falling, to develop an enormous ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... would stand at his side when the darkness thickened on ahead and obstacles drew across the path and Death overhead hung poised and menacing? ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... impression of her. She belonged to the morning, formed part of the gladness of universal Nature, an unfettered nymph-like being. To-day her mood was sprightly, bidding farewell to ceremony. Yet, he felt, she remained perplexing, because more detached than is the feminine habit, poised and ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... of the transepts are richly decorated in harmony with the style of the western faade. A graceful spire rises from the eastern part of the roof. It is called "The Angel's spire," from the fact that poised upon its summit is an angel covered with gilt and holding aloft a cross. This turret rises 59 feet above the roof of the church. The church itself is 486 feet in length, and from the vaulting of the roof to the pavement is 125 feet. The towers are 272 feet high. I noticed the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... quarter-deck a little knot of men seemed standing, a short distance apart from them was a strikingly handsome man, who, from his air of superiority, Lane at once knew to be the commander. His perfectly poised and graceful attitude, and thorough composure, as he removed a cigar from his mouth and motioned an order to the helmsman, struck the beholder ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... tempestuous wind and rain with all the keen dynamic life of time poised 'mid eternities. The happiest of my days battling with the elements in wonderful silences. At Mass with wonder the shining of the Host. My eyes were veiled from the chalice, but I felt two angels —guarding the acolytes. Again at the Credo the thunder ...
— The Forgotten Threshold • Arthur Middleton
... bravely in the closet as the field, So bountiful is Fate; But then to stand beside her, When craven churls deride her, To front a lie in arms and not to yield, This shows, methinks, God's plan And measures of a stalwart man, Limbed like the old heroic breeds, Who stand self-poised on manhood's solid earth; Not forced to frame excuses for his birth, Fed from within with all the ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... Moments passed, in which she had to set her teeth to keep from screaming aloud. The revolver was shaking so that she had to steady the barrel with her left hand. A shadow crossed one pane, the shadow of a head in profile, and pushed itself forward till shoulders, arm, and poised revolver covered the lower sash. Very, very slowly the head itself ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... light had suddenly flamed into view. It grew steadily larger. Tom poised the container and opened one ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... A sandy beach at the foot of Escape Cliffs was accordingly chosen. The observations had been commenced and were about half completed, when on the summit of the cliffs, which rose about twenty feet above their heads, suddenly appeared a large party of natives with poised and quivering spears, as if about immediately to deliver them. Stamping on the ground and shaking their heads too and fro, they threw out their long shaggy locks in a circle, whilst their glaring eyes flashed with fury ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... a little smile. She liked this big man with his halting tongue and quiet ways. She liked his awkward attempts to conciliate the coquette Xantippe—to extract a smile from the grave Nestorius, and she liked his manner towards herself. She liked the poised pipe and the jerky voice as he said, "Yes—coffee, ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... asked Phonny. In order to see Beechnut while he asked this question, Phonny had to twist his head round in a very unusual position, and look out under his arm. It was obvious that in doing this he was in imminent danger of falling, so unstable was the equilibrium in which he was poised upon ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... green mossy brim to receive it, As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips! Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed from that loved situation, The tear of regret will intrusively ...
— Gems of Poetry, for Girls and Boys • Unknown
... held his glass slackly poised while he mused. Kit, who was nearest the arch, turned and glanced out. He saw the reflected light quiver across the trampled sand and the dusty green of the limp palmettos. Then, below the latter, there was a pale-yellow flash and the president's glass fell with a tinkle. A pistol-shot rang out ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... a girl who might be his daughter; for not only was she, too, hall-marked American, but she was far too young to be the other's wife. A demure, old-fashioned type; well-poised but unassuming; fetchingly gowned and with sufficient individuality of taste but not conspicuously; a girl with soft brown hair and soft brown eyes; pretty, not extravagantly so when her face was in repose, but with a slow smile that ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... three of the Jackals looked round, and they saw these three of their comrades with their heads smashed in, lolling back in the chairs. The Farmer held the club poised in the air; down it came crack! on the head of the fourth Jackal. Then all the others began yowling and struggling to get free; but in vain, the cords held them fast, they could not stir; and in five minutes all the Jackals lay dead ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... too many kisses as she had been not to put too many caramels in half a pound when she had clerked in the little candy-store. Nowadays she would pause and watch the quivering scale of policy intently with one more sweet poised as if it were worth its weight in gold. The ability to stop while the scale wavers in the tiny zone of just-a-little-too- little and just-a-little-too-much is what makes success in any business of ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... seen; Only at night the lifting walls were still, And stars were bright and calm above each calm dark hill. ... I could not think but that a God grown old Saw in a dream or waking all this round of bold And wavelike hills, and knew them but a thought, Or but a wave uptost and poised awhile then caught Back to the sea with waves a million more That rise and pause and break at last upon the shore. A God, a God saw first those hills that I Saw now immense upholding the starry crowded sky: His breath the mist that clung their shoulders round, ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... flexile mail of the ancient heroes of Araby or Fez. His turban, which was protected by chains of the finest steel interwoven with the folds, was of the most dazzling white—white, also, were his tunic and short mantle; on his left arm hung a short circular shield, in his right hand was poised a long and slender lance. As this Moor, mounted on a charger in whose raven hue not a white hair could be detected, dashed forward against Pacheco, both Christian and Moor breathed hard, and remained passive. Either nation felt ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... had been lost that a safe bridge was found. When they had crossed, the configuration of the ice forced them to adopt a route which they would willingly have avoided. A steep incline of snow rose on their right, on the heights above which loose ice-grags were poised as if on the point of falling. Indeed, two or three tracks were passed, down which, probably at no distant period, some of these avalanches had shot. It was nervous work passing under them. Even Antoine looked up at them with ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... kneeling, with a portrait of Messer Marco Loredano in a full-length figure that is adoring Christ. For the Carmelite Friars the same master painted an altar-piece showing S. Nicholas in his episcopal robes, poised in the air, with three Angels; below him are S. Lucia and S. John, on high some clouds, and beneath these a most beautiful landscape, with many little figures and animals in various places. On one ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 05 ( of 10) Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto • Giorgio Vasari
... She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called "regal." A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily poised as a boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were like her mother's, but for the rest she went back to some stronger and livelier ancestor ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... to Mr. Figgis, whose pencil was poised over the paper. "Sigsbee Manderson has been murdered," he began quickly and clearly, pacing the floor with his hands behind him. Mr. Figgis scratched down a line of shorthand with as much emotion as if he had been told that the day was fine—the pose of his craft. "He and his wife ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... went to work vigorously with the tub, in throwing out the water. He labored so diligently and effectually, that in a few moments he had relieved the boat of the great burden of water within her. While he did so, he gave the young man such directions as enabled him to keep the craft poised with her head to the fierce gusts that beat upon her. In this position she rose and fell on the great billows, and shipped very little water. The steamer had started her wheels again; but while she did not venture ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic
... the King of Mazanderan heard of his coming, he sent some of his nobles to meet him. When Rustem saw them, he caught a huge tree that was by the wayside in his hands, twisted it with all his might, and tore it up, roots and all. Then he poised it in his hand as if it were a javelin. One of the nobles, the strongest of them all, rode up to him, caught one of his hands, and pressed it with all his might. Rustem only smiled; but when in his turn he caught the noble's hand in his, he crushed all the veins and bones, so that the ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... were in a situation, or possessed a capacity, to estimate with exactness the proportion of good and evil in the individual condition of mankind, it is more than probable we should find the balances by which these proportions are determined most accurately poised. We may safely, and ought unhesitatingly, to trust the hands in which they are placed, and the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... their weapons and struggled to their feet in answer to his call. The lion's gaunt body shot through the air. In two bounds, he was upon the goat-hunter. Baldos stood squarely and firmly to meet the rush of the maddened beast, his long dagger poised for the ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... above the eastern horizon, and threw his light like a stream of crimson flame across the water; and the meadow lark perched upon his fence stake, the blackbird upon his alderbush, the brown thrush on the topmost spray of the wild thorn, and the bob-o'-link, as he leaped from the meadow and poised himself on his fluttering wings in mid air, all sent up a shout of gladness as if hailing the god of ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... The position in which he stood made him appear larger than he really was. The scattered gleams and slant rays of sunshine that played around the spot invested him as with a supernatural halo, while a bright glow of light on the cliff behind detached him prominently from the surrounding shadows. He poised a spear in his right hand, and, while Edith gazed at him in terror, the weapon flew whistling through the air and was buried in the side of the wolf. But so close did the spear pass, that Edith involuntarily stepped ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... assuming the rounded graces of budding womanhood. Her skin was a clear pale olive with just the faintest and most delicate tinge of colour in the velvety cheek; her face was a perfect oval, and her small exquisitely poised head was covered with a wealth of soft, silky, chestnut hair, so dark as to appear black in the shade, but when a ray of light fell upon it, the rippling ringlets revealed the full beauty of their deep rich colour. The eyebrows ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... sufficiently cunning maneuver—first stunning the enemy with a blow and then crushing him before his senses returned. But he landed on nothing save hard gravel. The rider had whipped out of the saddle and stood poised, strong as the trunk of a ...
— Black Jack • Max Brand
... to a boulder poised on the glacier. It proved to be a very coarse granite with large crystals of quartz in it. Evidently the rock of which the pillars of the Gateway and other neighbouring ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... that their antagonists departed as swiftly and as mysteriously as they came. It was just two minutes of frantic, aimless conflict, and then the silent night was round them again, without any sound but the slow creaking of branches, the swish of leaves as they swung and poised, and the quiet croon of the ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... rods from where the breaker stood, there was a wide barn the whole side of which had been covered with brightly colored prints of beasts and birds, of long processions, of men turning marvellous somersaults, of ladies riding, poised on one foot, on the backs of flying horses, of a hundred other things to charm the eyes and rouse anticipation ...
— Burnham Breaker • Homer Greene
... their heads, shining with the full glare of midday heat. Tiny, gold-flecked, steel-blue flies poised in the air with vibrating wings. Their ears caught a gentle humming and buzzing all round them, and far away in the wood were heard now and again the tap-tap of the woodpecker and ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... are not of these; They bloom on earthly trees, Poised on a low-hung stem, And those may gather them Who cannot fly to where ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... of their first efforts at creation, the gods now took the giant's unwieldy skull and poised it skilfully as the vaulted heavens above earth and sea; then scattering his brains throughout the expanse beneath they fashioned from them ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... deserted one should be the place of places for reading a romance. The solitude, the strangeness, and the cradle-like swing, would all compose to shutting out the world. To paddle there some May morning, tie one's boat out of sight beneath, and climb up into the nest to sit alone half poised in the sky in the midst of the sea, should savor of a new sensation. After a little acclimatization it would probably become a passion. Certainly, with a pipe, it should induce a most happy frame of mind for a French novel. The seeming risk of the one situation would serve ...
— Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... for a little, then he said, "This is likely to be a more than usually pathetic case, because of the girl's unusual character and promise, and also because her brain is too delicately poised to stand the kind of shocks and jars that threaten her. You will take pity ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... his, a hunted, wild thing poised in question, mistrustful of the very wind, prick-eared, fangs ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... out directly. She poised herself on her sound foot, and she took her crutch, and beat it furiously three times on the ground. "He's a murderer! he's a murderer! he's a murderer! He has been the death of Rosanna Spearman!" She screamed that answer out at the top of her voice. One or two of the people at ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... use the arm," the coronel acquiesced. With a little difficulty Jose drew his arm from the sling, balanced his left elbow on the chair arm, and poised the violin. A half smile showed in the eyes of the coronel as he glanced at his guests. He, and they as well, expected a discordant, uncouth attempt to scrape out some ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... more bewitching than ever before. "An angel pointing the way to Paradise," thought Jack. They discussed the moon- kissed glades and leafy woods of shadowland. Did they know that in each leafy bough Cupid awaited with love's weapon poised? Jack drew in the oars and allowed the little boat to drift; it is sometimes wonderfully sweet to drift; sometimes we drift into the harbor of happiness; sometimes we smash against the rocks, and are left shipwrecked. Little did Helen dream that ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... winter. The fragrance of the earth was everywhere. Overhead the trees met in great, silent arches—Nature's Gothic, re-frescoed now in the delicate tints of spring by the brush of Nature's Master—beneath which all life seemed breathlessly poised as though in this dim-lit, sun-dappled cathedral of the forest a mute service were in progress. But the man—he did not seem to see, or feel, or be. Thus, without a sound except for the muffled shuffle of the old ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... the beauty and brilliancy of which greatly impressed me, sank and disappeared as the former. Next, I saw a terrible looking man clad in an enchanter's robe, standing alone upon an ice-crag. In the air above him, poised like a dragonfly, was an evil spirit, having a head and face like that of a human being. The rest of it resembled the tail of a comet, and seemed made of a green fire, which flickered in and out as ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... hear their answer, for she was watching his hand. It was poised just above the fruit-dish, as if he meant to plunge it ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... that the final disappearance of the colony would be the immediate sequel thereof. The sentence was that Smith's brains were to be knocked out with a bludgeon; and he was led into the presence of the chief and the warriors, and ordered to lay his head upon the stone. He did so, and the executioners poised their clubs for the fatal blow; but it never fell. For Smith, during his captivity, had won the affection of the little daughter of Powhatan, a girl of ten, whose name was Pocahontas. She was too young to understand or fear his power over the Indians; ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... at her, scratching his touzled yellow head, and turned to his wife, who was looking at him as she poised a forkful of fat bacon in the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case and pay the cost. And there will be some black men who can remember that with silent tongue, and clinched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet, they have helped mankind on to this great consummation; while I fear there will be some white ones unable to forget that with malignant heart and deceitful speech they ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... stooped. Taking firm hold of his foot, as it rested on the ground, with his left hand, he poised the edge of the knife on his heel, back of the iron ring; then, with all his strength, he gave one quick, sharp cut downward and severed the prominence of the heel, removing the greater part of the os calcis. Not a sound passed his lips. ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... of subalterns, all classified with reference to some one specialty. Bompain, the secretary, the steward, the man of confidence, through whose hands all the business of the establishment passed; and a single glance at that stupidly solemn face, that vague expression, that Turkish fez poised awkwardly on that village schoolmaster's head, sufficed to convince one what manner of man he was to whom interests like the ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... He poised himself grotesquely, in an attitude of mirth, On a damask-covered hassock that was sitting on the hearth; And at a magic signal of his stubby little thumb, I saw the fireplace changing ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... sideways beneath a veil; one hand drooped on the arm of her chair; the other held up an inverted human skull, into which a young Dionysus, smooth, brown and sidelong as the St. John of the Louvre, poured a stream of wine from a high-poised flagon. At the lady's feet lay the symbols of art and luxury: a flute and a roll of music, a platter heaped with grapes and roses, the torso of a Greek statuette, and a bowl overflowing with coins and jewels; behind her, on the chalky hilltop, hung the crucified ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... guided by that horoscope of which he alone knew the lesson, sanctioned the maiden's return to the city, to live outside which, though even in the loveliest places thereafter attainable, is to live in exile. I know for sure that he said of his sweet charge that flesh and spirit were so exquisitely poised in her perfect body that it needed but some breath of fate to scatter them irrevocably apart, as a child's breath can scatter the down of a dandelion to all the corners of a field. But though I thought of this now, as I beheld the girl and the elder ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... in the spot where a signature might have been there was a rough pen drawing of two hands, with fingers extended, talon fashion, menacingly, as though poised to strike at some unseen enemy. Quest, after their first moment of stupefaction, ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that instinct for the essential and vital which invariably possessed him, he gained a keen impression of it. It was of a delicately haggard child with a marvelously agreeable smile, a fine, high-poised head upon a thin neck, and an air of bored superiority. Combined with this was a touch of weariness about the eyelids which drooped in a lofty way. Cowperwood was fascinated. Because of the daughter he professed an interest in the mother, which ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... days—may pass without the compassing of a shot, or even hearing the whistle of the sentinel goat as he shrills the alarm far out of range and leads his fellows in twenty minutes to crags the hunter cannot reach in as many hours. Death crouches in the treacherous snow-crust beneath or the poised avalanche above. A false step or an inch's miscalculation of leap may make him a waif for the laemmergeier or land him among the buried villages of the last century. He toils on until success or starvation sends him home. In the former case he out-generals ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... poised ready to pounce, she waited for him to tell her. But he didn't tell her; he smiled inscrutably. He wasn't sure at what he was smiling. Perhaps it was that he was happy—happy in a worldly-wise fashion that he had never been with Terry. He could say anything ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... lighted up the world to view, Nor moon did yet her blunted horns renew, Nor yet was earth suspended in the sky, Nor, poised, did on her own foundations lie, Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown; But earth, and air, and water were in one. Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable, And water's dark abyss unnavigable. No certain form on any was impressed; All were confused, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... of good the thirsty sense allure, From passion's power alone [Endnote R] our nature holds Essential pleasure. Passion's fierce illapse Rouses the mind's whole fabric; with supplies Of daily impulse keeps the elastic powers 160 Intensely poised, and polishes anew By that collision all the fine machine: Else rust would rise, and foulness, by degrees Encumbering, choke at last what heaven design'd For ceaseless motion and a round of toil.— But say, does every passion thus to man Administer delight? That ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... From my perch among the branches I watched first a water-buck come to drink in the river; then a bush-buck; later, a tiny paa emerged from the bushes and paused at every step with one graceful forefoot poised in the air—thoroughly on the alert and looking round carefully and nervously for any trace of a possible enemy. At length it reached the brink of the river in safety, and stooped to drink. Just then I saw a jackal come up on its trail and begin carefully to stalk it, not ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... Love! I lay my wistful hands in thine A little while before you seek the dark, Untraversed ways of War and its Reward, I cannot bear to lift my gaze and mark The gloried light of hopeful, high emprise That, like a bird already poised for flight, Has waked within your eyes. For me no proud illusions point the road, No fancied flowers strew the paths of strife: War only wears a horrid, hydra face, Mocking at strength and courage, youth and life. If you were going ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... lesser drift into its gulf, drove low towards the plateau. She turned her face, watching it, and it seemed to belch wind like a bellows, for her skirt stiffened, and the loosened chiffon veil, lifting from her shoulders, streamed like the drapery of some aerial figure, poised there briefly on its flight through space. Then began cannonading. Army replied to army. The advancing film from the desert, grown black, became an illuminated scroll; thin ribbons of gold were traced on it, bowknots of tinsel. ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... away, through the wide, wide sky, The fair blue fields that before us lie— Each sun with the worlds that round him roll, Each planet, poised on her turning pole; With her isles of green, and her clouds of white, And her waters that lie like ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... into a house; and Hal, having nothing to do but enjoy life, stood waiting for them to come out. They returned in the same procession, only now the man had a sack of something on his shoulder, while the little chap had a smaller load poised in imitation. So Hal grinned again, and when they were opposite ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business I intend to talk it straight and use few words—and those ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... they went at a run, first Loveless, then the stump, bounding over the ground, then the charging rhino, headed straight for Kearton's camera. The Masai warrior stood by the tripod with his long spear poised high, and Kearton turned the handle and shouted ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... poised for muted growth in the next several years, marking continued recovery from the severe 1999 recession when GDP fell by about 4%. President PASTRANA's well-respected economic team is working to keep the economy on track, maintaining low interest ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... they rather wished to go Against a nation's than a native foe, And felt that this poor victim of self-will, Briton no more, had once been Britain's still. They hailed him to surrender—no reply; Their arms were poised, and glittered in the sky. 290 They hailed again—no answer; yet once more They offered quarter louder than before. The echoes only, from the rock's rebound, Took their last farewell of the dying sound. Then flashed the flint, and blazed the volleying ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... crust of pearl, poised always long-stemmed, yellow lilies, like hovering butterflies; and, in a clear space of water, each little wave caught the sun and sky reflection, so that it seemed rimmed with gold and set with a ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... hovering over the scarlet blossoms of the geranium, whose bright colour seems reflected on its own feathery breast; that insect which seems so thoroughly a creature of the air, never at rest; always, even when feeding, self-poised, and self-supported, and whose wings in their ceaseless motion, have a sound so deep, so full, so lulling, so musical. Nothing so pleasant as to sit amid that mixture of the flower and the leaf, watching the bee-bird! Nothing so pretty to look at as my garden! It is quite a picture; only unluckily ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... depended chiefly upon the fleet, Captain Barclay had no other alternative than to risk a general engagement. With this purpose he sailed on the 9th of September, with his small squadron wretchedly manned, and the next day encountered the enemy. For some time the fate of the battle poised in favor of the British, as the principal American ship, the Lawrence, struck her colours; but a sudden breeze turned the scale against them, and the whole of their squadron was compelled to surrender, ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... confessional-door being opened and the click of the handle which turned out the electric light. And it was full of shadows, too; a monstrous outline crossed and recrossed the apse behind the High Altar, as the sacristan moved about; once a hand, as of a giant, remained poised for an instant somewhere on the wall beside the throne. It seemed to the priest, tired and clear-brained as he was, as if he sat in some place of expectation—some great cavern where mysteries moved and passed in preparation for a climax. All was hushed and confused, yet ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... spell-inwoven clouds hung there to screen Its blinding splendour—through such veil was seen 590 That work of subtlest power, divine and rare; Orb above orb, with starry shapes between, And horned moons, and meteors strange and fair, On night-black columns poised—one hollow hemisphere! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... low, rejecting the very prevalent but erroneous idea that you are more certain of getting it away cleanly and well when it is poised high off the ground. The stroke that sweeps the ball well away from the low tee is the most natural and perfect, and it follows that the ball, properly driven from this low tee, is the best of all. Moreover, one is not ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... man must be a poet." Like Byron, Shelley, and probably Coleridge, Tennyson looked the poet that he was: "Six feet high, broad-chested, strong-limbed, his face Shakespearian and with deep eyelids, his forehead ample, crowned with dark wavy hair, his head finely poised." ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... material from which that great and stately superstructure was to be finally edified. But the architect who placed each block in its proper niche, who planned and designed the whole elevation, who planted the building firmly on the rock and poised the coping-stone on the topmost pinnacle, was the author of the 'System of Synthetic Philosophy,' and none other. It is a strange proof of how little people know about their own ideas, that among the thousands who talk glibly every day of evolution, not ten per cent. are probably ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... far the other does not seem to have noticed or recognized the black flyer that already is poised as a hawk above him. All at once there is a mighty swoop through the air like the drop of a bird of prey, and in no time the black flyer is immediately over the Englishman and the air is filled with the furious crackling of a machine gun, followed by the rapid ta-ta-ta of ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... joined him. Away they flew to a copse beyond the lake where hazels and alders grew. A bright, pebbly stream wound through this copse, babbling cheerily as it went, and both birds alighted on an overhanging bough to watch the tiny fish as they poised and darted backwards and forwards. At a bend of the stream a little higher up, a brilliant-hued kingfisher was on the watch, and another bird of much soberer plumage was perched on a hazel bough beyond. He ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... would free her from her terrible thralldom. Finally, an Indian, who was squatted behind a tree, gained a view of a tuft of her hair and brought his rifle to his shoulder. The sunlight that scintillated along the barrel of his weapon made it resemble a burnished spear, poised in his hand, while following it up to the stock, not only his crooked arm which supported the gun, but his entire profile was visible. Forgetting his own peril in his anxiety to slay the helpless girl, the Shawnee leaned several inches further forward, thereby discovering ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... great gusto. While he was so occupied he saw Mr. Brand, in the distance, slowly come down from Mr. Wentworth's house, nursing a large folded umbrella. He walked with a joyless, meditative tread, and his eyes were bent upon the ground. Felix poised his brush for a moment, watching him; then, by a sudden impulse, as he drew nearer, advanced to the garden-gate and signaled to him—the palette and bunch of ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... lightened. The day was coming, and the silent-flitting moth of night was turning into a butterfly of purest gold. The scarf still floated about her like a gold-edged cloud. The giddy whirl was over. She came to rest, poised, quivering in the light of the newly-risen sun, every line of her exquisite body in the accord of a perfect symmetry. Yes, she was amazing; she was unique. Wherever she went, the spell still held. But to-night she was as one inspired. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell |
