"Swain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... your charms in another's arms," Said a Grecian swain with his blood a-boil; "And he kissed you fair as he held you there, A willing bird ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... Sleep to weary Drovers on the Plain As a sweet River to a thirsty Swain, Such Tityrus's charming Number show, Please like the River, like the River flow. When his first Years in mighty Order ran, And cradled Infancy bespoke the Man, Around his Lips the Waxen Artists ...
— Discourse on Criticism and of Poetry (1707) - From Poems On Several Occasions (1707) • Samuel Cobb
... apparently irregular state of affairs, the women's behaviour is better than might be expected. Like the Shoka girls, they possess a wonderful frankness and simplicity of manner, with a certain reserve which has its allurements; for the Tibetan swain, often a young man, being attracted by the charms of a damsel, finds that his flirtation with her has become an accepted engagement almost before it has begun, and is compelled, in accordance with ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Laetitia seemed to think of it only to declare, that "if all her hairs were worlds," she should reckon them "well lost for love;" and Pastorella fondly conceived, that she could dwell for ever by the side of a bubbling fountain, content with her swain and fleecy care; without considering that stillness and solitude can afford ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... wood nymphs oftentimes would busied be, And pluck for him the blushing Strawberry, Making from them a bracelet on a bent, Which for a favour to this swain they sent." ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... most important part in Cupid's pranks. Though the little god himself goes naked, he never allows his votaries to follow suit. That story of Venus unadorned appearing from the sea is only a fairy-tale—such a sight would have made a lovelorn swain take to the woods, and would have been interesting only to the anatomist or a member of the life class. The wicket, the lattice, the lace curtain, the veil and mantilla, are all secondary sexual manifestations. In rural districts where honesty still prevails, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... I went to dine With Pamphilus, a swain of mine, I took my sister, little heeding The net I for myself was spreading Though many circumstances led To prove she'd mischief in her head. For first her dress in every part Was studied with the nicest art Deck'd out with necklaces and rings, ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... thus in whispers spoke: 'Discover not the theft, whoe'er thou be, And take that milk-white heifer for thy fee.' 'Go, stranger,' cries the clown, 'securely on, 20 That stone shall sooner tell;' and showed a stone. The god withdrew, but straight returned again, In speech and habit like a country swain; And cries out, 'Neighbour, hast thou seen a stray Of bullocks and of heifers pass this way? In the recovery of my cattle join, A bullock and a heifer shall be thine.' The peasant quick replies, 'You'll find 'em there, In yon dark vale:' and in the vale they were. The double bribe had his false ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... venture to plunge into his lady's cave, into a lair whence flight would be impossible? It is very doubtful. Prudence demands that matters should take place outside. Here at least there is some chance of beating a hasty retreat which will enable the rash swain to escape the attacks of his ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... time, when a marriage-bargain was broken off, because the lover could not obtain from the girl's father a certain brown filly as part of her dowry. The damsel, after the lapse of some weeks, met her swain at a neighbouring fair, and the flame of love still smouldering in his heart was re-illumined by the sight of his charmer, who, on the contrary, had become quite disgusted with him for his too obvious preference of profit to true affection. ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover
... mingling of the white and black as is so often and so unhappily seen in London, where a servant girl maybe, will ecstatically spend her evening out under the protection of some ebony hued product of Africa and, labouring under the delusion that the dusky swain is the direct descendant of Cetewayo, also totally lacking all knowledge of African history, will fondly imagine herself a queen in embryo, instead of which she is merely the means to feed the lustful longing for the white in some Cape ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... the Augustan Age Perused in Virgil's golden page, The story of the secret won From Proteus by Cyrene's son— How the dank sea-god showed the swain Means to restore his hives again. More briefly, how a slaughtered bull Breeds ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... Rhys Stanzas for Music, "There be none of Beauty's daughters" George Gordon Byron "Flowers I would Bring" Aubrey Thomas de Vere "It is not Beauty I Demand" George Darley Song, "She is not fair to outward view" Hartley Coleridge Song, "A violet in her lovely hair" Charles Swain Eileen Aroon Gerald Griffin Annie Laurie Unknown To Helen Edgar Allan Poe "A Voice by the Cedar Tree" Alfred Tennyson Song, "Nay, but you, who do not love her" Robert Browning The Henchman John Green1eaf Whittier Lovely Mary Donnelly ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... when her thoughts and perhaps her glances lie in another direction. She in turn may be obliged to use all her power to attract the one she desires to select. If she be a coquette, each one of many will think that he himself is the fortunate swain on whom her choice will fall. The doubts existing in these instances cause great excitement and amusement, and between the meetings pearls against rubies, diamonds against diamonds, and other precious stones are staked on ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... hoary-headed swain may say, 'Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... hopes sank a little at the flight,—for he thought she perceived his chase and meant to drop him. Bill had not bad a classical education, and knew nothing of Galatea in the Eclogue,—how she did not hide, until she saw her swain ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... me de pleasure of yo' comp'ny to de dance aftah de festabal?" some ardent and early swain would murmur to his lady love, and the whisper would fly back in well-feigned affright, "Heish, man, you want to have Brothah Todbu'y chu'chin' me?" But if the swain persisted, there was little chance of his being ultimately ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... legend speaks such malice none is more relentless than the Korrigan, who has power to enmesh the heart of the most constant swain and doom him to perish miserably for love of her. Beware of the fountains and of the wells of this forest of Broceliande, for there she is most commonly to be encountered, and you may know her by her bright hair—"like golden wire," as Spenser says of ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... now protect me, Send to me the swain I love; Cupid, with thy bow direct me; Help me, all ye pow'rs above. Bear him my sighs, ye gentle breezes, Tell him I love and I despair, Tell him for him I grieve, say 'tis for him I live; O ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... person had flogged his donkey into a gallop alongside, and sat, upright as a waxwork, in his shallopy chariot, his chin settled pompously on a red handkerchief, like Swithin's on his full cravat; while his girl, with the ends of a fly-blown boa floating out behind, aped a woman of fashion. Her swain moved a stick with a ragged bit of string dangling from the end, reproducing with strange fidelity the circular flourish of Swithin's whip, and rolled his head at his lady with a leer that had a weird likeness to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Thwarted by her father in some love affair with a swain of the neighborhood, she had drowned herself in a gloomy pool in the very darkest part of the forest. The body was found shortly afterward and buried in the cottage garden. Harris then left the country and has never since been heard of. All this, according to ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... Imbark thee in the lawrell tree, And a new Phebus follows thee, Who, 'stead of all his burning rayes, Will strive to catch thee with his layes; Or, if within the Orient Vine, Thou art both deity and wine; But if thou takest the mirtle grove, That Paphos is, thou, Queene of Love, And I, thy swain who (else) must die, By no beasts, but thy cruelty: But you are rougher than the winde. Are souls on earth then heav'n more kind? Imprisoned in mortality Lucasta would have answered me. Lucasta, Amarantha said, Is she that ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... them with more or less aptness. When some one likened it to a potato, because it 'shoots from the eyes,' was it not Byron who was wicked enough to add, 'and because it becomes all the less by pairing'? One wretched swain tells us that ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Guta flung herself into her father's arms and declared that she could never marry the aged swain. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... thou hear, thou fair young swain I pray I may not offend, But the very next maid that I know of Sir ...
— Tord of Hafsborough - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... the fond swain his Doric oat essayed, Manhood's prime honors rising on his cheek: Trembling he strove to court the tuneful Maid, With stripling arts and dalliance all too weak, Unseen, unheard beneath an hawthorn shade. But now dun clouds the welkin 'gan to streak; And now down ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... lesser light, the Lovers lamp, the Swains delight, A ruined world, a globe burnt out, a corpse upon ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... at the young swain who courts a girl devotedly for months and uses every art he knows to sell her the idea that he would make her happy as his wife; but who turns pale, then red, and chokes whenever he has a chance ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... embosomed. How delightful must it be to wander in a summer's evening along these lovely banks, far from the din of the distant world, and where the deep tranquillity is only interrupted by the song of the nightingale, the whistle of the swain returning from labour, or the carol of the milkmaid as she is filling her pail. Surely man was formed most peculiarly to relish the charms of Nature. Would Heaven grant me my fondest wish, it would be to wander with * * ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... wandering swain the white-winged plover wheels Her sounding flight, and then directly on In long excursion skims the level lawn, To ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... from the determination to prepare for it, to the risk of battle and to final victory; and then again in Henry V and Henry VI, the unhappy position into which a prince not formed by nature to be a ruler falls between violent contending parties, until he envies the homely swain who tends his flocks and lets the years run by in peace: lastly the path of horrible crime which a king's son not destined for the throne has to tread in order to ascend it: all these are great elements in the history of states, and are not only important for ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain may go back to the father of Canute, or to some hoary-headed swain who, possibly, tended the swine. Not all the Seymours are St. Maurs. Some of them were once Seamers, i.e. tailors. Gosling is rather trivial, but it represents the romantic Jocelyn, in Normandy ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... and in good time see where He cometh: stand by a while, and you shall see Me put in practise your intended drifts. Have at thee, swain, if that I ...
— 2. Mucedorus • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... what was he to do? He sees a young person who wishes him well; for he inherits it from you that all women love him. He thinks her charming, goes to see her, makes love to her, sighs as lovers sigh, and does the passionate swain. She yields to his pressing visits; he pushes his fortune. But her relations catch him with her, and oblige him to marry ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... Were ducks discomforted by rain? How did Britannia rule the main? Was Jonas coming back again? Was vital truth upon the wane? Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain? Who was our Huldah's chosen swain? Did none have teeth pulled without payin', Ere ether was invented? Whether mankind would not agree, 530 If the universe were tuned in C? What was it ailed Lucindy's knee? Whether folks eat folks in Feejee? Whether his name would end with T? If Saturn's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... have thought my friend's daughter above that, of such a good family as she is, and with such good sense as she inherits too. But we have all our foibles, I suppose. And since it is so with Amelia, why do let me see this baronet-swain of hers, and let me try what good I can find out in him, and let me bring myself, if I can, over my prejudices. And then you, my dear madam, so good and kind a mother as you are, will make an effort too on your part; for we ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... each family had always entertained for the other was dwelt upon at length, and choicer language was never used than the padrino penned in asking for the hand of Dona Juana. This dainty missive was signed by the godfather of the swain, Don Alejandro Travino, whose rubric riotously ran back and forth entirely across the delicately tinted sheet. On the conclusion of the reading, Uncle Lance brushed the letter aside as of no moment, and, turning ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... party soothes Enright an' engages him on that side, so he ups an' tells the 'swain,' as Colonel Sterett calls him later in the Coyote, to grab off his inamorata ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... wars, Gaffer Swain, we'll look to your homestead,' said the farmer who had spoken before. 'As to t' greenstuffs as this gentleman asks for he shall have not one wainload but three, if he will but gi' us half-an-hour to fill them ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... found un out, and do present un with a van of rosemary and bays, enough to vill a bow-pott or trim the head of my best vore-horse; we shall all ha' bride-laces and points, I see.' And again, a country swain assures his sweetheart at their wedding: 'We'll have rosemary and bayes to vill a bow-pott, and with the same I'll trim the vorehead of my best vore-horse'—so that it would seem the decorative use was not confined to the bride, the guests, and ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... such store as had sufficed Two travellers or three for cov'ring warm, Though winter's roughest blasts had rag'd the while. That bed with joy the suff'ring Chief renown'd Contemplated, and occupying soon The middle space, hillock'd it high with leaves. As when some swain hath hidden deep his torch 590 Beneath the embers, at the verge extreme Of all his farm, where, having neighbours none, He saves a seed or two of future flame Alive, doom'd else to fetch it from afar, So with dry leaves Ulysses overspread ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... state, nor culture can bestow; But God alone, when first His active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all, Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer day's Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repose, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds, 530 O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, His rude expression and untutor'd airs, Beyond the power of language, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... swain, who laugh'd along the vales, And with your gay pipe made the mountains ring, Why leave your cot, your woods, and thymy gales, And friends belov'd, for aught that wealth can bring? He goes to wake o'er moon-light seas the string, Venetian gold his untaught fancy hails! Yet oft ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... a rival courtier came— A dashing dapper Lieut. R.N.; And, as this paragon pressed his claim, Oh, what could William hope for then? How could a wobbly-braided swain Vie with the actual Royal Navy, Whose stripes were half as broad ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... had walked about half a mile in a scene truly pastoral, we began to think ourselves in the days of Theocritus, so sweetly did the sound of a flute come wafted through the air. Never did pastoral swain make sweeter melody on his oaten reed. Our ears now afforded us fresh attraction, and with quicker steps we proceeded, till we came within sight of the musician that had charmed us. Our pleasure was not a little heightened, to see, as the ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... divinely, stranger swain, Such grace I've never known. O longer stay! Breathe not adieu And leave me here alone! O longer stay: to her be true Whose heart ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... bare idea of Colonel Sherwood's contemptuous pity for the vain plebeian who had dared to raise his thoughts to an alliance with his beautiful, high-born daughter. He 'would show the world that he was no love-sick, despairing swain; and Miss Sherwood's vanity should never be gratified by the display of the wounds her falsehood had inflicted. He would very soon, he knew, forget the fair coquette who had trampled thus upon his most sacred ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... each of his volumes of pastorals (Pastorals. After the simple Manner of Theocritus, 1717; Pastorals. viz. The Bashful Swain: and Beauty and Simplicity, 1717) Thomas Purney rushed into critical discussions with the breathlessness of one impatient to reveal his opinions, and, after touching on a variety of significant topics, cut himself short with the promise of a future extensive treatise ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... scribblings on the walls of this chapel. On the shelf for books is a representation of a Cromwellian soldier with a dog, apparently in pursuit of a deer. There are also scribblings with devices, dating to 1630-1634. One love-sick swain described an equilateral triangle with a [Symbol: Cross] rising from the vertex, and then inscribed the initials of his ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... when this epistle was shown her by her triumphant swain, "I expected as much. I have never been anything to papa since his marriage, and he is glad to get ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... of More Importance, and why they went to the Beach in October; Miss Carlisle Heth, and how she met an Unwelcome Swain at Sea; how this Swain could swim enough for one. . ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... lover, sweetheart, gallant, swain, flame, cicisbeo, admirer, suitor, inamorato; dandy, popinjay, dude, fop, coxcomb, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... gods themselves, Humbling their deities to love, have taken The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter Became a bull and bellow'd; the green Neptune A ram, and bleated; and the fire-rob'd god, Golden Apollo, a poor humble swain, As I seem now. Their transformations Were never for a piece of beauty rarer, Nor in a way ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... to wound a wanton boy Or am'rous youth, that gives the joy; But 'tis the glory to have pierced a swain For whom inferior ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... many wives or sweethearts were going home, so many soldiers abroad, and Mrs. Frank Garrison, gay and gracious, passed them time and again, leaning on the arm of Captain McDonald, a new devotee, while poor Cherry, with an enamored swain from the Presidio, languished in a dim, secluded corner. She had been recalled by parental authority and was to start for Denver under a matronly wing on the morrow. Mrs. Frank had been bidden, and expected, to go at the same time, but that authority was merely marital. Up to this time not ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... out of Pall Mall into a side street, when whom should I strike against but her false swain! It was my fault, but I hit out at him savagely, as I always do when I run into anyone in the street. Then I looked at him. He was hollow-eyed; he was muddy; there was not a haw left in him. I never ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... communication and trade, soon took to piloting vessels in the Delaware River, and some of them still follow this occupation. They also became skillful sailors and builders of small craft, and it is not surprising to learn that Jacocks Swain and his sons introduced, in 1811, the centerboard for keeping flat-bottomed craft closer to the wind. They are said to have taken out a patent for this invention and are given the credit of being ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... bestowed upon the young clergyman the living of Newton. Gregory Newton had been brought to the villa by his brother, and had at once fallen on his knees before the beauty. But the beauty would have none of him, and he had gone back to his living in Hampshire a broken-hearted priest and swain. Now, Patience, though she had never been directly so informed, feared that some partiality for the unworthy Ralph had induced her sister to refuse offers from the brother, who certainly was worthy. To the thinking of Patience Underwood, no lot in life could be happier for a woman than ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... withdrew from the embrace of her adoring swain—rosy, joyous, unabashed—she adjusted her hat from its perilous position on one side of her head, and gazed upon Clive and me with unflattering ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... For answer the gentle swain took her by the elbows and propelled her into the shop, and approaching the counter ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... No rustic swain ever simpered more consciously or looked more foolish than George under this accusation, as he said, ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... travell ever endles prove, That I can heare no tydings of my Love? In neither desart, grove, nor shadie wood Nor obscure thicket where my foote hath trod? But every plough-man and rude shepheard swain Doth still reply unto my greater paine? Some Satyre, then, or Godesse of this place, Some water Nymph vouchsafed me so much grace As by some view, some signe, or other sho, I may haue knowledge if ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... lady, slung from her neck by a silken cord, spun by her own silk worms, and twisted by her own hands. In short, she is neither beautiful, nor noble, nor rich; yet her company seems instantly to smooth the road and lighten the toils of travel to her swain. He helps himself, unasked, out of her basket, and urges her to partake of the stores of his leathern wallet—hard goat's cheese—and the crumbling loaf of broa, or maize bread. Soon in deep and sweet conference, in their ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... the most celebrated and notorious "fallen angel" in the city—celebrated for her unrivalled beauty and many triumphs, and notorious for her heartless deceit and reckless disregard of her own welfare. She has led captive many an unguarded swain by a passing smile in the street, and then unceremoniously deserted him to join some drunken and beastly party in an obscure and ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... neglecting the high duties which he had taken upon himself to perform. He should have spent this afternoon among the poor at St. Ewold's, instead of wandering about at Plumstead, an ancient, love-lorn swain, dejected and sighing, full of imaginary sorrows and Wertherian grief. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, and determined to lose no time in retrieving his character, so damaged in ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... think so," said the spiteful waiting-maid; "when he gave me this letter he sighed, and rolled up his eyes like a love-sick swain." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... nymphs were always clad of yore, In rustic weeds—a cook-maid now no more— Beneath an aged oak Lardella lies— Green moss her couch, her canopy the skies. From aromatic shrubs the roguish gale Steals young perfumes and wafts them through the vale. 20 The youth, turn'd swain, and skill'd in rustic lays, Fast by her side his amorous descant plays. Herds low, flocks bleat, pies chatter, ravens scream, And the full chorus dies a-down the stream: The streams, with music ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... SWAIN'S VERMIFUGE.—Wormseed two ounces, Valerian, Rhubarb, Pink-Root, White Agaric, of each one and one-fourth ounces. Boil in sufficient water to yield three quarts of decoction and add to it 30 drops of Oil of Tansy and 45 drops of Oil of Cloves; dissolve in a quart of rectified ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... "Tenants don't lay out their landlords on principle, and in this particular instance they would simply stand to lose by his death. Then take his tradesmen and his agent and so on, they all stand to lose too. An illicit love affair and a vengeful swain might be a conceivable theory, if his character gave colour to it; but there's not a hint of that, and some rumour would have got about for certain if that had ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Holiday, when Nymphs had leave to play, I walk'd unseen, on a pleasant Green, Where I heard a Maid in an angry Spleen, Complaining to a Swain, to leave his drudging Pain, And sport with her upon the Plain; But he the silly Clown, Regardless of her Moan, did leave her all alone, Still she cry'd, come away, come away bonny Lad come away, I cannot come, I will not ...
— Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy, Vol. 5 of 6 • Various
... last did go, The pilot of the Galilean lake; Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, (The golden opes, the iron shuts amain), He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, 'How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies' sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold! Of other care they little reckoning make, Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast, And shove away the worthy bidden guest; Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... fingers as an artist might his brush. Then he saw him pinch up the skin above the tumour with his left hand. At the sight his nerves, which had already been tried once or twice that day, gave way utterly. His head swain round, and he felt that in another instant he might faint. He dared not look at the patient. He dug his thumbs into his ears lest some scream should come to haunt him, and he fixed his eyes rigidly upon the wooden ledge in front ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... be discovered at Shilikinsk, though our loving mate scanned every part of the bank. We had enough fuel to take us a few miles farther, where we found wood and remained for the night. The disappointed swain pocketed his chagrin and solaced himself by playing the agreeable ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... from Washington Latest News Items Latest about "Lo." Letter from a Friend Letter of Advice, A Letter from a Japanese Student Letter from a Croaker, A Leaven of Leavenworth Literary Vampire Lines by a Hapless Swain Long Shot, A "Lot" on a Lot of Proverbs Love in a Boarding-House Lucus a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... clearly, their disapprobation; But master and man took no heed of their sorrow, And Miss was to die the day after the morrow. The rest, who were all in her fate interested, Now offered such comfort as pity suggested: "They won't hurt you much," simpered one tender swain, "I've heard that this killing is scarce any pain; Pray take some more wash, and this cabbage-stalk bite." "No, thank you," said Piggy, ...
— Surprising Stories about the Mouse and Her Sons, and the Funny Pigs. - With Laughable Colored Engravings • Unknown
... the wooing breeze; And the sun, like a bashful swain, Beamed on it through the waving trees With a passion all in vain,— For my rose laughed in a crimson glee, And hid in the leaves in wait ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... dismiss him without pity before they reached her house, and this she did every time. For she went to the theater each night now, and every evening she received an ardent note, and every evening she allowed the amorous swain to accompany her as far as her house, and men were beginning to envy him on account of his brilliant conquest, when a catastrophe happened which was very ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... and forget! Why the world would be lonely, The garden a wilderness left to deform, If the flowers but remembered the chilling winds only, And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm! C. SWAIN. ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... transcendent than the rest? Had Cassius, that weak water-drinker, known Thee in thy vine, or had but tasted one Small chalice of thy frantic liquor, he, As the wise Cato, had approv'd of thee. Had not Jove's son,[J] that brave Tirynthian swain, Invited to the Thesbian banquet, ta'en Full goblets of thy gen'rous blood, his sprite Ne'er had kept heat for fifty maids that night. Come, come and kiss me; love and lust commends Thee and thy beauties; kiss, we will be friends Too ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... Motions I find in my Heart in favour of him. Sir, Your Opinion and Advice in this Affair, is the only thing I know can turn the Ballance; and which I earnestly intreat I may receive soon; for till I have your Thoughts upon it, I am engaged not to give my Swain a final Discharge. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... I doubt some happier swain Has gained my Jeanie's favor; If sae, may every bliss be hers, Tho' I can ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... at our rural plays, The pride and envy of our holidays: Why dost thou sit now musing all alone, Teaching the turtles, yet a sadder moan? Swell'd with thy tears, why does the neighbouring brook Bear to the ocean, what she never took? Thy flocks are fair and fruitful, and no swain, Than thee, more welcome ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... thousands ten or more Indited not as wont on palimpsest, 5 But paper-royal, brand-new boards, and best Fresh bosses, crimson ribbands, sheets with lead Ruled, and with pumice-powder all well polished. These as thou readest, seem that fine, urbane Suffenus, goat-herd mere, or ditcher-swain 10 Once more, such horrid change is there, so vile. What must we wot thereof? a Droll erst while, Or (if aught) cleverer, he with converse meets, He now in dullness, dullest villain beats Forthright on handling verse, nor is the wight 15 Ever so happy as when verse he write: So self admires ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... to glose: Yet proud she was (for lofty Pride that dwells In towered courts, is oft in shepherds' cells), And too-too well the fair vermilion knew And silver tincture of her cheeks, that drew The love of every swain. On her this god Enamour'd was, and with his snaky rod Did charm her nimble feet, and made her stay, The while upon a hillock down he lay, And sweetly on his pipe began to play, And with smooth speech her fancy to assay, ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... the old beau garcon, "although for six times three hundred and sixty-five days, your swain has placed the capuchin round your neck, and the stove under your feet, and driven your little sledge upon the ice in winter, and your cabriole through the dust in summer, you may dismiss him at once, without reason or apology, upon the two thousand one hundred and ninetieth day, which, according ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... The other would-be swain calls himself a Seeker of Truth. Incidentally he is hunting a wife. His general attitude is a constant reminder of the uncertainty of life. His presence makes you glad that nothing lasts. He says his days are heavy with the problems of the universe, but you can see for ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... Vigo Street—do you know his work? You must—and stand on your writing-table.... I see you are shaping a protest. Frugality? Another of your shining qualities. Not of mine? No, no. I admire it in you. It is not a manly virtue. A 'frugal swain' means a harassed wife. Now, confess. Would you have me board? I believe I would do it if you asked me...." Not very exciting, all this; but if you ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... eye, And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene! Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned The distant plough slow-moving, and beside His labouring team, that swerved not from the track, The sturdy swain diminished to a boy! Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, Conducts the eye along his sinuous course Delighted. There, fast rooted in his bank Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms That ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... takes her neat rubb'd pail, and now She trips to milk the sand-red Cow; Where for some sturdy foot-ball Swain, Jone strokes a Sillibub or twaine. The fields and gardens were beset With Tulips, Crocus, Violet, And now, though late, the modest Rose Did more then half a blush disclose. Thus all looks gay and full of chear To welcome ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... held me for their own, I filled the dream of sad, poetic maids, I took the friendly noble by the hand, I was the trustee of the hand-cart man, The brother of the fisher, porter, swain, And these from the crowd's edge well pleased beheld The service done to me ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... how far an humble lot Exceeds abundance by injustice got; How health and temperance bless the rustic swain, While luxury destroys her ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... CHAP. VII.—How Sir Swain Northy* was, by Bleeding, Purging, and a Steel Diet, brought into a Consumption, and how John was forced afterwards to give him ...
— The History of John Bull • John Arbuthnot
... courting Jenny, received a rare scare, which suggests to me that Jean, in spite of her tragic ending, may not have been without a spice of humour. Thomas, for that was the swain's name, made an assignation one night to meet Jenny in the orchard ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... me upon my prepossessions, and to amuse us with a thousand ludicrous anecdotes which he had collected in his travels. He made no scruple to charge me with being in love; and threatened to inform the swain, when he met him, ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... day when birds of kind Their paramours with mutual chirpings find, I early rose.... Thee first I spied, and the first swain we see, In spite of fortune, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... They swain rapidly, but seemed to make little progress. Lord Hastings, standing on the bridge of the Sylph, discovered the two forms in the water. A second boat was hastily launched, ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... Negro boy named "Boston," and for the recovery of the slave. This was a jury-trial in the Court of Common Pleas. The jury brought in a verdict in favor of the slave, and he was "manumitted by the magistrates." John Swain took an appeal from the decision of the Nantucket Court to the Supreme Court of Boston, but never prosecuted it.[398] In 1770, in Hanover, Plymouth County, a Negro asked his master to grant him his freedom as his right. The master refused; and the Negro, with assistance of counsel, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Mr. Osborne. Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated. Perhaps the love is occasionally on the man's side; perhaps on the lady's. Perhaps some infatuated swain has ere this mistaken insensibility for modesty, dulness for maiden reserve, mere vacuity for sweet bashfulness, and a goose, in a word, for a swan. Perhaps some beloved female subscriber has arrayed ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Zerbino, him the swain Of all which there had chanced, informed aright. Zerbino marvelled, and believed with pain, Although the proofs were clear: This as it might, He from his horse dismounted on the plain, Full of compassion, in afflicted plight; And went about, collecting from the ground The various ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... train there is a swain I dearly lo'e mysel'. But what's his name or where's his hame I dinna choose ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... but Bill construed it into approval, and was about to sit down by her, when Tiger, with an angry growl, sprang forward and precipitated the wooing swain over the log into the dirt. Fanny called off the dog, and Bill gathered himself up, carefully brushing the dirt from his Sunday suit. Fearing he would repeat his offer, Fanny said, "I appreciate your kindness, Billy, but you see Tiger doesn't seem to approve of your proposal, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... were a happy life To be no better than a homely swain, To sit upon a hill as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to see the minutes how they run How many make the hour full complete, How many hours bring about the day, How many days will finish up the year, How many years a mortal man may live: When this ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... am still less qualified to appreciate: nor am I deeply interested in a metaphysical passion for a nymph so shadowy, that her existence has been questioned; [2] for a matron so prolific, [3] that she was delivered of eleven legitimate children, [4] while her amorous swain sighed and sung at the fountain of Vaucluse. [5] But in the eyes of Petrarch, and those of his graver contemporaries, his love was a sin, and Italian verse a frivolous amusement. His Latin works of philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, established ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... them; in their landscape, every Phillis has her Corydon, every murmuring stream, and every flowery mead, gives fresh alarms to love. Besides, you'll find, that their couples were never married:—but yonder I see my Corydon, and a sweet swain it is, Heaven knows! Come, Dorinda, don't be angry, he's my husband, and your brother; and, between both, is he not a sad ...
— The Beaux-Stratagem • George Farquhar
... higher, an ideal that was far off, indistinct, and dim. Good offers of marriage from neighboring workmen of fair character and prospects she stubbornly declined, sometimes with a tartness that quite confounded the swain whom her well-known character had half-intimidated before he ventured on the dangerous proposal. Love had not yet unsealed the deep fountain of her singularly constituted heart. But I suppose that there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... Held borrowed truncheon of command, 125 The young King, mewed in Stirling tower, Was stranger to respect and power. But then, thy Chieftain's robber life! Winning mean prey by causeless strife, Wrenching from ruined Lowland swain 130 His herds and harvest reared in vain— Methinks a soul, like thine, should scorn The spoils from such ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... as base as is the lowly plain, And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain Ascend to heaven, in ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... of flow'ring thorn The song of friendly cuckoo warn The tardy-moving swain; Hast bid the purple swallow hail; And seen him now through ether sail, Now sweeping downward o'er the vale. And skimming now ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... with all his eccentricity to have made no small impression on our fair Aurelia. Depend upon it, my dear Betty, romance carried the day; and the damsel is more enamoured of the mysterious voice in the dark, than she would be of any lusty swain in the ordinary ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pastoral, or has the effect of the pastoral on the minds of men living in cities; but the class of poetry which I mean, and which you probably understand by the term pastoral, is that in which a farmer's girl is spoken of as a "nymph," and a farmer's boy as a "swain," and in which, throughout, a ridiculous and unnatural refinement is supposed to exist in rural life, merely because the poet himself has neither had the courage to endure its hardships, nor the wit to conceive its realities. If you examine ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... beneath the summit sprang the fount. Nor went he single; Jill, the beauteous maid, Danced at his side, and took his proffered aid. Together went they, pail in hand, and sang Their love songs till the leafy valleys rang. Alas! the fount scarce reached, the heedless swain Turned on his foot and slipped and turned again. Then fell he headlong: and the woe-struck maid, Jealous of his fell doom, a moment stayed And watched him; then to the depths she rushed And shared his fate. Behold them, mangled, crushed. ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... him, it mattered little what were her claims to youth, beauty, or rank in life. The marechale de Mirepoix frequently said to me, "Do you know, my dear creature, that your royal admirer is but a very fickle swain, who is playing the gay gallant when he ought to be quietly seated at his own fireside. Have a care, he is growing old, and his intellect becomes more feeble each day; and what he would never have granted some few ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Nymphal shows us the quiet laughter, the humorous twinkle, with which Drayton writes at times. The subject is an [Greek: agon] or contest between two shepherds for the affections of a nymph called Lirope: Lalus is a vale-bred swain, of refined and elegant manners, skilled, nevertheless, in all manly sports and exercises; Cleon, no less a master in physical prowess, was nurtured by a hind in the mountains; the contrast between their manners is admirably sustained: Cleon is rough, ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... Everard, early in February, to his cousin in Queen's Road. 'Dr. Swain assures me that unless he be removed he cannot last more than a month or two. This morning I saw the woman'—it was thus he always referred to his sister-in-law—'and talked to her in what was probably the plainest language she ever ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... swain, Joan strokes a syllabub or twain. The fields and gardens were beset With tulips, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... on March 21, 1917, however, brought about the loss of twenty-one members of her crew, seven of whom were Americans. On April 2, 1917, the sinking of the armed steamer Aztec was reported. With her twenty-eight of the crew, including a U. S. N. boat-swain's mate, perished. The Missourian went down on April 4, 1917, and the Seward on April 7, 1917, both in the Mediterranean. On April 24, 1917, the sinking of the schooner Percy Birdsall was reported. The crew was rescued. Later that month another small schooner, the Woodward Abrahams ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... rivers, loosen'd from their icy chain, Spread joy and richness thro' the verdant plain, Thus, in those climes where skies are ever fair, Each infant Science breath'd a genial air, Climes where the Earth her stores to all resign'd, Nor left one selfish passion to the mind; On her green lap the swain reclin'd his head, And found his banquet where he found his bed. Then Painting grew, and from the shades of flow'rs[A] There first essay'd her imitative pow'rs, When, urg'd by plunder, with the torrent's might, Nerv'd by the storm, and ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... guard boat, exchanging hails with the boat-swain's mate in charge, and drew near at last to the forbidden ship. Not a cat stirred, there was no speech of man; and the sea being exceeding high outside, and the reef close to where the schooner lay, the clamour of the surf hung round her like the ...
— The Ebb-Tide - A Trio And Quartette • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... relaxation of the figure and perfect repose of every limb is wonderful. The countenance has traits of individuality which led me to think it might have been a portrait, perhaps of some rude country swain. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... Corydon, my Corydon, Been, alack! her swain— Cor. Had my lovely one, my lovely one, Been in Ida plain— Phyl. Cynthia Endymion had refused, Preferring, preferring, My Corydon to play withal. Cor. The Queen of Love had been excused Bequeathing, bequeathing, My ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the grass of the valley, then suddenly start and bound up the shelving mountain. But their infant coats are now wet with rain, and their sports are over. Shivering, they follow the shepherd with their bleating dams. And now, adorned with rustic lays and bleeding hearts, the swain sends to his favourite maid the mysterious valentine. The birds choose their mates; it is the season of connubial joys. Mild then be ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... Tenderfoot here, for you, Jake, and Ah just wanted to warn you to handle him with care or these pretty gals of Pebbly Pit will call you to account for him. Boys are scarcer than hen's teeth, since the war, you know, and our gals are having a hard time raking the country to find such a swain ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Callum Beg, who, he thought, had some disposition to act as a spy on his motions, Waverley hired as a servant a simple Edinburgh swain, who had mounted the white cockade in a fit of spleen and jealousy, because Jenny Jop had danced a whole night with Corporal Bullock of ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... hearth-rug with his hands behind him, swaying from one leg to the other. He was embarrassed always by the presence of the amiable little woman; he could not feel at ease before strangers, in his capacity of accepted swain of Helena. ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence |
