"Wist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unto Luke Evangelist: For he it was (the aged legends say) Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray. Scarcely at once she dared to rend the mist Of devious symbols: but soon having wist How sky-breadth and field-silence and this day Are symbols also in some deeper way, She looked through these to God, and ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... babes, stifled half to death, Grow rosy at my country breath. I lent a shoulder to your ship; I moaned with that sad hermit's lip; I helped disperse the dragon's mist; And some bell's voice, 'twas yours I wist, I handed up to winds on high Who wing a loftier flight than I. But, hark! a rider leaves ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... two knights, that was Sir Lucan de Butlere, and his brother Sir Bedivere: and they were full sore wounded. Jesu mercy, said the king, where are all my noble knights becomen? Alas that ever I should see this doleful day. For now, said Arthur, I am come to mine end. But would to God that I wist where were that traitor Sir Mordred, that hath caused all this mischief. Then was King Arthur ware where Sir Mordred leaned upon his sword among a great heap of dead men. Now give me my spear, said Arthur unto Sir ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... But let none wist! Live, day by day, With little and with little swelling Thy tale of duty done—the way The wise ant-people ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... kissed it. And anon he was whole, and then he said:—Lord God, I thank thee for I am healed of this malady. So when the holy vessel had been there a great while, it went unto the chapel again with the candlestick and the light, so that Sir Lancelot wist not where it became, for he was overtaken with sin that he had no power to arise against the holy vessel. Wherefore afterwards many men said of him shame. But ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... worlds the Macedonian cried, He wist not Thetis in her lap did hide Another yet; a world reserved for you, To make more great than that he ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... chyldren. At mydnyghte Eulyn wente home, and thought no more of his chylde. As sone as he came home, his wyfe asked for her chyld. Whan she spake of the chylde, he loked on his shulder; and whan he sawe he was not ther, he said he wist nat where he was. Out vpon the, horson (quod she), thou hast let mi child fal in to the water (for he passed ouer the water of Dee at a brige). Thou list,[278] hore (quod he): for if he had fallen into the water, I shuld ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: pursue after them quickly; for ye ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... ble shuf' fled dan' ger ous grate' ful wist' ful ly mit' tens outstretched' res' cue un daunt' ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... adjudged Worthy, I am not worthy, nor my soul Willing to rest without them. Ah, I burn, Now in glad heaven, with grief, bethinking me Of those my mother's words, what time I poured Death-water for my dead at Kurkshetra,— "Pour for Prince Karna, Son!" but I wist not His feet were as my mother's feet, his blood Her blood, my blood. O Gods! I did not know,— Albeit Sakra's self had failed to break Our battle, where he stood. I crave to see Surya's child, that glorious chief who fell By Saryasachi's hand, unknown of ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... of the Burial Office, there was a play of light and shade upon this man of God who, like Moses, "wist not that his face shone." The majestic notes of faith and assurance which reverberate in the words of this service were, on his lips and in his sympathetic and superb reading, like the overtones and rich harmonies of an organ. There was no formalism nor coldness, ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... self-conceited he will be sure to fall. We who are followers of Christ need constantly to pray to be made humble, and kept humble. God made Moses' face so to shine that other men could see it; but Moses himself wist not that his face shone, and the more holy in heart a man is the more manifest to the outer world will be his daily life and conversation. Some people talk of how humble they are; but if they have true humility there will ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody
... the very few, that wist His Atlantean labour, swerved Their eyes to seek, and in the triumph missed, The ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... Gawain heard of his brethren's death he swooned for sorrow and wrath, for he wist that Sir Lancelot had killed them in malice. And as soon as he recovered he ran in to the king, and said, "Lord king and uncle, hear this oath which now I swear, that from this day I will not fail Sir Lancelot till one of us hath slain the other. And now, unless ye haste to war with ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... excluded Paulding, James K. Poe, William Powel, Eleazar Sapington, Lemuel Scales, Rev. William Secretary of the Navy Smith, Rev. Phineas Summers, Mr. Virginian Westgate, George W. Weld, Angelina Grimke White, Hiram Wist, William Texas Theodosius the Great Thessalonica, massacre at Thumb-screws Tiberius Time for relaxation, not allowed Times of scarcity Titus Tobacco worms eaten Tooth knocked out Tortures " eulogized by a professor of religion Trading with negroes Traffic in slaves Trajan ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... with strong sail-ropes, shove and heave with utmost strength trees great and long, that are exceeding strong, and go ye to one stone, all clean, and come again with strength, if ye may it stir." But Merlin wist well how it should happen. The knights advanced with mickle strength; they laboured full greatly, but they had not power, so that they ever any stone might stir! Merlin beheld Uther, who was the king's brother, and Merlin the prophet said these words: "Uther, draw thee ...
— Brut • Layamon
... and his wits were wildered and he began to rub his eyes, lest they be dimmed or darkened, and to gaze intently; but at last he was certified that no trace of the pavilion remained nor sign of its being; nor wist he the why and the wherefore of its disappearance. So his surprise increased and he smote hand upon hand and the tears trickled down his cheeks over his beard, for that he knew not what had become of his daughter. Then he sent out officials forthright and summoned the Grand ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... "Wist!" exclaimed the dame, lifting her hands. "Not to Amsterdam tonight, and you've owned your legs were aching under you. Nay, nay—it'll be soon enough to ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... foes is chiefest bliss I wist, * And on the courser's back be borne a list; Comes promising tryst a messenger from friend * Full oft, when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... merry a note Answered him, that all the wood rong So sodainly, that as it were a sote, I stood astonied, so was I with the song Thorow rauished, that till late and long, I ne wist in what place I was, ne where, And ayen me thought she song ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... may not be hidden; to wit, the sage and the fool, the richard and the pauper."[FN29] Now when Haykar had made an end of these injunctions and instances addrest to Nadan his nephew, he fondly deemed in mind that the youth would bear in memory all his charges, and he wist not that the clean contrary thereof to him would become manifest. After this the older Minister sat in peace at home and committed to the younger all his moneys and his negro slaves and his concubines; his horses and camels, his flocks and herds, and all ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... outlandish life He has quickened Mansoul, and it is only the part of a faithful Creator to provide for His creature her proper nourishment. What is it? asked the children of Israel at one another when they saw a small round thing, as small as hoarfrost, upon the ground. For they wist not what it was. And Moses said, Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man, according to the number of your persons. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... Mr. Beckett always when he can. We give without comment a mere list of these:—maugre, 'sdeath, eke, erst, deft, romaunt, pleasaunce, certes, whilom, distraught, quotha, good lack, well-a-day, vermeil, perchance, hight, wight, lea, wist, list, sheen, anon, gliff, astrolt, what boots it? malfortunes, ween, God wot, I trow, emprise, duress, donjon, puissant, sooth, rock, bruit, ken, eld, o'ersprent, etc. Of course, such a word as "lady" is made to do good service, and "ye" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... befell me then and there I know not well—I never knew— First came the loss of light, and air, And then of darkness too: I had no thought, no feeling—none— Among the stones I stood a stone,[21] And was, scarce conscious what I wist, As shrubless crags within the mist; For all was blank, and bleak, and grey; It was not night—it was not day; 240 It was not even the dungeon-light, So hateful to my heavy sight, But vacancy absorbing space, And fixedness—without a place; There were ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... might start As Mem'ry's elbow leans upon Time's Chart, Which shows, alas! how soon all men must glide Over meridians on life's ocean tide— Meridians showing how both youth and sage Are sailing northward to the zone of age: On to an atmosphere of gloom I wist, Where mariners are lost in melancholy mist. But gayer thoughts, like spring-tide swallows, dart Through youth's brave mind and ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... power, and put Sir Mordred back, that he fled and all his people. So when this battle was done, King Arthur let bury his people that were dead. And then was the noble knight Sir Gawaine found in a great boat, lying more than half dead. When King Arthur wist that Sir Gawaine was laid so low, he went unto him; and there the king made sorrow out of measure, and took Sir Gawaine in his arms, and thrice he swooned. And when he came to himself again, he said, "Alas! my sister's son, here now ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... BARKET. Colonel Wist! The devils have sprung out of the ground. They're pouring over our lift flank like Noah's own flood. The Union Army has started back for Winchester, on its way to the North Pole; our own regiment, Colonel, is coming over the ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... able to play four 'anded wist sometimes," said the mate, as he followed the skipper below to see what further room could ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... thy tail may toss, A running stream they darena cross; But ere the keystane she could make, The fient a tail she had to shake! For Nannie, far before the rest, Hard upon noble Maggie prest, And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle; But little wist she Maggie's mettle— Ae spring brought off her master hale, But left behind her ain grey tail: The carlin caught her by the rump, And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, Ilk man and mother's son, take heed: Whane'er ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... asked me again, by my oath, where Master Garret was, and whither I had conveyed him. I said I had not conveyed him, nor yet wist where he was, nor whither he was gone, except he were gone to Woodstock, as I had before said. Surely, they said, I brought him some whither this morning, for they might well perceive by my foul shoes and dirty hosen that I had travelled ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... break my heart, thou bonnie bird That sings beside thy mate; For sae I sat, and sae I sang, And wist ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... of him, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities; and he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed." With these quotations compare the following from Saint John: Chap. v. 13. "And he that was healed wist not who it was, for Jesus had conveyed himself away, a multitude being in ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... (As thilk holy Jew our elders taught) His beasts and his store shall multiplie: And sirs, also it healeth jealousie, For, though a man be fall in jealous rage, Let make with this Water his potage, And never shall he more his wife mistrist, Thughe, in sooth, the defaut by her wist: All had she taken priests two or three! Here is a mittaine eke, that ye may see. He that has his hand well put in this mittaine; He shall have multiplying of his graine, When he hath sowen, be it wheat or otes; So that he offer good ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Himself and her. As for instance, when she found Him among the doctors of the law, she for one moment suffered her humanity to get the better of her in anxious inquiries; and His reply, 'Why sought ye Me? Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?' was a sort of reminder to her, which she at once accepted. Again, at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee, when Christ turned the water into wine, He said to His mother, 'WOMAN, what have I to do with thee?' which meant simply: What ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... doing, I pray thee, and let as thou wist not that there were any such means (I mean ordained for to get God by); for truly no more there is, if thou wilt be very contemplative and soon sped of thy purpose. And, therefore, I pray thee and other like unto thee, ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... over the thought," said Randall, "but there was no way of living. I wist not whether the Ranger might not stir up old tales, and moreover old Martin is ill to move. We brought him down by boat from Windsor, and he has never quitted the house since, nor his bed for the last two years. You'll come and ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... who they were, answer was returned mee it was that notable Bandetto Esdras of Granado. O so I was tickled in the spleene with that word, my heart hopt & daunst, my elbowes itcht, my fingers friskt, I wist not what should become of my feete, nor knew what I did for ioy. The fray parted. I thought it not conuenient to single him out (being a sturdie knaue) in the street, but to stay till I had got him at more aduantage. To his lodging I dogd him, lay at the dore all night where hee entred, ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... "But wist I of a woman bold, Who thrice my brow durst sign, I might regain my mortal mold, As fair ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... he was brought into such feare, and as it were still looking behind him, for doubt of your comming after him, that as one out of his wits and amazed, he wist not what to doo, he hasted forward to his death, so that he neither set his men in order of battell, nor marshalled such power as he had about him, but onlie with the old authors of that conspiracie, and the hired bands of the barbarous nations, as one forgetfull of so great preparation which he ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... head is evil for the neck and shoulders.' To govern that lad shall ask no little wisdom; and if thou have it not, thou knowest where to ask. I would his mother had more, or that his father had lived. Well! that's evil wishing; God wist better than I. But the lad 'll be a sore care to thee, ...
— It Might Have Been - The Story of the Gunpowder Plot • Emily Sarah Holt
... worse: till the worst word came; and then the ill deed. Did the maledicent Bodyguard, getting (as was too inevitable) better malediction than he gave, load his musketoon, and threaten to fire; and actually fire? Were wise who wist! It stands asserted; to us not credibly. Be this as it may, menaced Rascality, in whinnying scorn, is shaking at all Grates: the fastening of one (some write, it was a chain merely) gives way; Rascality is in the Grand ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... 'Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone.' In all regions of life, the consummate apex and crowning charm of excellence is unconsciousness of excellence. Whenever a man begins to imagine that he is good, he begins to be bad; and every virtue ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... a great rowt, Fast they writen by one assent; There stode up one and cryed round about, Richard, Robert, and one of Kent: I wist not wele what he ment, He cried so thike there indede, There were stronge theves shamed and shent, But they that laked money ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous
... thou, O supreme city, O priestless Rome that shall be, take in trust Their names, their deeds, their dust, Who held life less than thou wert; be the least To thee indeed a priest, Priest and burnt-offering and blood-sacrifice Given without prayer or price, A holier immolation than men wist, A costlier eucharist, A sacrament more saving; bend thine head Above these many dead Once, and salute with thine eternal eyes Their lowest head that lies. Speak from thy lips of immemorial speech If but one word for each. Kiss but one ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... But little wist Marie Hamilton, When she rade on the brown, That she was gaen to Edinburgh town, And a' to ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... best sets ye,' said the bailie, as Andrew pressed forward to catch the answer to some question I had asked about Campbell; 'ye wad fain ride the forehorse an ye wist how. That chield's aye for being out o' the cheese-fat ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop
... of you," said he, smiling, to Nigel of Ely. He was one bishop; and William of Exeter, the other—Wal-wist the Saxons called him—laughed long. "Rahere is a priest at heart. Shall I make him a bishop, De Aquila?" ...
— Rewards and Fairies • Rudyard Kipling
... him they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... strength avail'd to speak, Recounts his piteous chance, his name, his home, How up the vessel's side ere while he clomb, And then sunk down in sleep; but who impell'd Its ebon keel, or tissued canvas swell'd, He wist not: faint, and lacking vital heat, He sought some needful aid from looks so sweet. "So brave a knight!—to yield of succour nought— What heart of flint could cherish such a thought? Yet where to harbour him, and how to hide?— The husband not at home, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... earnestly. "When I was a young maid I had foolish fancies like other maidens. Had I been left to order mine own life, I warrant thee I should have wed with one Master Pride, that was page to my good knight my father; and when I wist that my said father had other thoughts for my disposal, I slept of a wet pillow for many a night—ay, that did I. But now that I be come to years of discretion, I do ensure thee that I am right thankful my said father was wiser than I. For this Master Pride was slain at Evesham, when I ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... to Washington, must be named this one of pushing Thomas Jefferson, the scholar and man of peace, into the political embroglio and shutting the door. Then it was that Hamilton's taunting temper awoke a degree of power in Jefferson that before he wist not of; then it was that he first fully realized that the "United States" with England as a sole pattern ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... John beheld the King he was right glad, and greeted him with something like a malison.[1] The King answered not a word, as if he wist not what it behoved him to say. So Prester John ordered him to be taken forth straightway, and to be put to look after cattle, but to be well looked after himself also. So they took him and set him to keep cattle. This did Prester John of the grudge he bore the King, to heap contumely ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... went down into the wide-wayed city of the foemen, and he hid himself in the guise of another, a beggar, though in no wise such an one was he at the ships of the Achaeans. In this semblance he passed into the city of the Trojans, and they wist not who he was, and I alone knew him in that guise, and I kept questioning him, but in his subtlety he avoided me. But when at last I was about washing him and anointing him with olive oil, and had put on him raiment, and sworn a great oath not to reveal ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... shackled: and he spake with a dastard's smile, 'O guest, thine hands are heavy; now rest them for a while!' So I stretched out my hands, and the hand-gyves lay cold on either wrist: And the wood of the wolf had been better than that feast-hall, had I wist That this was the ancient pit-fall, and the long expected trap, And that now for my heart's desire I had sold ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... the girl now left alone in the drawing-room. She saw the Lady Catharine sink down upon the seat, her head drooped in thought, her hand lying languidly out before her. Pale now and distraught, the Lady Catharine Knollys wist little of what went on before her. She had full concern with the tumult which waged riot in ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... silently they rode home, - Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! The boy was lost in his delight: 'And, wert thou Empress this very night, I would not heed or feel the blight; Ye thousand leaves of the wild wood wist How Beauty Rohtraut's mouth I kiss'd. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... said Philippa, "and right glad are mine to light on no unfriendlier face. Truly at the first we took you for rebels, and had it not been for your coats and your standard, I had picked you off with my matchlock ere I wist who ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... woman and a fool, was gifted, need only be duly exercised to win the day. When Susan was gone, that parting arrow did quiver for a moment in Nettie's heart; but the brave little girl had, for that one night, a protection which her sister wist not of. After the door closed, Nettie fell back once more into that hour of existence which expanded and opened out the more for every new approach which memory made to it. Sweet nature, gentle youth, and ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... yet more bitterly they bewailed them, and the mariners were at their wits' end, as the gale grew hourly more violent, nor knew they, nor might conjecture, whither they went, they drew nigh the island of Rhodes, albeit that Rhodes it was they wist not, and set themselves, as best and most skilfully they might, to run the ship aground. In which enterprise Fortune favoured them, bringing them into a little bay, where, shortly before them, was arrived the Rhodian ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... King Suddhodana wist not of this; The portents troubled, till his dream-readers Augured a Prince of earthly dominance, A Chakravartin, such as rise to rule Once in each thousand years; seven gifts he has The Chakra-ratna, disc ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... for a moment and afar off to the seafarer, but a mortal foot has hardly ever trodden them. Vasobiove, however, in his boat alone, set sail from Nagasaki, and, in spite of wind and waves, landed on the green shore of Horaisan. Two hundred years he sojourned there; yet wist he not how long the period was, there where everything remained the same, where there was neither birth nor death, where none heeded the flight of time. With dance and music, in intercourse with wise men and lovely women, his days passed ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... eyes to have been voluntary and not cataleptic. At this moment we seem to pass into the region of the abnormal: "After this my sight began to fail; it waxed as dark about me in the chamber as if it had been night, save in the image of the cross, wherein I beheld a common light, and I wist not how. And all that was beside the cross was ugly and fearful to me, as it had been much occupied with fiends." Then the upper part of her body becomes insensible, and the only pain left is that of weakness and breathlessness. Suddenly she is totally eased ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... God's business," she continued. "And am I not one of his children, and 'wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?' It was not too good for the ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... wytte. yf I wist al my masters wolde so do Then from your seruyce I wolde not goo Speake now whether ye wyl or no And let vs know ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... Prioresse, by your leve, So that I wist I sholde yow nat greve, I wolde demen that ye telle sholde A tale next, if so were that ye wolde. Now wol ye vouche-sauf, my lady dere?" —"Gladly," quod she, and ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... arte the sonne of the lyuinge God/ as though Peter had bene as perfecte as an angell. But immediatly after/ when Christ preached vn to them of his deeth & passion/ Peter was angre & rebuked Christe & thought ernestly [that] he had raued & not wist what he sayde: as at a nother time/ when Christ was so feruently busied in healinge [the] people/ [that] he had not leyser to eate/ they went out to holde him/ supposinge that he had bene besyde him selfe. Ande one [that] cast out deuels in Christes name/ they forbade/ ...
— The prophete Ionas with an introduccion • William Tyndale
... wist before I kiss'd That love had been so ill to win, I'd lock'd my heart in a case of gold, And pinn'd it with a silver pin. And oh! if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee, And I mysel' were dead and gane, Wi' the green grass ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... a little speck, And then it seemed a mist; It moved and moved, and took at last A certain shape, I wist. ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... C. Not so, for then foote-men would have more land than their masters. P. He runnes far that never turnes. C. Not so, he may breake his necke in a short course. P. No man can call againe yesterday. C. Yes, hee may call till his heart ake, though it never come. P. Had I wist was a foole. C. No, he was a foole ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.04.06 • Various
... Even Tide they Talkde and Kist, For She was fayre and He was Kinde; The Sunne went down before She wist ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... sweetly did he hear confession, And pleasant was his absolution. He was an easy man to give penance, Whereso wist to have a good pittance; For unto a poor Order for to give, Is signe that a man is well y-shrive; For if he gave, he durste make a vaunt He wiste that a man was repentant. For many a man so hard is of his heart He can not weep although he sorely ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... for their brother's fate; but they wist not how to comfort her; and, while they sat mingling their tears together, it was announced to them that a humble maiden, bearing a message from the captive laird, desired to speak ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... wist before I kissed That love had been so ill to win, I 'd locked my heart in a case o' goud, And pinn'd it wi' a siller pin. Oh, oh! if my young babe were born, And set upon the nurse's knee; And I mysel' were dead and gane, And the green grass ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... changes us as we yield to Him. The beauty of this wondrous One within shines out of face and eyes, and touches those whom we touch. His presence transfigures when He is allowed to dominate. We are changed from within. Though like Moses and Stephen we will not wist of the transfiguration, only of the Great One whose presence within it is that makes the change. We know the peace and music within; others know more of the change ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... Now the man wist not where it was the angel would take him nor what he would show him there. And when they came the angel shaded the man's eyes with his wing, and when he moved it the man saw somewhat on the earth before them. For God ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner
... death of King Ban] Therewith a great passion of grief took hold upon him and shook him like to a leaf, and immediately after that he felt that something brake within him with a very sharp and bitter pain, and he wist that it was his heart that had broken. So being all alone there upon the hilltop, and in the perfect stillness of the night, he cried out, "My heart! My heart!" And therewith, the shadows of death coming upon him, he could ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... perfect remedy. He did so, Aristagoras shaved him with his own hands, read his friend's letter, and when he had done, washed it out, that no man should perceive it else, and sent him home to buy him a nightcap. If I wist there were any such knavery, or Peter Bales's brachygraphy,[58] under Sol's bushy hair, I would have a barber, my host of the Murrion's Head, to be his interpreter, who would whet his razor on his Richmond cap, and ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... the chieftain, and cheek-pillows held the head of the earl, while all about him seamen hardy on hall-beds sank. None of them thought that thence their steps to the folk and fastness that fostered them, to the land they loved, would lead them back! Full well they wist that on warriors many battle-death seized, in the banquet-hall, of Danish clan. But comfort and help, war-weal weaving, to Weder folk the Master gave, that, by might of one, over their enemy all prevailed, by single strength. In sooth 'tis told that highest God o'er human kind hath wielded ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... and full of fancies fraile, She woxe: yet wist she neither how nor why: She wist not, silly Mayd, what she did aile, Yet wist she was not well at ease, perdie; Yet thought it was not ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... relapse—a short one, but painful. In an incautious moment, when I wist not wot I wotted, I accepted an invitation from the chief engineer to go below. We went below—miles and miles, I think—to where, standing on metal runways that were hot to the foot, overalled Scots ministered to the heart and the lungs ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... my heart, thou bonnie bird, That sings beside thy mate; For so I sat, and so I sang, And wist not of my fate." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... wist not at first that this was He, That had raised such a boiling passion; For his old costume he had laid aside, And was come to court a mortal bride In a ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... before me in all her beauty. 'Read not Propertius and Tibullus'—that is easily refrained from; but read what I will, in a minute the type passeth from my eyes, and I see but her face beaming from the page. Nay, cast my eyes in what direction I may wist, it is the same. If I looked at the stained wall, the indistinct lines gradually form themselves into her profile; if I look at the clouds, they will assume some of the redundant outlines of her form; if ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... this strange sight Whose like before his eye had never seen, And, standing long astonished in sprite And rapt with pleasance, wist not what to ween, Whether it were the train of Beauty's Queen, Or Nymphs, or Fairies, or enchanted show With which his eyes might have deluded been, Therefore resolving what it was to know, Out of the woods he rose ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... threatened to betray, Whose eyes are joyous, and whose heart is gay; Around whose modesty a hundred arms, Aided by pride, protect a thousand charms; For you this ball is pregnant with delight; As glitt'ring planets cheer the gloomy night:— But, O, ye wist not, while your souls are glad, How millions wander, homeless, sick and sad! Hazard has placed you in a happy sphere, And like your own to you all lots appear; For blinded by the sun of bliss your eyes Can see no ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... ever spare what spared can be? And look! my friends have fared fain and free! They went and went wi' them my dear delight E'en from the day when friends to part were dight And turbid made their lost life's clarity. By Allah, ne'er I wist their worth aright Nor ever wot I worth of friends unite Till fared they, leaving flame ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Essays, too, I wist, And Sermons, to thy mill bring grist; And then thou hast the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... both spurring and reining his supple, cringing steed. "Eeeeeee-yip-yeeeee!" Thus vociferating, he rode straight at the footman, with apparently the deliberate wish to ride him down. He wist not that the latter had seen cavalry in his day, and was not easily to be disconcerted, and, finding that he failed to create a panic, he pulled up with the pony's nose almost ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, 'What is it? 'for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, 'It is the bread which the Lord hath given you ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... which occur in the Gospels receive from them a colouring of the same kind, as the answer which He gave His mother when He was twelve years old, 'Wist ye not that I must be about My Father's business?'" ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... sat clerks a great rout,[98] Which fast did write by one assent; There stood up one and cried about "Richard, Robert, and John of Kent!" I wist not well what this man meant, He cried so thickly there indeed. But he that lacked ...
— English Satires • Various
... equip th' antagonist of God, prompt in harness:— he had a guileful mind. A magic helm on head he set, he bound it hard and tight, braced it with buckles. Speeches many wist he well, ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... and Wederyngtoun for the bringing in of that person which they named King Richard, and Herry Percy, out of Scotland, with a power of Scots, and their power together seeming to them able to give you a battle, of the which intent Sir Thomas Grey wist of, but not Scrope as by me; of the which knowing I submit me wholly into your grace. And as for the taking of your castles in Wales, Davy Howell made me be host, so there were a stirring in the North; of the which point I put me wholly in your grace. ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife's devotion and the mother's tenderness? These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have the day without ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... Almighty God, 260 In such wise that the saint who heard His words Wist not what one of speaking men it was With whom he was conversing on the strand. "From the land of Mermedonia are we come, Borne hither from afar; our high-prowed ship Carried us o'er the whale's road with the flood, Our sea-horse fleet, all girt about with speed, Until ...
— Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew • Unknown
... yawning years after Our early flows Of wit and laughter, And framing of rhymes At idle times, At sight of her painting, Though she lies cold In churchyard mould, I took its feinting As real, and kissed it, As if I had wist it ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... truth. No true man is conscious that he is true; he is rather conscious of insincerity. No brave man is conscious of his courage; bravery is natural to him. The skin of Moses' face shone after he had been with God, but Moses wist not of it. ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Clout is not everybody, and albeit his old companions, Master Cuddie and Master Hobinoll, be as little beholding to their mistress poetry as ever you wist: yet he, peradventure, by the means of her special favour, and some personal privilege, may haply live by Dying Pelicans, and purchase great lands and lordships with the money which his Calendar and Dreams have, and will ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... romantic pages wist What romance is in the look. Oh, that I could be so bold, So romantic as to bold Half an hour the pensive wrist, And the burden ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... the senatorye where the senatours were assemblid/ And cryed wyth an hye voys/ that they had leuer/ and also hit were better for the comyn wele that a wyf shold haue two husbondes than a man two wyues/ The senatours heerynge this. were gretly abasshid and wist not what to saye/ ner how to answere/ tyll at laste that the child papire reherced to them all the caas and feet how hit was happend And whan the senatours herd & understood the mater they were gretly abasshid/ and comended gretly y'e Ingenye & wytte of the child that so wisely ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... spending,—never caring What will ensue, when all their coin is gone, And all too late, then thrift is thought upon: Oft have I heard, that pride and riot kissed, And then repentence cries, 'for had I wist.' ...
— The London Prodigal • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... you, uncanny Phantom, wist!... Whose is that towering form That tears across the mist To where the shocks are sorest?—his with arm Outstretched, and grimy face, and bloodshot eye, Like one who, having done his deeds, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... night their sails were fill'd, And onward each rejoicing steer'd— Ah, neither blame, for neither will'd, Or wist, what first ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... quod cornuta esset facies sua, for what our version has translated "he wist not that the skin of his face shone." The Hebrew word used means both a "horn" and an "irradiation." ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... wonder, while even the wondering precentor abdicated to join the vassal throng. But she knew it not—knew nothing, indeed, but that she was again in the unforgotten house of God, and pouring out her soul to the soul's great Comforter. And she sat down with the others when the psalm was done, but wist not ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... by divers ways To keep this merry tryst, But few of us have kept within The Narrow Way, I wist; For we are those whose ampler wits And hearts have proved our curse— Foredoomed to ken the better things And aye to do ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis |
