"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (a little sketch is given), which he handed to me, and which, after he left the room, remained on the table by me. I gazed at it, I know not why, for some minutes, till called away by the day's duties; and you will smile incredulously when I say that I seemed to myself to begin to descry reflected in it objects and scenes which were not in the room where I was. You will not, however, be surprised that after such an experience I took the first opportunity to seclude myself in my room with what I now half believed to be a talisman of mickle might. ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... in Alba whom we can dimly descry around Agricola's fortified frontier between the firths of Forth and Clyde, about 81-82 A.D. When Agricola pushed north of the Forth and Tay he still met men who had considerable knowledge of the art of war. In his battle at Mons Graupius (perhaps at the junction of Isla ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... would have to be) a decade of happiness beginning now, a decade of lovers of their own choosing, men of delicacy and wisdom, that thirty years from now there would be that poise and sweetness in the world that dreamers descry in far future ages. And here and there would be a beyond-man, indeed; and here and there cosmic, instead of ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... Quebec, in Mass. Hist. Coll. 3, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the French and English dates, the New Style having been adopted by the former and not by the latter.] At length, before dawn on the morning of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was in sight. Sail after sail passed the Point of Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four of them. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... striking aside into a field which formed part of the Park. "Adieu, civilization of street lights!" and he pressed up into a dark grove where I stumbled after, and next, under the twilight of a sky full of stars, could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost. We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... dreadful nor'wester howled along and lashed the narrow sea between England and the Continent; yet I kept our frail skiff before it, hoping, at daylight, to descry the lowlands of Belgium. The heart-broken woman rested motionless in the stern-sheets. We covered her with all the available garments, and, even in the midst of our own griefs, could not help feeling that the suddenness ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... remote a recess from particulars,' is the cause briefly assigned in this criticism for this want of correspondence hitherto. 'But it is manifest that Plato, in his opinion of ideas, as one that had a wit of elevation situate as upon a cliff, did descry that forms were the true object of knowledge, but lost the real fruit of that opinion by considering of forms as absolutely abstracted from matter, and not confined and determined by matter.' 'Lost the fruit of that opinion'—this is the author who talks so 'pressly.' ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... truth and of salvation; and that, as she was not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what you admonish me as to my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no intention to forsake the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... pride of Spain, and dragged the humbled banner of France in triumph at his stem. He was born yonder, towards the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, won in bloodiest ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Where were the ships?—Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and—I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, the murmurs ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... Shepherds look, What sudden blaze of majesty Is that which we from hence descry Too divine to be mistook: This this is she To whom our vows and wishes bend, Heer our ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... of the many points of elevation that command a view of this desolate strath, you may descry, towards its western extremity, a small, rude, but massive stone bridge, grey with age; for it was erected in the time of that laird of Assynt who rendered himself for ever infamous by betraying the Duke of Montrose, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... morn, the baron climb'd the tower, To view afar the Scottish power, Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow, Along the dusky ridge. Lord Marmion look'd:—at length his eye Unusual movement might descry. Their ranks inclining, wheeling, bending, Now drawing back, and now descending, The skilful Marmion well could know, They watched the motions ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... at Berwick no longer look out from the castle walls to descry the glitter of Southern spears. The bell-tower from which the alarm was sounded is now silent—the only bell heard within the precincts of the castle being that of the railway porter, announcing the arrival ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... for being compelled to perceive it! Still you are right—it is better to live, even in anguish and distress, than to die in anguish and distress; for he who lives has still a future before him, and is able to strive in it for revenge and compensation for the past. Let us descry our immediate future from the hill yonder, and there decide on ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... of his countrymen burst upon his sight, his heart heaved with an emotion quite new to him. He beheld with admiration the regular disposition of the intrenchments, the long intersected tented streets, and the warlike appearance of the soldiers, whom he could descry, even at that distance, by the beams of a bright evening sun ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... repeated in the sparkling crystal and glittering silver on the flower-decked tables. All about her Billy saw flushed-faced men, and bright-eyed women, laughing, chatting, and clinking together their slender-stemmed wine glasses. But nowhere, as she looked about her, could Billy descry the ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... village. We had entered a ravine and came on a cluster of wigwams to the lee side of a bluff. Dusk hid our approach; and the absence of the dogs that usually infest Indian camps told us that these fellows were marauders. Smoke curled up from the poles crisscrossed at the tepee forks, but we could descry no figures against the tent-walls as in summer, for heavy skins of the chase overlaid the parchment. All was silence but in one wigwam. This was an enormous structure, built on poles long as a mast, with moose-hides scattered so thickly upon it that not a glint of firelight came through except the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, Hispaniola and the other islands, because ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other in display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters into the pockets of the millionaires upon the hill. But these same thoroughfares that enjoy for awhile so elegant a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Egyptian marble, ascends to the fourth story, forming a balcony at each, where ottomans are placed, and from which a fine view of the curvature presents itself, from whence those who have ascended may descry those ascending. On the second story is a corridor, with moulded juttings and fretwork overhead; these are hung with festoons of jasmines and other delicate flowers, extending its whole length, and lighted by globular ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... eagerly, along the curves of the river, the grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to speak: my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern, black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting to see ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... 'the emerald girdle of the rose'—I know not what it means, unless Sah-luma considers the green calyx of the flower a 'girdle,' in which case his wits must be far gone, for no shape of girdle can any sane man descry in the common natural protection of a bud before it blooms! There was a phrase too concerning nightingales,—and the gods know we have heard enough and too much of those over-praised birds! ..." Here he was interrupted by one of his frequent ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... gaze on The battle from the far-off mountain's crest, But in our hearts to bear our fiery blazon, An Olaf's cross upon a mailed breast,— To look afar across the fields of flight, Tho' pent within the mazes of its might,— Beyond the mirk descry one glimmer still Of glory—that's ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... Her hurried departure was explained by a casual "I guessed I'd better," which Mr and Mrs Hilliard accepted as sufficient reason for a girl who had no ties, and more money than she knew how to use. Even Pixie's lynx-eyes failed to descry any sign of heart-break. But when the meal was over and the two girls retired upstairs for a private chat, Honor's jaunty manners fell from her like a cloak, and she crouched in a corner of the sofa, looking suddenly tired and worn. For the moment, however, it was not of her own affairs that she ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry 10 O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue Or ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... itself, we may therein descry great motives to bounty. Thus to employ our riches, is really the best use they are capable of; not only the most innocent, most worthy, most plausible; but the most safe, most pleasant, most advantageous, and consequently ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... banish the nameless forms that haunt the dim borders of insanity, he would sit in that valley for hours, regarding the wider-spread valley below him, in which he knew every height and hollow, and, with his exceptionally keen sight, he could descry signs of life where another would have beheld but an everyway dead level. Not a live thing, it seemed almost, could spread wing or wag tail, but Steenie would become thereby aware of its presence. Kirsty, boastful to her parents of the ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... soil rises gradually to a low series of ridges, from the top of which, at some distance from Hishi, the eye ranges far off toward the plains and the basin of the salt lakes. These ridges are convenient posts of observation. Scouts placed there can descry the approach of hostile Apaches. The latter roam up and down the plains, following the immense herds of buffalo, and prey upon the village Indians whenever the latter present any opportunity ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... ascended, and, when it was high over the town of Shopton, Tom headed the craft due west. Looking down he tried to descry Mary Nestor, in her carriage, but the trees were in the way, their interlocking branches hiding the girl. Tom did see crowds of other persons, though, thronging the streets of Shopton, for, though the young inventor had made many flights, there was always a novelty about them, ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... to be had at Budgett's. As custom increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... sent a kind reply, For CAPEL thought he could descry An admirable plan To study all their ways and laws— (But not their lady-fish, because He ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... seemed to threaten their advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa at the foot of a sierra, whence looking across the sea, they could descry Santa Catalina Island. This was San Juan Capistrano, and here they rested on the 25th. On the 28th they reached the Santa Ana river, near the present town of that name; a violent shock of earthquake which they experienced caused them to name the river Jesus de los Temblores[19]. July ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... in this or that man of prominence. What we should have talked about if he had not thus held the floor I could not guess. I had noted that there were upon a ponderous table six popular novels, as many magazines, and piles of the great dailies. Nowhere could I descry even a small collection of books of the sort which may furnish material for conversation. I tried to imagine the Philosopher drawing a certain beloved book of essays from his pocket, settling himself comfortably with his back to the drop-light, and beginning to read aloud to us, as he is ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... graziers who went on the way, But unto the Cripple for passage did pay. And every brave merchant that he did descry, He emptied their purses ere ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... others were brought, and it was impossible to distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... shall mind of man Descry Thy dazzling throne, And pierce and find Thee out, and scan Where Thou dost ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... upon it stood even, the tops of its magenta flowers as level as a lake—it was, in fact, a lake of faded crimson lying between shores of luxuriant green. The cart-ruts went right down into the flame-flowers, and she thought she could descry where they rose from them on the other side. Evidently the blossoming had taken place since the last cart had passed over, and no doubt many miles intervened between this and the next dwelling-house. Nothing but the thought ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... Wichehalse, with a sudden start of intuition, saw what her father had been unable to descry or even dream. The worthy baron's time of life for fervid thoughts was over; for him despairing love was but a poet's fiction, or a joke against a pale young lady. But Albert felt from his own case, from burning jealousy suppressed, ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... possession with our arms and encampments. Britain is discovered and subdued. How often on a march, when embarrassed with mountains, bogs and rivers, have I heard the bravest among you exclaim, 'When shall we descry the enemy? when shall we be led to the field of battle?' At length they are unharbored from their retreats; your wishes and your valor have now free scope; and every circumstance is equally propitious to the victor, and ruinous to the vanquished. For, the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... break away from the bonds that limit and restrain most Red brides? This is the question that has troubled ethnologists since the North was first invaded by the, scientific. We think we have found the answer. Along the shores of Fond du Lac we descry a long-legged wader, the phalarope. This is the militant suffragette of all bird-dom. Madame Phalarope lays her own eggs (this depository act could scarcely be done by proxy), but in this culminates and terminates all her responsibilities connubial and maternal,—"this, no more." ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... seas from Teuedos arise! The frighted Neptune seems to seek the shore, With such a noise, with such a dreadful roar: As in a silent night, when, from afar, The dismal sound of wrecks invades the ear: When rolling on the waves two mighty snakes, Unhappy Troy descry'd; whose circling stroaks, Had drove the swelling surges on the rocks. Like lofty ships they on the billows ride, And with rais'd breasts the foaming flood divide: Their crests they brandish and red eye-balls raise, That all around dispence a sulphurous blaze. To shore advancing, now ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... table of my little library a whole cart-load of French, German, American, and English journals and periodicals—whatever may be their worth? Of antiquarian studies, too, there is no lack. From some of our heights I can descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them. At the foot of it I was born, and there both father and mother still live to love me. And so one must ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... Brontean Pythoness, but when you open the last thrilling work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... and west, we descry dark mountains rolled up against the sky. These are the twin ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Long spurs trend towards the river, and in places appear to close up the valley. They add to the expression of many a beautiful landscape that opens ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... that the one led to glory and fame, While the other fulfilled not his heart-cherished aim; But the scales of mortality darkened his eye, And the thing I saw plainly he could not descry. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... passed the latter part of the night. Whilst replying, as ever courteously—for in the look and bearing of Maximus there was that senatorius decor which Pliny noted in a great Roman of another time—his straining eyes seemed to descry a sail in the quarter he continually watched. Was it only a fishing boat? Raised upon the couch, he gazed long and fixedly. Impossible as yet to be sure whether he saw the expected bark; but the sail seemed to ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... the literary Kazi with exemplary impartiality and severity; "denouncing evil doers and eulogising deeds admirably achieved." The morale is sound and healthy; and at times we descry, through the voluptuous and libertine picture, vistas of a transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates in Plato. Subtle corruption and covert licentiousness are utterly absent; we find more real"vice" in many a short French roman, say La Dame aux Camelias, and in not a few English ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... one great distant existing glacier was marked by two waving parallel lines of lateral moraines, which formed, as it were, a vast raised gutter, or channel, ascending from perhaps 16,000 feet elevation, till it was hidden behind a spur in the valley. With a telescope I could descry many similar smaller glaciers, with huge accumulations of shingle at their terminations; but this great one was beautifully seen by the naked eye, and formed a very curious feature ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... skirting the lake. You could almost see the rings made by rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once in the woods you had to feel your way, and the silence of it all, like the ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... with the king and inhabitants thereof, hee named it Seine, because it is very like vnto the Riuer of Seine in France. From this Riuer wee retired toward our shippes, where being arriued, we trimmed our sailes to saile further toward the North, and to descry the singularities of the coast. But wee had not sayled any great way before wee discovered another very faire Riuer, which caused vs to cast anker ouer against it, and to trimme out two Boates to goe to search it out. Wee ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... We too, O chiefs, of vulture race, Our line from Vinata may trace, Condemned, because we wrought a deed Of shame, on flesh and blood to feed. But all Suparna's(771) wondrous powers And length of keenest sight are ours, That we a hundred leagues away Through fields of air descry our prey. Now from this spot my gazing eye Can Ravan and the dame descry. Devise some plan to overleap This barrier of the briny deep. Find the Videhan lady there, And joyous to your home repair. Me too, O Vanars, to the side Of Varun's(772) home the ocean, guide, Where due libations shall ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... gradually in the east was a pale glimmer that, growing, showed great, black masses of torn cloud scudding fast above our reeling mastheads and all about us a troubled sea. But as the light grew, look how I might, nowhere could I descry aught of any ship upon that ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the act of rushing off to pack your things—one moment: this essay has yet to be finished. We have yet to glance at those two extremes between which the mean is good guestship. Far to the right of the good guest, we descry the parasite; far to the left, the churl again. Not the same churl, perhaps. We do not know that Corin's master was ever sampled as a guest. I am inclined to call yonder speck Dante—Dante Alighieri, of whom we do know that he received during his exile much hospitality ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... boughs of a spreading pine in a few minutes, and could descry a broad plain, with tents scattered here and there; still farther on the broad uplands frame buildings with a red and white flag floating to the wind could be seen. Back of all this he could make out a broad expanse of water and a few ungainly craft, lazily moving to the current ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... own? How wilt thou say Unto thy brother, let me take away The mote that's in thine eye, when yet 'tis plain The beam that's in thine own doth still remain? First cast away the beam, thou hypocrite, From thine own eye, so shall thy clearer sight The better be enabled to descry, And pluck the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not to dogs the things that are divine, Neither cast ye your pearls before the swine Lest that they should their feet them trample under, And turn upon ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer 'puts himself' to descry the results ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of the wind was terrible; and only by creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef, three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove towards the land, struck against the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... made no change of laws, And senates heard before they judged a cause; 60 How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish tribe, Dart the quick taunt, and edge the piercing gibe! Attentive, truth and nature to descry, And pierce each scene with philosophic eye, To thee were solemn toys or empty show The robes of pleasure, and the veils of woe: All aid the farce, and all thy mirth maintain, Whose joys are causeless, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the Baron climbed the tower, To view afar the Scottish power Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow, Along the dusky ridge. Long Marmion looked: at length his eye Unusual movement might descry Amid the shifting lines: The Scottish host drawn out appears, For flashing on the hedge of spears The eastern sunbeam shines. Their front now deepening, now extending; Their flank inclining, wheeling, ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake their fever-thirst, and escape from ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... exceeding weary and faint, not knowing how far off we should find any Tartars, on the sudden, there came two horses running towards vs, which we tooke with great ioy, and our guide and interpreter mounted vpon their backes, to see, how far off they could descry any people. At length vpon the fourth day of our iourney, hauing found some inhabitants, we reioyced like sea faring men, which had escaped out of a dangerous tempest, and had newly recouered the hauen. Then hauing taken fresh horses, and oxen, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... of mud, which ought, properly, to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always moved under the charge of an officer, and many were the anxious looks that we took with our spy-glasses, from a hill overlooking the road, on the days of their expected return, each endeavouring to descry his own. Mine came back to me twice; but "the pitcher that goes often to the well" was verified in his third trip, for—he ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. [14] They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... make out the formal but hazy stakes and posts, aligned in the distance to the end of sight; and here and there the swellings and round ink-blots of the dugouts. In some sections of trench one could sometimes even descry black lines, like a dark wall between other walls, and these lines stirred—they were the workmen of destruction. A whole region in the north, on higher ground, was a forest flown away, leaving only a stranded bristling of masts, like ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... immeasured dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home — Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... notion of concerning himself with the assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there—a torn and crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and apart ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... train of thought was the sudden suspicion that this very being was at that moment in close proximity. Unconsciously, Harvey rose to the sitting position and looked around, half expecting to descry the ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... a lover's care? Could guess the fraud, the coming change descry, And in the midst of safety feared a snare. Now wicked Fame hath bid the rumour fly Of mustering crews. Poor Dido, crazed thereby, Raves like a Thyiad, when the frenzied rout With orgies hurry to Cithaeron high, And ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... heights had gained Whence the wide realms of Nature we descry; In vain their eyes our longing fathers strained To scan with wondering gaze the summits high That far beneath their ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in broad dimensions strike our sight; Millions behind, in the remoter skies, Appear but spangles to our wearied eyes; And when our wearied eyes want farther strength To pierce the void's immeasurable length Our vigorous towering thoughts still further fly, And still remoter flaming worlds descry; But even an Angel's comprehensive thought Cannot extend so far as Thou hast wrought; Our vast conceptions are by swelling, brought, Swallowed and lost in Infinite, ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... scraps of schoolroom learning came back to my mind. That the stars were all suns, surrounded perhaps in their turn by worlds as large or larger than our own. Worlds beyond worlds, and others farther still, which no man might number or even descry. And about the distance of those wonderful suns too,—that one, for instance, at which I was looking,—what was it that I had been told? That our world was not yet peopled, perhaps not yet formed, when the actual spot of light which now struck my ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... the favoured companion of princes, yet he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spent some of his last hours within the walls of a prison; and though the Almighty granted him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes which were allowed to witness such wonders, were themselves doomed to ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... and repose themselves, the sun coming round and drawing up the vapors from below, the gross foggy air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud upon the mountains; and, all the under places being clear and open, the river Crimesus appeared to them again, and they could descry the enemies passing over it, first with their formidable four horse chariots of war, and then ten thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom they guessed to be all Carthaginians, from the splendor of their arms, and the slowness and order of their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... friends, 'tis fit and clear That each should consider what's most near. But as the general says, say I, One should always the whole of a case descry. We call ourselves all the Friedlander's troops; The burgher, on whom we're billeted, stoops Our wants to supply, and cooks our soups. His ox, or his horse, the peasant must chain To our baggage-car, and may grumble ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... but it was light enough to see that the ship had struck upon a reef. Straining their eyes, the alarmed passengers could descry land. Indeed, the reef was an ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... promise to return, And putting off thy ashy shroud At length disperse this sorrow's cloud. But woe is me! the longest date Too narrow is to calculate These empty hopes: never shall I Be so much blest as to descry A glimpse of thee, till that day come Which shall the earth to cinders doom, And a fierce fever must calcine The body of this world—like thine, My little world! That fit of fire Once off, our bodies shall aspire To our souls' bliss: ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... horizon; looking up, I shuddered as I beheld in the east all those splendid hues that announce the rising sun. At this hour, when all natural shadows are seen in their full proportions, not a fence or a shelter of any kind could I descry in this open country, and I was not alone! I cast a glance at my companion, and shuddered again—it was the man in the grey coat himself! He laughed at my surprise, and said, without giving me time to speak: "You see, according to the fashion of this world, mutual ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... when at last a tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on a stool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neck would allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strives to descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to take in something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while his fingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinking into the plastic material, applying ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... inducing her to honour me with a word or two of immediate communication. For I could see no reason why her opinions should prevent her from corresponding with one who, whatever might or might not seem to him true, yet cared for the truth, and must treat with respect every form in which he could descry its predominating presence. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... the wind was very light at southwest, with a mist and drizzling rain, but by three in the afternoon the two fleets could descry and count each ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the ground whereon these woes do lie; But the true ground of all these piteous woes We cannot without circumstance descry. ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... upraised Fraternal banners against a common foe, Against mine enemy, yon crafty villain. Ye sons of Slavs, speedily will I lead Your dread battalions to the longed-for conflict. But soft! Methinks among you I descry New faces. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... was not without its fascination for her. Leaning over the side of his dory, the sea girl would shiver with delight to descry those dismal forests over which they sailed, dark and dizzying masses full of wavering black holes, through which sometimes a blunt-nosed bronze fish sank like a bolt, and again where sting ray darted, and jellyfish palpitated with that wavering of fringe which produced ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... outside of Versailles—an adventure that had been a novel and delightful break in the prescribed routine of her much-chaperoned life. She crossed the waiting-room to a window and, holding aside her veil, looked out. At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window. Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... mercy!" said De Vaux. "Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some well-devised stratagem—the cry of some ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... for more than three months, when, about the middle of June, our attention in the cellars was distracted from doling out food, as that of the wretches we served was distracted from eating their scanty rations, by an unusual uproar in the street outside of our windows. We could descry, in the morning sunlight, military trappings, tattered cloaks, ragged tunics, dingy kilt-straps, sheenless helmets, unkempt beards, and brawny arms in the crowds which packed the narrow streets. The mob seemed made up of rough frontier ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... will show, and in a very singular manner, that every version, without exception, which came from Carey's hands, has a value affixed to it which the present generation, living as it were too near an object, is not yet able to estimate or descry. Fifty years hence the character of this extraordinary and humble man will ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Mayor's unwieldy State; Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe, Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are vain. [Footnote ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the morning, the whole army, in order of battle, began to descry the enemy from the rising grounds, about a mile from Naseby, and moved towards them. They were drawn up on a little ascent in a large common fallow field, in one line extended from one side of the field to the other, the field something more than a mile over, ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... seized him by the hair, and turned him over on his back, then threw myself upon my back, and dragged his head up high enough upon my breast to lift his mouth out of water, supporting him and myself by vigorous strokes with my feet. Looking round, as we rose on the crest of a sea, I could dimly descry the brig through the rapidly increasing gloom; and to my horror she appeared to be a long distance away. I had time only, however, for a momentary glance, when we sank into the trough, and I lost sight of her. A few seconds afterwards I caught sight of her again, and this time she was displaying ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... soul of youth should cry, "Man builds his temples 'tween me and the face Of Him whom I would seek; I cannot trace His purpose in their shadow, nor descry ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and the liar was standing in his night-shirt by the bed. Samuel's sleepy eyes could just descry him in ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... appeared at the ground-floor window, accompanied by a female of commanding appearance. He pointed us out to her. Behind them we could dimly descry a white tablecloth, a tea cozy and ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... very completely at Gottingen, was led to believe that not merely the debris strewn along its path, but the comet itself must have been in immediate proximity to the earth during their appearance.[1226] If so, it might be possible, he thought, to descry it as it retreated in the diametrically opposite direction from that in which it had approached. On November 30, accordingly, he telegraphed to Mr. Pogson, the Madras astronomer, "Biela touched earth November 27; ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... unclosed his wakeful eye, Up rose the sexton of that place profane, And missed the image, where it used to lie, Each where he sough in grief, in fear, in vain; Then to the king his loss he gan descry, Who sore enraged killed him for his pain; And straight conceived in his malicious wit, Some Christian bade ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... is she!" Seems written everywhere Unto me. But to friends and nodding neighbours, Fellow-wights in lot and labours, Who descry the times as I, No such lucid ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... acting, as she replied by gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... with delusive expectations! The end may be according to your hope—whether it will be so (which God grant!) is as inscrutable for angels as for men. But to descry that great struggles are yet to come is within reach of human foresight—that great tribulations must needs accompany them—and that these may be—you know not how ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... number of stagnant creeks and back-streams, a sort of knot in the interminable loops and windings of the delta. Here and there in the line of tree-tops was a gap showing where some waterway came through. Here and there, too, I could descry a tiny beach of mud a yard or two wide, with a hut and a canoe tied to the mangrove roots, and black, naked people crouched on their hams in the shadows cast by the forest, engaged in their—to me—mysterious business of living. ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... diet, the pemmican, was practically left untouched, as for the time being dog had completely taken its place. There was thus no great sign of depression to be noticed when we came back into the tent after finishing our work, and had to while away the time. As I went in, I could descry Wisting a little way off kneeling on the ground, and engaged in the manufacture of cutlets. The dogs stood in a ring round him, and looked on with interest. The north-east wind whistled and howled, the air was thick with driving snow, and Wisting was not to be envied. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... to the known. Cf. the first essay "On the Conversation of Authors": "Coleridge withholds his tribute of applause from every person, in whom any mortal but himself can descry the least glimpse of understanding. He would be thought to look farther into a millstone than any body else. He would have others see with his eyes, and take their opinions from him on trust, in spite of their senses. The more obscure and defective ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... given a wide berth, as giving warning of rocks underneath; but in the light-draught gig they have no fear of these, and with the swell still tossing them about, they might be even glad to get in among the kelp—certainly there would be but that between it and the shore. They can descry waveless water, seemingly as tranquil as ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... was such a scene as I may not paint; for you must know that your Indian hero is not content to kill. Like the ghoul, he must mutilate. Of all the Indian band attacked by our forces, not one escaped except the girl, whose form I could descry nowhere ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... the canvass we'll Adeline place, With her full and expressive dark eye; Decision of purpose is stamped on that face, And good scholarship too we descry. ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... within the precincts of our smiling village there must be a chord attuned to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste—whose life-springs all are dried—whose up-springing hopes all withered by the blighting touch ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... his being "God manifest in the flesh"? Now what, if one of his admirers had written panegyrical memorials of him; and his character, therein described, was so faultless, that a stranger to him was not able to descry any moral defeat whatever in it? Is such a stranger bound to believe him to be the Divine Standard of morals, unless he can put his finger on certain passages of the book which imply weaknesses and faults? And is it insulting a man, ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... violento, -a violent, impetuous, furious. virar tack, put about. virgen adj. virgin, chaste. virgen f. virgin. virginal adj. virginal. virtud f. power, virtue. visin f. vision, sight, apparition, phantom. vislumbrar descry, glimpse. vista f. sight, glance, eye, appearance, look. vvido, -a vivid, bright. vivienda f. abode. viviente adj. living. viviente m. living being. vivir live; vive Dios as God lives. ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... Bay there is the Island of Corregidor, situated 27 miles south-west of the city, towards which the traveller glances in vain, expecting to descry something of a modern fortress, bristling with artillery of the latest type which, if there, might hold the only channels leading to the capital against a hostile fleet. The anchorage for steamers is still half a mile ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman |
