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Livelong   Listen
adjective
Livelong  adj.  
1.
Whole; entire; long in passing; used of time, as day or night, in adverbial phrases, and usually with a sense of tediousness. "The obscure bird Clamored the livelong night." "How could she sit the livelong day, Yet never ask us once to play?"
2.
Lasting; durable. (Obs.) "Thou hast built thyself a livelong monument."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Livelong" Quotes from Famous Books



... of my father's sorrow, of my mother's woeful plight, If afar in wood and jungle pass we now the livelong night, ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous

... with their bloom in May, Their sweet perfume on the vernal breeze Wide strew like the isles of the tropic seas, Where the paroquet chatters the livelong day. But the May-days pass and the brave Chask— O, why does the lover so long delay? Wiwst waits in the lonely tee, Has her fair face fled from his memory? For the robin cherups his mate to please, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... I said, it was very dull for Desire, in fact terribly dull. The only outside distraction all through the livelong day was the occasional passage of a team in the road, and her mother, too, usually occupied the chair at the only window commanding the road. And when the aching dullness of the day was over, and the candles were lit for the evening, ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... swells your breast, And the wild notes are still as sweet As when above the fragrant nest And the wide billowing fields of wheat You soared and sang the livelong day, And in the light ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... is what I was condemned to do hour after hour through the livelong day. The only respite comes when meals are brought in and during the night, when the prisoner is left alone. But throughout the day, from 6.30 in the morning to about 7 at night one must pursue the eternal round—two paces forward, right about, ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... The alabaster couch alone: But all its lucid substance shone With preternatural tight. They laid the corpse within the shrine! They closed its doors again: But nameless terror seemed to fall, Throughout the livelong night, on all Who ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... little superfluous steam. Only those who have shared the repressed monotony of their unceasing vigil can appreciate what such a day means. To be spared for a few brief hours the irksome round of routine, to smoke Woodbines the livelong day; to share, in the grateful sunlight, some vantage point with a "Raggie," and join in the full-throated, rapturous roars of excitement that sweep down the mile-long lane of ships abreast the sweating crews. This is ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie

... he took up the drinking-horn to drink, being thirsty, but the instant he touched the brim with his lips, lo! a great Wizard Champion armed to the teeth, sprang up out of the earth, whereupon he and Dermot O'Dynor fought together beside the well the livelong day until the dusk fell. But the moment the dusk fell, the wizard champion sprang with a great bound into the middle of the well, and so disappeared, leaving Dermot standing there much astonished at what had ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... provincial commanders, a "Palace of Generals," was created in Peking to which were brought all men it was held desirable to emasculate. Here, drawing ample salaries, they could sit in idleness the livelong day, discussing the battles they had never fought and intriguing against one another, two occupations in which the product of the older school of men in China excels. Provincial levies which had any military virtue, were gradually disbanded, though many of the rascals and rapscallions, who were ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... except when necessity requires. Well, they have now set out, and after marching all night by slow and easy stages, when morning comes our woodcocks make a halt wherever they happen to be, breakfast as best they may, and then ensconce themselves in some snug spot, where they doze the livelong day, till, refreshed by their twelve hours' rest, they set off again with renewed strength the moment the sun has ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... whether he willed it or willed it not, so sweet was its magic that there he must wait till the song was done. And now stronger and more gladly rang the sweet shrill voice, like the voice of one who has made moan through the livelong winter night, and now sees the chariot of the dawn climbing the eastern sky. And ...
— The World's Desire • H. Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang

... Calcutta houses and walls, he would dream night after night of his village home, and long to be back there. He remembered the glorious meadow where he used to fly his kite all day long; the broad river-banks where he would wander about the livelong day singing and shouting for joy; the narrow brook where he could go and dive and swim at any time he liked. He thought of his band of boy companions over whom he was despot; and, above all, the ...
— The Hungry Stones And Other Stories • Rabindranath Tagore

... see Mrs. Frankland. A cruel doubt had been knocking at her door the livelong day. It had demanded over and over whether her tremendous sacrifice was necessary after all. She had succeeded indifferently well in barring out this painful skepticism by two considerations. The one was, that Millard, who had almost asked ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... have a great deal to tell you verbally about Wagner. Of course we see each other every day, and are together the livelong day. His "Nibelungen" are an entirely new and glorious world, towards which I have often yearned, and for which the most thoughtful people will still be enthusiastic, even if the measure of mediocrity should prove inadequate ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... sweet to stray, With rod and line, the livelong day, Or trace each rural charm, away From cark of every callin'! There dove-like, o'er my path would brood The spirit pure of solitude; For native each rapt, genial mood ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... he struggled to drive from his mind and from his eyes the phantom of the terrible deed. But that he did not succeed was made evident to himself by the hot clammy drops of sweat which came out upon his brow, by his wakefulness throughout the livelong night, by the carefulness with which his ears watched for the sound of the young man's coming, as though it were necessary that he should be made assured that the murder had in truth not been done. Before that hour had come he found himself to be shaking even in his bed; to ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... little "cabins," neatly built, and standing in a double row, with a broad way between. Each cabin was a facsimile of its neighbour, and in front of each grew a magnolia or a beautiful China-tree, under the shade of whose green leaves and sweet-scented flowers little negroes might be seen all the livelong day, disporting their bodies in the dust. These, of all sizes, from the "piccaninny" to the "good-sized chunk of a boy," and of every shade of slave-colour, from the fair-skinned quadroon to the black Bambarra, on whom, by ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

... that in his home Deathlike stillness dwells for aye; The voice of mirth no more shall come, And mother sighs the livelong day. ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various

... she stayed the livelong day, Mute, motionless, her sad watch keeping; A stranger who had passed that way Would have ...
— The Dog's Book of Verse • Various

... going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone,— A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... the peasants of Europe, whose taste for bread they do not share. It is more keenly exciting to bet upon the future crop of wheat than upon the speed of a horse; and far larger sums may be hazarded in the Pit than on a racecourse. And so the livelong day the Bulls and Bears confront one another, gesticulating fiercely, and shouting at the top of their raucous voices. If on the one hand they ruin the farmer, or on the other starve the peasant, it ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... with leafage dight, A passion-load for thee, O my Desire, I must endure, * And boast I that to bear such load no lover hath the might. Question the Night of me and Night thy soul shall satisfy * Mine eyelids never close in sleep throughout the livelong night." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... would seem that the enraged billows were bent upon their destruction. Still their stout bark is unwilling to give up, and trembling from stem to stern, she clings to life, nobly resisting the gigantic attacks of the storm-king, who, having fought with terrific fierceness through the livelong night, puts on a less demon-like expression as his strength is well nigh spent, and the gray dawn sees no traces of the despoiler, who perhaps has slain thousands, save the swelling surges, which angrily gaze as if ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... among ourselves. Many of the men are dandies; their shoulders are always wet with the oil dropping from their lubricated hair, and every thing about them is ornamented in one way or another. Some thrum a musical instrument the livelong day, and, when they wake at night, proceed at once to their musical performance. Many of these musicians are too poor to have iron keys to their instrument, but make them of bamboo, and persevere, though no one ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... who wert my childhood's love, My boyhood's pure delight, A presence felt the livelong day, A welcome ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... Between the living and the dead, I watch the livelong day. I watch upon the mountain-side For one of courage true and tried, Who should ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... on Eva now, She can no longer run or play, Her cheek is pale, her voice is low, And there she lies the livelong day. ...
— Pictures and Stories from Uncle Tom's Cabin • Unknown

... had not repaid it; there was the absolute corpus delicti in court, in the shape of a deficiency of some thousands of pounds. What possible doubt would there be in the breast of anyone as to his guilt? Why should he vex his own soul by making himself for a livelong day the gazing-stock for the multitude? Why should he trouble all those wigged counsellors, when one word from him would ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... then was much taken with a Scotch girl who was visiting in London, and of course she dreamed air castles and fell in love with him. 'Twas Joan and Darby all the livelong day, but alack! the maid discovered, as maids will, that Sir Robert's intentions were—not of the best, and straightway the blushing rose becomes a frigid icicle. Well, this Northern icicle was not to be melted, and Sir Robert was for trying the effect of a Surrey ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine

... they scamper to their play With merry din the livelong day, And hungrily they jostle in The favor of the maid to win; Then, armed with cookies or with cake, Their way into the yard they make, And every feathered playmate comes To gather up his share of crumbs. The finest garden that I know ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... of King Ringang's daughter? Rohtraut, Beauty Rohtraut! And what does she do the livelong day, Since she dare not knit and spin alway? O hunting and fishing is ever her play! And, heigh! that her huntsman I might be! I'd hunt and fish right ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... rather than built, for evidently the work was done by many hands, and stretched over a century or more of time. Vines and flowers, fruits and shrubbery, stone walls covered close by creeping bellflowers where birds chirrup and cheep and play hide-and-seek the livelong day—all these are there. The house is situated on a little wooded plateau that overlooks the lake, and back of it the solemn and everlasting hills stand guard. There are no such mountains here as one sees in Switzerland, overpowering, vast, awful in their majesty; but just green-topped, self-sufficient ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... my ear is fed the livelong day, Now from the hollow's deepest dell, now from the top-most spray, The comrades of my lay, they tune their wild notes for my pleasure, And I, can I refrain to swell their diapason's measure? With ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Nay, I know not If I could bear it and live. But hark, my love! The music ceases, and the sated guests Will soon be sped. Thou must resume thy place Of honour for a little. I must go, If my reluctant feet will bear me hence, To dream of thee the livelong night. Farewell, Farewell till morning. All the saints of heaven ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... night. In this respect, however, it is an object of envy rather than otherwise, for myriads of fleas, larger than I would care to say, for fear of being accused of exaggeration, hold high revel on our devoted carcasses all the livelong night. From the swarms of these frisky insects that disport and kick their heels together in riotous revelry on and about my own person, I fancy, forsooth, they have discovered in me something to be made the most of, as a variety of food seldom coming ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... into his father's presence, the baron had never left his room. His small measure of remaining strength had been broken; grief consumed mind and body. He would sit silently brooding throughout the livelong day, and neither the entreaties of Lenore nor the companionship of his wife availed to rouse him. When the fatal tidings were first communicated to the baroness, Anton had feared that the fragile thread that bound her to the earth would burst, and for weeks Lenore never left her side; but, to the ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... it by the mill-wheels, too, The mill-wheels! They ne'er repose, nor brook delay, They weary not the livelong day, The mill-wheels. ...
— ZigZag Journeys in Northern Lands; - The Rhine to the Arctic • Hezekiah Butterworth

... that blessed, livelong day was to sweat and swelter in the sun, mortify my lean flesh upon the rock, gaze out of the desolation, resurrect old memories, dream dreams, and ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London

... full-grown magic moon Cast splendour glittering on the silver rime? Yes; mid the notes and emerald flush of spring, With swollen brooks exulting through the fields, And rainy wind that in an ocean-roar Bore down the forest tops the livelong day, Through straggling gleams, through random wafts of shade, Rejoicingly I trod the glistening paths. Yes, I it was, in dreamy golden haze, Beheld poor men hard toiling all the hours, And thought ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner

... as well for all of us to try and stay awake!" he declared. "As you seem to have settled it that the gun falls to my share, why, I'll make up my mind not to close an eye the whole livelong night; and if the rest choose to sit up with me and help watch, the ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter

... laborer breathe Death in the sun, the cities seethe, The mortal black marshes bubble with heat And puff up pestilence; nothing is sweet Has to do with the sun: even virtue will taint (Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint In the lands where the villainous sun has sway Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day. What Eden but noon-light stares it tame, Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame? For the sun tells lies on the landscape, — now Reports me the 'what', unrelieved with the 'how', — As messengers ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... easy for you to talk. Here am I serving tea for the third time, and now there's the lunch to get ready. One does nothing but rush about the livelong day. Is there any one in the house who has more to do than me? Yet they are never ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... brings Consideration of practical things. If a man makes a profit of fifteen pounds On one week's takings from two milk rounds, How many . . ." And Sym went dreaming away To the sunlit lands where the field-mice play, And wrens hold revel the livelong day. ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis

... of feeling responsible all the livelong day has been preached long enough in our New England. Long enough exclusively, at any rate,—and long enough to the female sex. What our girl-students and woman-teachers most need nowadays is not the exacerbation, ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... she had been tricked, unwound her arms from Stonor's neck, and covered her face. It seemed too cruel that all their pains the livelong day should go for nothing in a moment. Imbrie was scowling ...
— The Woman from Outside - [on Swan River] • Hulbert Footner

... jostling multitude,—shouts, laughs, cries, murmurs, all mingled together, till confusion harmonizes; and above all, the constant clanking of the iron handle of the old town-pump, which never ceases all the livelong day. At nightfall the uproar lessens, and as the evening wanes, the unaccustomed sounds diminish, though till midnight, ever and anon, the tired and sleepy citizens are startled from their dreams by whoops, hurrahs, snatches of songs, and outbursts of rude laughter ringing through the frosty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... by terror tame: No palace, theatres, nor arches here, But, in their stead, the fir, the beech, and pine On the green sward, with the fair mountain near Paced to and fro by poet friend of thine; Thus unto heaven the soul from earth is caught; While Philomel, who sweetly to the shade The livelong night her desolate lot complains, Fills the soft heart with many an amorous thought: —Ah! why is so rare good imperfect made While severed from us still my ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... light in heart as the fabrics and ribbons they flaunted. I was gratified with the boldness of Cotton, as he cantered away with Frances, and with the day before him there was every reason to believe that his cause would he advanced. As to myself, with Esther by my side the livelong day, I could not have asked the world to ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... him—that the chief was paddling his way to the realms of bliss, and bread-fruit—the Polynesian heaven—where every moment the bread-fruit trees dropped their ripened spheres to the ground, and where there was no end to the cocoanuts and bananas: there they reposed through the livelong eternity upon mats much finer than those of Typee; and every day bathed their glowing limbs in rivers of cocoanut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and feathers, and boars'-tusks and sperm-whale teeth, far preferable to all the shining trinkets ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... the course of the year he would take too much to drink. On these occasions he returned on board at an earlier hour than usual; ran across the deck balancing himself with his spread arms like a tight-rope walker; and locking the door of his cabin, he would converse and argue with himself the livelong night in an amazing variety of tones; storm, sneer, and whine with an inexhaustible persistence. Massy in his berth next door, raising himself on his elbow, would discover that his second had remembered the name of every white man that had passed through the Sofala ...
— End of the Tether • Joseph Conrad

... course, came to me easily enough, but the crowd only saw therein the lucky ventures of a talkative stranger, and roared with merriment at each happy allusion. And so I came to the Bananas. Yes, we were for the fete. There should we be the livelong afternoon, giving free shows, and only afterwards soliciting contribution from such as could afford to give in a good cause. God save ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... they would give us some ale, And a pleasant fire our souls to regale, We'd sing and we'd pray all the livelong day, Nor ever once wish from ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... around him, and steadfastly gazing at him with their great eyes, which looked like enormous cat-eyes, stuck into the darkness. As to the night-hawks and the other birds which fly in the dark, they swooped around and over him the whole livelong night; and when he began to get a little sleep, about daybreak, every bird in the place began to sing, or twitter, or scream, or crow, or gobble, or chatter, and the Prince might as well have tried to fly as sleep. ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton

... "The livelong day I spent in play Around our peaceful cot, Or plucked the flowers from blooming bowers, And to my mother brought. Then bliss and joy without alloy, And love around me shone; Then hope could rest within my breast— For ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... eventide he saw the tender bud of tomorrow's breakfast. It was a very pleasant life indeed. No labor to be done, no tasks to s be studied; nothing but sports and dances and sweet voices of children talking, or caroling like birds, or gushing out in merry laughter, throughout the livelong day. ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... Ever the joyous, wild birds come And sing 'mid the clustering leaves at home; Ever the soft winds, to and fro, Steal through the branches with music low, And golden sunbeams sparkle and play, And dance with shadows the livelong day. ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... cull the flowers; and thus she sang: "Know ye, whoever of my name would ask, That I am Leah: for my brow to weave A garland, these fair hands unwearied ply. To please me at the crystal mirror, here I deck me. But my sister Rachel, she Before her glass abides the livelong day, Her radiant eyes beholding, charm'd no less, Than I with this delightful task. Her joy In contemplation, as in labour mine." And now as glimm'ring dawn appear'd, that breaks More welcome to the pilgrim still, as he Sojourns less distant on his homeward way, Darkness from all sides fled, and ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... solitude he must have had constantly with him. This company has since been well known to generations and centuries of Englishmen. Its members head that goodly procession of figures which have been familiar to our fathers as livelong friends, which are the same to us, and will be to our children after us—the procession of the nation's favourites among the characters created by our great dramatists and novelists, the eternal types of human nature which nothing can efface from our ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... and was willing to be led, so long as I continued guide. I took my seat in the coach, and he placed himself at my side, trembling with joyousness, and laughing convulsively. Once seated, he grasped my hand as usual, and did not, through the livelong night, relinquish it altogether. A hundred affectionate indications escaped him, and in the hour of darkness and of quiet, it would have been easy to suppose that an innocent child was nestling near me, homeward bound, and, in the fulness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... commonly polite, so elated was he with pride. 'Just compare the difference in our lives! I fly here, I fly there, now on this flower, now on that. Ah, mine is a glorious life! nothing but pleasure and excitement all the livelong day. Confess, now, would you ...
— Parables from Flowers • Gertrude P. Dyer

... did, that it was too bad they had built the Mill cottages between the dingy buildings and the freight yards when they might have built them where each window could have overlooked the climbing fields and woods, where the children could have played in sweet grass the livelong day and built beautiful snow forts ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott

... her sylvan combs, [L] Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart, Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man, The bright-eyed Mariner, [L] and rueful woes 400 Didst utter of the Lady Christabel; [L] And I, associate with such labour, steeped In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours, Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found, After the perils of his moonlight ride, 405 Near the loud waterfall; [L] or her who sate In misery near the miserable Thorn; [L] When thou dost to that summer ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth

... she exclaimed. "It's just the way the whole livelong time. I think if she knew how to make dresses, she ought not to have to fit so much. If I fitted my doll so often when I made her a dress, I guess her head would fall off. It would get shaky anyway, with ...
— Ruby at School • Minnie E. Paull

... far away It's, oh, for the toil the livelong day! But it mattereth not to the soul aflame With a love for riches and power and fame! On, O man! while the sun is high— On to the certain joys that lie Yonder where blazeth the noon of day, Over the hills and far away— Over ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field

... has gnawed like a wolf at my heart, mother, A wolf that is fierce for blood,— All the livelong day, and the night beside, Gnawing for lack of food. I dreamed of bread in my sleep, mother, And the sight was heaven to see,— I awoke with an eager, famishing lip, But you had ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... my little maiden, For thou must speed away, To wait upon thy grandmother This livelong ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various

... strengthened when the witness added "that by Garra, av his honor thought it'd be any use in life to Mr. Thady, he'd swear as how he was asleep all the time; or for the matther of that, that he was out along wid de gals dancing the livelong night." It was with difficulty that Mr. Webb made him understand that he was only to swear to what he believed to be the truth, and that if he told a single lie in answer to the numerous questions which would be asked him, he would ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope

... the Louvre. There is no shouting or swearing, but a pleasing hum. The calls of messieurs and the replies of garcons resolve themselves into a confused lulling sound. If you are well, and your conscience does not trouble you—and even if it does—you can select a quiet corner and dream away the livelong day. The air is nerve-slackening. You feel perfectly at your ease. You can think of nothing to apprehend—no incursion of your lady friends designing to reason with the proprietor and perhaps hold a prayer-meeting on the sidewalk; no incursion of the police, no row. Everybody is placable and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... during the year. Sometimes it happens that the apple is not touched, a circumstance which indicates that the young lady, when married, will ere long be a widow. On this festival, too, the orpine or livelong has long been in request, popularly known as "Midsummer men," whereas in Italy the house-leek is in demand. The moss-rose, again, in years gone by, was plucked, with sundry formalities, on Midsummer Eve for love-divination, ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... glad wreath of flowers that is Around her golden hair so deftly twined, Each blossom pressing forward from behind, As though to be the first her brows to kiss! The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss, That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind: And that fair woven net of gold refined Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness! Yet still more blissful seems to me the band, Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... "livelong" were plucked by the children and hung up on Midsummer Eve. If a plant was found to be still green on Hallowe'en, the one who had hung it up would prosper for the year, but if it had turned yellow or had died, the ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley

... fast to-night; We will not let Him go 50 Till daybreak smite our wearied sight And summer smite the snow: Then figs shall bud, and dove with dove Shall coo the livelong day; Then He shall say, 'Arise, My love, My fair one, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti

... balmy sleep Their hearts reliev'd in sweet oblivion steep. Not wretched Dido—night descends in vain Her eyes unclos'd, and unrepriev'd her pain; 660 Rest flies her soul, and sleep her couch forsakes; Care through the livelong night incessant wakes; Now love, now rage, in midnight silence nurst, Back on her soal with doubted fury burst. From wave to wave of boiling passion borne, 665 "What now remains, she cries—despis'd, forlorn, Must Dido now, poor suppliant ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... with me," said the astounded Prior, with a forced laugh; "and I love a good jest with all my heart. But, ha! ha! ha! when the mirth has lasted the livelong night, it is time to be grave ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... fear some one's attention would be attracted toward me. I wished I could make myself invisible. I think I was invisible. I felt that way anyhow. I felt like the boy who wanted to go to the wedding, but had no shoes. Cassabianca never had such feelings as I had that livelong day. ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... the cottonwoods south of the Black Hills. Exhausted with the excitement and fatigue of the day, some few men sleep fitfully at times, and other few doze once in a while among the watchers. All the livelong night there is jubilee among the Indians above and below. They keep up their howlings and war-dances in prospective triumph, for, so far as they can learn, they have done no more damage to the soldiers than the killing of a few horses and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... his head; "Oh! speak not thus," he sadly said, "Heav'n gave me once a woodland home Where I the livelong day might roam, And gaily leap from branch to twig As blithe and merry as a grig; Then came a wicked man who laid The snare by which I'm captive made, And now 'twill be my mournful doom Instead of in the forest free, To live pent in a narrow room By way of bush or ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous

... so sad of cheer? Hast waked the livelong night?' 'My dreams foreshow my children's woe, Ernst ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the space of twelve winters Grendel waged a perpetual feud against Hrothgar and his people; the livelong night he roamed over the misty moors, visiting Heorot, and destroying both the tried warriors and the young men whenever he was able. Hrothgar was broken-hearted, and many were the councils held in secret to deliberate what it were best to do against ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... by, I had no chance of admiration. All the eyes were glued upon him, and his poor doxy had to be content with a furtive look thrown over a stranger's shoulder. At Barnet races, the year before they sent me across the sea, we were followed by a crowd the livelong day; and truly Jack, in his blue satin waistcoat laced with silver, might have been a peer. At any rate, he had not his equal on the course, and it is small wonder that never for a moment ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... time is near, The lover roves away, With breaking heart and falling tear, She sits the livelong day. Alas! alas! for breaking ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... ascending on to high and rocky ground, now traversing a valley, and now trotting fast across plains of honey-coloured sand. Yet to each man the pace seemed always as slow as a funeral. A mountain would lift itself above the rim of the horizon at sunrise, and for the whole livelong day it stood before their eyes, and was never a foot higher or an inch nearer. At times, some men tilling a scanty patch of sorghum would send the fugitives' hearts leaping in their throats, and they must make a wide detour; or again a caravan would be sighted ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... unlatticed window, in order to assure himself that she had no means of escape. Scarce was he gone, before she heard the shrill blast of the Roman trumpets blown clearly and scientifically, for the watch-setting; and, soon afterward, all the din and bustle, which had been rife through the livelong day, sank into silence, and she could hear the brawling of the brook below chafing and raving against the rocks which barred its bed, and the wind murmuring against ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... poor ashes when they were brought again to the light of day; the beneficent Earth had already absorbed it. The drowned were buried in their clothes. To supply the great sudden demand for coffins, he had got all the neighbouring people handy at tools, to work the livelong day, and Sunday likewise. The coffins were neatly formed;—I had seen two, waiting for occupants, under the lee of the ruined walls of a stone hut on the beach, within call of the tent where the Christmas Feast was held. Similarly, one of the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... when some little girls just hate to go to school And beg that they may stay at home and play; And then, permission given, these same children, as a rule, Delight in playing school the livelong day! Ah, no wonder poets feature Woman as ...
— Children of Our Town • Carolyn Wells

... tells stories to the flowers The livelong summer day; And everywhere the earth is bright, And ...
— Harper's Young People, July 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... trout when the mellowness of the autumn is tinting into glow of russet and crimson the trees which hang on the steep bank above; the smooth restful glide into the long oily reach of the "Lady's How," in which a fisherman may spend to advantage the livelong day and then not leave it fished out; the turbulent half pool, half stream, of the "Piles," which always holds large fish lying behind the great stones or in the dead water under the daisy-sprinkled bank on which the tall beeches cast their shadows; the "Bulwark ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes

... the livelong day?— Since we gazing from below Saw the eagle sailing slow, Soaring through the azure sphere, All the time thou waited here, Didst thou ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... of red, white and blue streaks all the livelong day, and if the weary pedestrian is not supplied with a ball-bearing neck his chance of getting home is null ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... me, fair maiden, to father's castle fine, Spin, spin away, Oh, and spin, spin away! We'll play the livelong day and have a lovely time, Fal-de-ray, fal-de-ray, de-ray, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... in thy might. But let me suckle, first, my baby! I blissed it all this livelong night; They took 't away, to vex me, maybe, And now they say I killed the child outright. And never shall I be glad again. They sing songs about me! 'tis bad of the folk to do it! There's an old story has the same refrain; Who bade them so ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... calmly serene, and glad have I been From morn till eve to stay, My men, no serfs, turning the turfs The happy livelong day; With eye still bright, and hope yet alight, Wistfully watching the mould, As the spade brings up fragments of things Fifteen ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... searches in vain for his pipe; he fumes and frets, and swears he is the most unfortunate wretch on earth. The song birds, the flowers, the fields, the clear atmosphere touch him never a whit, and the chances are that he continues through the livelong day as he began. In running his line through at the waterside he will miss one or two rings, and only find it out when the collar has been affixed. The mistake remedied he essays a cast or two, and away goes half of his rod; he neglected to tie the joints together, and attributes the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... muttering and whispering and suspecting going on during the whole livelong day that they were positively afraid," said Susy. "Indeed, if it hadn't been for you, Kathleen, I doubt if any of us would ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... vengefully, "they may say what they like. An I were that man's wife, I wad brain him. Here he has been the livelong day. Twa meals has he eaten. Six hours has he hung about malingering. He came to roof the pigstye. He tore off the old thatch, and there it lies, and there will lie for him. If there is frost, Girzie's brood will be stiff by the morning. Then he 'had a look' ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... was what the Scriptures call a "continual dropping." He kept himself apart, sulking the livelong day, scarce ever speaking, and when he did speak using a tone which the Grand Turk might employ towards a beggar. It was true enough that the prisoners were inferior to him in quality, but, their lot and circumstances being ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... bright afternoon that little gift made in that little room! How much faster Mary's fingers flew the livelong day as she sat sewing by her mother! and Mrs. Stephens, in the happiness of her child, almost forgot that she had a headache, and thought, as she sipped her evening cup of tea, that she felt stronger than she had ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... in which the unhappy man was confined who next morning early should pay the penalty for his insubordination. Jack just caught one glimpse of his gray unhappy face, in which his dark eyes gleamed like living coals. That face haunted him in his dreams throughout the livelong night. ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... All the livelong day Odysseus and his men sat and feasted. As they ate and drank, they looked across the water at the Land of the Cyclopes, where the smoke of wood fires curled up to the sky, and from whence they could hear the sound of ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... being called drudgery to take care of a clean, light, airy nursery, to wash and dress and care for two or three children, to mend their clothes, tell them stories, make them playthings, take them out walking or driving; and rather than this, to wear out the whole livelong day, extending often deep into the night, in endless sewing, in a close room of a dressmaking establishment! Is it any less drudgery to stand all day behind a counter, serving customers, than to tend a door-bell and wait on a table? For my part," said my wife, "I have often thought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various

... broke, and crossed the Tweed at Kersfield. The sun rose at the very moment that I turned the corner of the hill which conceals our house from the public road, and revealed to me your mother, sitting on the blue stone at the door, as cold and frozen-like to appearance as if she had sat there the livelong night (as I afterwards understood she had.) Her hands were clasped together, her eyes were raised upward, and her lips were moving, as if she were repeating a prayer, or muttering a charm. When she saw me approaching the door, she rose from the stone, and, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various

... there bursts forth what we can call an explosion of eloquence; King, Lomenie, Lamoignon and retinue taking up the successive strain; in harrangues to the number of ten, besides his Majesty's, which last the livelong day;—whereby, as in a kind of choral anthem, or bravura peal, of thanks, praises, promises, the Notables are, so to speak, organed out, and dismissed to their respective places of abode. They had sat, and talked, some nine weeks: they were the first Notables ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... and that "Another" prepared their "engines" and resolved to have no sleep till "the deed" was done. They walked the streets under the falling snow with the "engines" on them, exchanging not a word the livelong night. When they happened to meet a police patrol they took each other by the arm and pretended to be a couple of peasants on the spree. They reeled and talked in drunken hoarse voices. Except for these strange outbreaks ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad

... Blair, was made without calling a council of the rest of his advisers. They heard of it, however, and, though brave and loyal men all, they gathered around him in his quarters at the arsenal, Thursday evening, and besought him earnestly to change his purpose. The conference was protracted the livelong night, and did not close till six o'clock, Friday morning, the 10th. They found Capt. Lyon inexorable,—the fate of Camp Jackson was decreed. Col. Blair's regiment was at Jefferson Barracks, ten miles below the arsenal, at that hour. It was ordered up; and about noon on that memorable Friday, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Heidelberg. For two years (1614-1616) he then acted as master in the Brethren's Higher School at Prerau, and then became minister of the congregation at Fulneck. There, too, the Brethren had a school; and there, both as minister and teacher, Comenius, with his young wife and family, was as happy as the livelong day. But his happiness was speedily turned to misery. The Thirty Years' War broke out. What part he took in the Bohemian Revolution we have no means of knowing. He certainly favoured the election of Frederick, and helped his cause in some way. "I contributed a nail or two," he says,54 "to ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... her little feet Throughout the livelong day, And sells her celery and things— A big feat, by the way. She changes off her stock for change, Attending to each call; And when she has but one beet left, She says, "Now, that ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... up the lining. 'Twas only half a mile from Beacon Hill that I was lying, and I soon made my way back to the fair-ground, but couldn't find my friends of the evening before, and the gaffer in the drinking-tent said he couldn't remember as he'd ever seen any such. I spent the livelong day searching here and there, till the folks laughed at me, because I looked so wild with drinking the night before, and with sleeping out, and with having nothing to eat; for every penny was took from me. I told the constable, and he took it all down, but I see ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner

... for me, I will explain the matter to you all, children, youths, grownups and old men, aye, even to the decrepit dotards. My master is mad, not as you are, but with another sort of madness, quite a new kind. The livelong day he looks open-mouthed towards heaven and never stops addressing Zeus. "Ah! Zeus," he cries, "what are thy intentions? Lay aside thy besom; do not sweep ...
— Peace • Aristophanes

... chaste, and an obedient wife, Lifts her poor husband to a knightly throne: What though the livelong day with toils be rife, The solace of his cares at night's his own. If she be modest and her words be kind, Mark not her beauty, or her want of grace; The fairest woman, if deformed in mind Will in thy heart's affections find no place: Dazzling as Eden's beauties to the eye, In ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... Christian life. No one who follows the teachings of Christ will begrudge the reward promised to those who repent at the last moment and are saved. The eleventh-hour Christians are the ones to mourn because they have lost the happiness that they would have found in service during the livelong day. ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... find them much depressed in spirits, and in no good humour, having been driven as it were from the presence of the Earth's Centre; but what was our surprise to remark the contrary! Never did Persia see such a company of madmen. They were singing, dancing, and making the luti all the livelong day. They all talked at once, one louder than the other, without any apparent deference to rank, for all seemed on the same footing. Without in the least respecting our carpets, they were eternally pacing them with ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... smithy this livelong day; and should a screw be loose in any of their shoes, it would be rather a bring up for us." Sage and sound advice for those who have a long ride before them; which yet at this time of our need we rejected; and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various

... blithe greeting to glad Thebe came II 2 She of the glorious name, Victory,—smiling on our chariot throng With eyes that waken song Then let those battle memories cease, Silenced by thoughts of peace. With holy dances of delight Lasting through the livelong night Visit we every shrine, in solemn round, Led by him who shakes the ground, Our Bacchus, Thebe's child ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... I am sure you must perfectly recollect that your cousin never was strong—not what can be called ROBUST, you know,' said Mrs. Markleham, with emphasis, and looking round upon us generally, '—from the time when my daughter and himself were children together, and walking about, arm-in-arm, the livelong day.' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... is, I know that it does not represent the genuine and struggling unemployed. They pass slowly by and go from street to street. So they will parade throughout the livelong day. The police will accompany them, and will see them disbanded when the evening closes in. The boxes will be emptied, the contents tabulated, and a pro rata division will be made, after which the processionists ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... dull season when the leafy vest Is stript from trembling plant, whose limbs are shown Of all their mantling foliage dispossess'd And in close flights the swarming birds are flown, Orlando enters on his amorous quest: This he pursues the livelong winter through, Nor quits ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... to Toyland!" Just s'pose, to your intense Astonishment, you found this sign Plain written on a fence. Just one short mile to Toyland, To happy girl and boy-land, Where one can play the livelong day! ...
— A Jolly Jingle-Book • Various

... calm; but on both sides of her flew the spray & it drave so that no man could perceive the mountains on either side of the fjord. So it fared that one ship rowed after the other in the calm, and thus pursued they one another the whole livelong day, & throughout the night thereafter; and a little before dawn came they to Godey, and brought-to off the house of Raud, and there found his ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson

... to the doctor when he come, sez I, 'Doctor, I ain't held a bite on my stummick these three livelong days!'" This was delivered by a buxom dame, fanning vigorously the meanwhile, and was noteworthy since the lady was closely followed by a little man whose frailty suggested dissolution, and who bore a large lunch box under one arm and a ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote



Words linked to "Livelong" :   orpine, live-forever, sedum, genus Sedum



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