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Thrall   Listen
adjective
Thrall  adj.  Of or pertaining to a thrall; in the condition of a thrall; bond; enslaved. (Obs.) "The fiend that would make you thrall and bond."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Thrall" Quotes from Famous Books



... holds your heart in thrall?" bantered the queen, for she was malicious enough to plunge him in further difficulty. Here also was a coil for Beatrice was jealous of Sancie's beauty, and her lover, Charles of Anjou, sat beside her quick to resent any aspersion ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... has led to two conclusions. We have discovered by bitter experience that a personal ascendancy, such as the German Emperor wields, is in the highest degree perilous to the interests of peace: and that a militarism such as that which holds in its thrall the German Empire is an open menace to intellectual culture and to Christian ethics. But we must not suppose that these conclusions are only true so far as they apply to the Teutonic race, and that the same phenomena observed elsewhere ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney

... lengthened into an hour or more while Morrow in the thrall of his exalted mood forgot for the second time in the girl's sweet presence his battle between love and duty: forgot the reason for his coming, the mission he was bound to fulfill—the letter he had ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... thrall of black despair is cast over the happy island. The city of pleasure becomes one great tomb. Of its 30,000 men, women and children, all but a few are slain. The Angel of Death has spread his pall over them, a fiery breath has smitten them, and they have fallen ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... would never return. When youth went a-travelling, the attractions of the great world seldom released him from their thrall. ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... Verlandson, And he would fain know all. "O, I will ride to the wood, and see How Sivard endures his thrall." ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow

... by his beloved is oft disheartened * And by the hand of sickness eke his sprite dispirited, One asked, 'What is the taste of love?"[FN300] and I to him replied, * 'Love is a sweet at first but oft in fine unsweetened.' I am the thrall of Love who keeps the troth of love to them[FN301] * But oft they proved themselves 'Urkub[FN302] in pact with me they made. What in their camp remains? They bound their loads and fared away; * To other feres the veiled Fairs ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... could hint the condition of her mind just then. She was in the thrall of fear, but, had she been questioned, would not have ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens

... and organically related to the destiny of the hero. There, in the final scenes, although there is witchcraft practised against Grettir, it is not that, but the common and natural qualities of the foolishness of the thrall and the heroism of Grettir and his young brother on which the story turns. These are the humanities of Drangey, a strong contrast, in the art of narrative, to the moonlight spell of Glam. The notable thing is that the romantic and fantastic passages in ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... hut of the peasant, or lordly hall, To the heart of the king, or humblest thrall, Sooner or late, love comes to all, And it came to the Grand Seigneur, my dear, It came to the ...
— The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems • William Henry Drummond

... David's heart, with free consent Opens to th' distressed, and the discontent; Who is in debt, that has not wherewithal To quit his scores, may here be free from thrall: That man that fears the bailiff, or the jail, May find one here that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... seemed to English eyes "to introduce the French King within the threshold of our house." "If God start not forth to the helm," wrote the Council in an appeal to the country, "we be at the point of greatest misery that can happen to any people, which is to become thrall to a foreign nation." The French king in fact "bestrode the realm, having one foot in Calais and the other in Scotland." Ireland too was torn with civil war, while Scotland, always a danger in the north, had become formidable through ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green

... particularly cheerful subject, and not in the least likely to over-excite my nerves, I felt I must write it out in spite of the doctor's orders. I therefore proceeded to do this, and hoped it might free me from the thrall of the idea of Lohengrin; but I was mistaken; for no sooner had I got into my bath at noon, than I felt an overpowering desire to write out Lohengrin, and this longing so overcame me that I could not wait the prescribed hour for the bath, but when a few minutes elapsed, jumped out and, barely ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... Testament self-denial. And, besides, the lusts of our flesh and the lusts of our minds are so linked and locked and riveted together that if one link is loosened, or broken, or even struck at, the whole thrall is not yet thrown off indeed, but it is all shaken; it has all received a staggering blow. So much is this the case that one single act of self-denial in the region of the body will be felt for freedom throughout the whole prison-house ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... opportune invitation to the Desert. "Objective" invitation, his genial hosts had called it, knowing his hatred of convention. And Helouan danced into letters of brilliance upon the inner map of his mind. For Egypt had ever held his spirit in thrall, though as yet he had tried in vain to touch the great buried soul of her. The excavators, the Egyptologists, the archaeologists most of all, plastered her grey ancient face with labels like hotel advertisements on travellers' portmanteaux. ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood

... poor men are sorely betrayed and cruelly plotted against; and far and wide innocent people are given into the power of foreigners, and cradle-children made slaves through cruel evil laws for a little theft: and freeman's right taken away, and thrall's right narrowed, and alms' right diminished. It goes on and on, the terrible list of wrongs that have brought God's wrath on the land. The sermon is not for the building-up of faithful ones, but for the rousing and stirring up of those whose baptismal vow has been ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey

... magic night Holding every sense in thrall; World, which wondrous tales recall, Rise, in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... fire-drake cherished a vast hoard in a cave on a high cliff, difficult of access, and known to few men. Thither one day fled a thrall from his master's wrath, and saw the hoard buried by some weary warrior, and now guarded by the dragon. While the drake slept, the thrall crept in and stole a cup as ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... But in the end the hue and cry is too strong, and by advice of friends he flies to the steep holm of Drangey in Holmfirth—a place where the top can only be won by ladders—with his younger brother Illugi and a single thrall or slave. Illugi is young, but true as steel: the slave is a fool, if not actually a traitor. After the bonders of Drangey have done what they could to rid themselves of this very damaging and redoubtable intruder, they give up their shares to a certain Thorbiorn Angle. Thorbiorn at first fares ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... He fastened round her arm Rings of refulgent ore; low and apart Murmuring, "so beauteous captive, shall thy charms Forever thrall and clasp thy ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... Ah, give me a heart To rise to circumstance! Serene and high and bold to try The hazard of the chance, With strength to wait, but fixed as fate To plan and dare and do, The peer of all, and only thrall, Sweet lady mine, ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Thy thrall: I bow to thy behest, Thy fiat now will seal my fate. O King, my services are great, I pray thee grant one last request. I ask for Cusi Coyllur's hand If the Nusta's[FN32] love I've won. O King! you'll have a faithful son, Fearless, well ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham

... the grand Temple of Diana, with fine buildings around. Slightly raised above the crowd, the Apostle, preaching with great power and persuasion concerning superstition, holds in thrall the assembled multitude. On the outskirts of the crowd are numerous bonfires, upon which Jew and Gentile are throwing into the flames bundle upon bundle of scrolls, while an Asiarch with his peace-officers looks on with the conventional stolidity ...
— Enemies of Books • William Blades

... followed her to the empty seat. Opposite, some illuminated advertisements blazed their unsightly message across the murky sky. Between the two curving rows of yellow lights the river flowed—black, turgid, hopeless. Even here, though they had escaped from its absolute thrall, the far-away roar of the city beat upon their ears. She listened to it for a moment and then pressed her hands to the side of ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... moreover, is the suffering wife of an impious husband. This sinful man requires of her—of her, a soul devoted to religion— that she shall behave as if she belonged to the wicked world which holds himself within its thrall, and shall sacrifice God to him. She humbly and fervently entreats the holy Father to grant her a divorce from these bonds of matrimony which so cruelly oppress her, and to set her soul free that it may soar upwards ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... New England's valley, hill, and plain. They met to hold a jubilee, for all Were free from error's chain, and from the oppressor's thrall. Word had gone forth that slavery's ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... that henceforth was ours, Inspiring each youth's individual powers. His pictures made pregnant our creative desire, His wit was our testing in an ordeal of fire, His wisdom was our balance, to weigh things great and small, His pathos told of passions, burning, but held in thrall, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... the rag off the bush. He described the Godless Atheists that held half the world in thrall. He rehearsed again the butchery of the kulaks and the kangaroo courts of Cuba. He showed the Mongol tanks rumbling into Budapest and the pinched-face terror of the East German refugees; the "human sea" charges in Korea and the flight of the ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds

... so, and if she was indeed a Vampire, might not whatever it may be that holds such beings in thrall be by some means or other exorcised? To find the means must be my next task. I am actually pining to see her again. Never before have I been stirred to my depths by anyone. Come it from Heaven or Hell, from the Earth or the Grave, it does not matter; I shall make it my task to win her back to ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... been preparing. Gudrun's husband incites the Bonders to throw off the yoke of the licentious despot,—Olaf Tryggvesson is proclaimed king,—and the "great Jarl of Lade" is now a fugitive in the land he so lately ruled, accompanied by a single thrall, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... from fous enchanter's spell, Escape his false Duessa's magic charms, And folly quaid, yclept an hydra fell Receive a beauteous lady to his arms; While bards and minstrels chaunt the soft alarms Of gentle love, unlike his former thrall: Eke should I sing, in courtly cunning terms, The gallant feast, served up by seneschal, To knights and ladies gent in painted ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... far from town in rural hall, Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote

... Far in the wide-blue, High up in the Elfin-home, Heard I thy weeping.' 'Stop not my weeping, Till one can fight seven. Sons have I, heroes tall, First in the sword-play; This day at the Wendels' hands Eagles must tear them. Their mothers, thrall-weary, Must grind for the Wendels.' Wept the Alruna wife; Kissed her fair Freya:— 'Far off in the morning land, High in Valhalla, A window stands open; Its sill is the snow-peaks, Its posts are the waterspouts, Storm-rack ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... suggested by the Cross, but not declared. If that Name were once spoken in the form of a benediction, he felt instinctively that he would straightway be released from the mysterious spell of misery that bound his intelligence in such a grievous thrall. But not a word of consolation did his companion utter, . . on the contrary, he seemed agitated by the strangest ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... would wander far, If we might only break this mortal thrall; And roam, unshackled, o'er Time's broken bar, Trace these gleams whose glory lights on all! Then would we see in all below, above, The Great Creator's perfect power ...
— Lays from the West • M. A. Nicholl

... Made the Feinne fair Erin's boast! Where the red cascade descended, Lovely Grinie's evil dalliance Held him thrall as though were ended ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell

... was the poorer by the loss of its greatest man, the jealousy of the Sultana was assuaged, the despot who had permitted this unavenged murder was still on the throne, thrall to the woman who had first murdered his son and then his friend and minister. But the deed carried with it the evil consequences which were only too likely to occur when so capable a head of the State was removed at so critical a time. Renewed strife ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... that breaks the power That holds Prince Hero in its thrall! Now give it me, or in this hour Thy head ...
— The Rescue of the Princess Winsome - A Fairy Play for Old and Young • Annie Fellows-Johnston and Albion Fellows Bacon

... a party of govies! I am still under their thrall, remember. You are emancipated, so it's different for you. But I'll come, of course I'll come. How many visitors ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... land where acres broad Are clothed in yellow grain; Where cot of thrall and lordly hall Lie scattered o'er the plain. Oh! I have trod the velvet sod Beneath the beechwood tree; And roamed the brake by stream and lake Where peace and plenty be. But more than plain, Or rich domain, I love ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... and thrall to wake, For wherever we come, we twain, The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake, And his menace be void and vain, For you are lords of a strong young land and we are lords ...
— The Little Book of the Flag • Eva March Tappan

... have loved, and many have rendered vivid pictures of the emotion, touched with insight of genius and universally proclaimed true to nature from general experience; but no two men love alike, and neither you nor another man can better say how a third feels under the yoke, estimate his thrall, or foretell his actions, despite your own experience, than can one sufferer from gout, though it has torn him half a hundred times, gauge the qualities of another's torment under the same disease. Will could not guess what John Grimbal had felt for Phoebe; he knew nothing of ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... Hakon Jarl and his base thrall Karker Crouched in the cave, than a dungeon darker, As Olaf came riding, with men in mail, Through the forest roads into Orkadale, Demanding Jarl Hakon Of Thora, ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Thou should'st be friend of righteousness to know That zealous patriot and pure-minded man, Of whom thou spakest; surely he hath taught thee More than mere classic lore—wisdom and faith To help this stricken people from the thrall Of their ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... was the victim of enchantment, he became palsied with terror, arid began to plead with the unseen tormentors who he believed held him in thrall. "Only leave me loose, dear good little people," he howled, "and I'll ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... was in a curious mood. Dreamy, lazy, mild; he sat poring in-doors, instead of roaming abroad—in truth, was a changed lad. I told him so, and laid it all to the blame of the Anonymous Friend: who held him in such fascinated thrall that he only looked up once all the morning,—which was when Mr. and Miss March went by. In the afternoon he submitted, lamb-like, to be led down to the beech-wood—that the wonderful talking stream might hold forth to him as it did to me. But it could not—ah, no! it could ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... Looking out he sees a troll driving a pregnant woman before him, and crying to her continually: "A little further yet! a little further yet!" He instantly springs forward with a red-hot iron in his hand, which he holds between the troll and his thrall, so that the former has to abandon her and take to flight. The smith then took the woman under his protection, and the same night she was delivered of twins. Going to the husband to console him for his loss, he is surprised to find a woman exactly resembling his ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland

... as wet tamala-leaves, the ball Of heaven hide from our sight; Rain-smitten homes of ants decay and fall Like beasts that arrows smite; Like golden lamps within a lordly hall Wander the lightnings bright; As when men steal the wife of some base thrall, Clouds rob the ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... through the dell, And on his ear the laughing echoes fell: Along his path the stooping wild flowers grew, And woo'd the very zephyrs as they flew. Then why young Damon, heeding nought around, Seemed in some thrall of distant vision bound, I cannot tell—but dreamy grew his gaze, And all his thought was in a misty maze. Awhile he sauntered—then beneath a tree, He sat him down, and there a reverie Came o'er ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich

... monotony contributed to Captain Satterlee's pronounced and instant success. The topsails of the Southern Belle had hardly more than appeared over the horizon, when people began to wake up and realize that stagnation had too long held them in its thrall. Satterlee was not at all the ordinary kind of sea captain, to which the Beach (as Apia always alluded to itself) was more than well acquainted. Gin had no attractions for Captain Satterlee, nor did he surround himself with dusky impropriety. He played a straight ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne

... he tarried a while that the cattle might begin to browse upon the lush grass that grew on the marshes beside the sea. Then he went forth to meet him, and threw himself on his knees before him, for Lulach was a thrall, and it was his custom thus to pay homage to the sons of ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton

... thy pilgrimage below— O Jacob! let thy tears no longer swell The torrent of the Egyptian river: Lo! Soon on the Jordan's banks thy tents shall dwell; And Goshen shall behold thy people go Despite the power of Egypt's law and brand, From their sad thrall to Canaan's promised land. ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... foul insurrection Have batter'd down her consecrated wall, And by their mortal fault brought in subjection Her immortality, and made her thrall To living death and pain perpetual: Which in her prescience she controlled still, But her foresight could not ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]

... dry with fear, although he was naturally a brave lad, as we know. A dreadful fascination seemed to hold him in thrall. He could not have moved a muscle if his life, as he believed it did, depended on his escape. The hideous head began to sway rhythmically in a sort of dance. Still Jack could not take his eyes ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton

... sorrow in his face. So he said to him, "O Al-Din, whence cometh this sorrow wherein I see thee? Hast thou not gone in unto Kut al-Kulub?" He replied, "O Commander of the Faithful, what befitteth the lord befitteth not the thrall. No, as yet I have not gone in to visit her nor do I know her length from her breadth; so pray quit me of her." Quoth the Caliph, "I would fain see her and question her of her case;" and quoth Ala al-Din, "I hear and I obey, O ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... know that dreams are born to fade away, And melt in air before the light of day; I know that misty vapours of the night Dissolve and fly before the morning bright. The dream is naught—but the dear dreamer—all! She has my soul, Nearchus, fast in thrall; Who holds the marriage torch—august, divine, Bids me to her sweet voice my will resign. She fears my death—tho' baseless this her fright, Pauline is wrung with fear—by day—by night; My road to duty hampered by her fears, How can I go when all undried her tears? Her terror I disown—and ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... I? O vanity, We are not what we deem, The sins that hold my heart in thrall, They are more real ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and of comeliness. These presents be the hostages Which I pawn for my release. See to thyself, O Universe! Thou art better, and not worse.'— And the god, having given all, Is freed forever from his thrall. ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... tongue.' In truth, there was no conversation. The King or the Prince spoke, and Madame Alois moistened her lips; she looked nowhere but at the old tyrant, not at his eyes, but above them, at his forehead, and with a trepitant gaze, like a watched hare's. 'The King has her in thrall, soul and body,' Richard considered. Then his knee began to ache, and he released it. 'Fair sire,' he began in his own tongue. Madame Alois gave a start, and 'Ha, Richard,' says the King, 'art ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett

... have been too long absent from them, and my name is half forgotten. Yet, were they free of this prophet, I think I might sway them, for I know their ways, and I am the son of their ancient kings. But for the present his magic holds them in thrall. They listen in fear to one who hath the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... him in your thrall, An' brak him out o' house an' hall, While scabs and blotches did him gall Wi' bitter claw, An' lowsed his ill-tongued ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... clouds floating across the blue, a soft southern air wafting the fragrance of wild pink, thyme and lavender, it was a region surely peopled by good genii, sportive elves and beneficent fairies only. We were in a spirit, a phantasmal world; but a world of witchery and gracious poetic thrall only. ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... sorrow for that had befallen him of calamity, his fingers chanced to rub the Ring when, lo and behold! forthright its Familiar rose upright before him and cried, "Adsum; thy slave between thy hands is come! Ask whatso thou wantest, for that I am the thrall of him on whose hand is the Ring, the Signet of my lord and master." Hereat the lad looked at him and saw standing before him a Marid like unto an Ifrit[FN101] of our lord Solomon's Jinns. He trembled at the terrible ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... tired of perch and hood, My idle greyhound loathes his food, My horse is weary of his stall, And I am sick of captive thrall. I wish I were as I have been, Hunting the hart in forest green, With bended bow and bloodhound free, For that's the life is ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... appetites for money—Windsor Georges and such like! No man oppresses thee, O free and independent Franchiser! but does not this stupid porter-pot oppress thee? no son of Adam can bid thee come and go; but this absurd pot of heavy-wet, this can and does! Thou art the thrall, not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites, and this scoured dish of liquor; and thou protest of thy 'liberty,' thou ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... of any other werk I will not refuse that moderate and indifferent men Iudge and decerne betwixt me and thost that accuse me. To witt Whither of the partijs Do most hurt the libertie of England, I that afferme that no woman may be exalted above any realme to mak[e] the libertie of the sam[e] thrall to a straunge, proud, and euell nation, or thai that approve whatsoeuir pleaseth princes ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox

... into the heart of some vast unknown power, of which the wind was but a thrall, until she became, for a moment, consciously part of that which was universal. Her personality grew dim; she stood, as it seemed, face to face with Nature, divided from the ultimate truth by only a thin veil, to temper the splendour ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... the brute in him into its kennel, though he cannot at times help hearing it whine. Her majestic beauty had dazzled him as a flame dazzles a moth, but at this stage, at any rate, it was not her beauty that made me her thrall. That I could have withstood. Because she was so beautiful, so stately, so compelling, she made no appeal to me. What I mean is, that I did not fall in love with her at first sight, simply because the mere stupidity of such a thing kept me from doing it. Glow-worms do not ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... Heron, wife of Sir Hugh of Norham, held sway over the heart of the King. To Scotland's court she had come to be a hostage, and to reconcile the offended King to her husband. The fair Queen of France also held the king in thrall. She had sent him a turquoise ring and a glove, and charged him as her knight in English fray, to break for her a lance. For love of the French Queen, as much as for the rights of Scotland, he clothed himself in mail and put his country's noblest, dearest, and best in arms, to die ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins

... mind Unclogged of clay, and free to soar, Hath left the realms of doubt behind, And wondrous things which finite thought In vain essayed to solve, appear To thy untasked inquiries, fraught With explanation strangely clear. Thy reason owns no forced control, As held it here in needful thrall; God's mysteries court thy questioning soul, And thou may'st search and know ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... years I had lived a savage chief among savages and made acquaintance with every hardship, wedded to a woman who, although she loved me dearly, and did not lack nobility of mind, as she had shown the other day, was still at heart a savage or, at the least, a thrall of demon gods. The tribe that I ruled was conquered, the beautiful city where I dwelt was a ruin, I was homeless and a beggar, and my fortune would be great if in the issue I escaped death or slavery. All this I could have borne, ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... nation whose king is thrall to women. The manner in which this momentous step was taken is characteristic of Louis. Two councils were held in Madame de Maintenon's room at Versailles; her advice was asked by the king, and apparently turned the scale in favour of acceptance. "For a hundred ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey

... my darling boy, The world to which thou yearn'st is grey with crime; And glittering Vice will bask before thy face, As serpents lie in sedgy, o'ergrown grass, In glossy beauty, whilst Life's potent glance Will thrall thy soul as with a spirit-spell: But hold thy heart, a chalice for the Good And Beautiful to crush, with pearly hands, The mellow draught which purifies the thought, And lights the soul. Thirst after knowledge, child. Thy face shall shine, then, brightly as a ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... lisped one fair young thing, "how fareth the Lord Oeil-de-Veau? They tell me that some mysterious ailment hath him in thrall." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 10th, 1920 • Various

... with which Lanier invested Art held him thrall to the highest ethical ideas. To him the most beautiful thing of all was Right. He loved the words, "the beauty of holiness", and it pleased him to reverse the phrase and call it "the holiness of beauty". When one reads Lanier, he is reminded of two writers, Milton and Ruskin. More ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... of fair faces all his days No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe, Each is the thrall of some predestined face Divinely doomed to work his overthrow, Transiently fair, as flowers in gardens blow, Then fade, and charm no more our listless eyes; But some fair faces ever fairer grow— Beware of the ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne

... amiable qualities, but scarcely any moral worth. From first to last his circumstances were against him; his education was unfortunate, its fluctuating aimless wanderings enhanced its ill effects. The thrall of the passing moment, he had no will; the fine endowments of his heart were left to riot in chaotic turbulence, and their forces cancelled one another. With better models and advisers, with more rigid habits, and a happier fortune, he ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... pit was done, Was cook, nurse, parlourmaid rolled into one; And every wife she vowed that her man Should be trained on the same super-excellent plan. * * * * * Behold these lusty miners all Fettered fast in domestic thrall, Scrubbing, rubbing, baking bread, Busy with scissors and needle and thread, Spreading the brats their bread and jam, Trundling them out in the morning pram, Washing their pinafores clean and white And tucking them up in their cots ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various

... sculptured tower Of Ilium have had their hour; The dust of many a king is blown On the winds from zone to zone; Many a warrior sleeps unknown. Time and Death hold each in thrall, Yet is Love the lord of all; Still does Helen's beauty stir Because ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... time they had passed through several villages, camping under double-thatch and inside heavy stockade guards. Being unable to release himself from the thrall of his life-quest, even while every element of his manhood was deep in the thrall of a "singing nautch-girl—undefamed—" Skag's trained ears had been extending his education in what was the cult of cults ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost

... listened, felt as if a cool, pitying hand had fallen upon her aching heart; as if a voice of thrilling sweetness were whispering tender consolation. Never loud, but with an insistent force which held the listeners in thrall, sometimes so low that it was but a murmur, the exquisite music stole over the senses of all, awakening tender memories, reviving scattered hopes, softening, for the short space it held its sway, ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... pale kings, and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all They cried—"La Belle Dame sans Merci, Hath thee in thrall!" ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes

... thrall to sorrow, And I were page to joy, We 'd play for lives and seasons With loving looks and treasons And tears of night and morrow And laughs of maid and boy; If you were thrall to sorrow, And I ...
— Victorian Songs - Lyrics of the Affections and Nature • Various

... daydreams which not only are useless in furnishing ideals for the guidance of our lives, but often become positively harmful when grown into a habit. The habit of daydreaming is hard to break, and, continuing, holds our thought in thrall and makes it unwilling to deal with the plain, homely things of everyday life. Who has not had the experience of an hour or a day spent in a fairyland of dreams, and awakened at the end to find himself rather dissatisfied with the prosaic round of duties which confronted him! ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... escaping from his thrall just in time to avoid being stupefied by it. She thanked Heaven that she had not flung her arms around him and claimed him for her own. She had the cleverness of elusion that her sex displays in all the species, from Cleopatras to clams, from butterflies to rhinoceroses. How wisely they practise ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... to wound me any more, with oft repeating of my cruelties, Thou of thy teares (kind man) hast shed great store, when I (vnkinder mayde) scarce wet mine eyes. O let me now bewaile him once for all, Twas none but I that causd his causelesse thrall. ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale

... horribly, and sprawled on the floor within a foot or two of Bentley. Nature had mercifully sent her into momentary oblivion when the will of Barter, holding her in thrall, had snapped to show her the ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks

... just regard from me, And all the sex inherit A claim to courtesy; But none has ever claimed me Her vassal, slave or thrall, For Kate, my heart has named thee ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... Helie's steed he ordered forth, With housings dight of regal worth; 'Mount straight, sir knight, and go,' he cried; 'Wherever it may list you ride, But guard you well another tide. My prison shall be deep and strong If you again my thrall should be, And trust me 'twill be late and long Ere, once my captive, you are free. In future, Count, I bid you know I am your ever-ready foe; Where'er you go, it shall not lack, But William shall be ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... for the price of a fifty-foot lot in the City; but these things call upon one for a certain property-mindedness and desiring, in the usage of which the human mind is common and far from admirable. There were days in the thrall of stone-work and grading and drainage, in which I forgot the sun-path and the cloud-shadows; nights in which I saw fireplaces and sleeping-porches (still innocent of matter to make the dreams come true), instead of the immortal signatures ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort

... golden dice wherewith we play'd of yore; And that will bring to mind the former life And pastime of the Gods, the wise discourse Of Odin, the delights of other days, O Hermod, pray that thou may'st join us then! Such for the future is my hope; meanwhile, I rest the thrall of Hela, and endure Death, and the gloom which round me even now Thickens, and to its inner gulph recalls. Farewell, for longer speech is not allow'd!" He spoke, and waved farewell, and gave his hand To Nanna; and she gave their brother ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... are as good as your legs," said Karlsefin. "Ye are a valuable thrall, Hake, and Leif Ericsson has reason to be grateful to King Olaf of Norway for his gift.—Here, two of you, sling that deer on a pole and bear it to Gudrid. Tell her how deftly it was brought down, and relate what you have seen just now. And hark ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... may in no wise cling To a soul that sinks not and droops not wing, A sun that sets not in death's false night Whose kingdom finds him not thrall but king. ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... now only on the outer man, and not, as before, on the heart. Tom stood perfectly submissive; and yet Legree could not hide from himself that his power over his bond thrall was somehow gone. And, as Tom disappeared in his cabin, and he wheeled his horse suddenly round, there passed through his mind one of those vivid flashes that often send the lightning of conscience across the dark and wicked soul. He understood ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and wilful loon, hersir, and of no account to any man. As to his feat with the knives, had I my will I'd have it instant death to any thrall who should so much as touch ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... awaits thee!—a sadly toiling slave, Dragging the slowly lengthening chain of bondage to the grave! Think of thy woman's nature, subdued in hopeless thrall, The easy prey of any, the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... King Oswald ne'er shall rest: Ye have your answer, Earls!' Through that dim hall Ere long a gentler embassage made way, Three priests; arrived, they knelt, and, reverent, spake: 'Fathers and brethren, Oswald was a Saint! He loosed his native land from pagan thrall: Churches and convents everywhere he built: His relics, year by year, grow glorious more Through miracles and signs. Fathers revered, Within this sanctuary beloved of God Vouchsafe his dust interment!' They replied: 'We know that ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... felt the thrill, The answ'ring pulse to Fame's high call; But answer made his steadfast will— "I will not be thy thrall!" ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... curious state of mind, and slight things easily impressed her. She was in love—and yet she was not in love. The handsome face and figure of the Marquis Fontenelle, together with many of his undoubted good and even fine qualities, attracted her and held her in thrall, much more than the consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,—but—and this was a very interfering "but" indeed,—she was reluctantly compelled to admit to herself that there was no glozing over ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... peace of mind. Between spells of infatuations for attractive strangers, she accepted Jeff's devotions. The trouble was, though, that life, with Ophelia, seemed to be just one infatuation after another. And now, to cap all, she had suffered herself, nay, offered herself, to fall thrall to the dashing personality and the varied accomplishments of this Fringe person. It was this entanglement which for two weeks past had made Jeff, her official 'tween-times fiance, a prey to carking ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... wiped the tears from her face and turned to him and said: 'My friend, the Wolf shall lead thee no-whither but where I also shall be, whatsoever peril or grief may beset the road or lurk at the ending thereof. Thou shalt be no thrall, to labour ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... and small, Proud knight, free man and thrall, True happiness, since life began, The birthright is of every man; Seize then your birthright if ye can, Since ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... under the linden bough, Freed was she now from thrall; Sir Orm he stood so near thereby, They related their ...
— Mollie Charane - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise

... ran riot to my head And still I held my madness thrall, My lips repressed the frenzied shriek, My straining heart was stout as teak; But, when he kissed her mantling cheek, I broke—and two attendants led Me wailing ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 21, 1914 • Various

... out on one's plate, and to have to bolt it then and there, imposes a strain on the interior economy that is greater than this will stand. After an interview with the First Sea Lord you suffered from that giddy, bewildered, exhausted sort of feeling that no doubt has you in thrall when you have been run over by a motor bus ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell

... moment before I had been safe of all men's respect, wealthy, beloved—the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... us hover in fancy over the industrial scene in 1842, and photograph a stage of the economic conflict which the people of England were waging then with the forces which held them in thrall. ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... slender figure, were alike lost on the engrossed Paul. With his eyes glued to the criticism of a sharpened writer on the last measure before Parliament, he read on, all oblivious to his surroundings. Even here, at his beloved Lucerne, the man of affairs could not escape the thrall of the life into which he had thrown the whole effort of ...
— High Noon - A New Sequel to 'Three Weeks' by Elinor Glyn • Anonymous

... it would be desertion. I could be brought back and punished for it. Even in a foreign port the chances of desertion would be no better, but worse, since there the sailor finds it more difficult to conceal himself. I had no hope then of escaping from the cruel thrall in which I now found myself, but by putting an end to my existence, either by jumping into the sea or hanging myself from the yard-arm—a purpose which on more than one occasion I seriously entertained; but from which I was diverted by the religious ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... groaned, and scarce might speak For tears that ploughed his hardy cheek, As his dread task was done. And for the slain, from monk and priest Rose requiems that never ceased, While still he sought his son. "Oh, would to Heaven!" that father said, "There lay my darling calmly dead, Rather than as a thrall be bred— His Christian faith undone." "Nay, life is hope!" bespake the King, "God o'er the child can spread His wing And shield him in the Northman's power Safe as in Alswyth's guarded bower; Treaty and ransom may be found To win him back ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and attention, which chain me as closely to my home as if I were kept a prisoner between four walls. I could not free myself if I would," she continued, throwing back her arms, as though she tried to break an invisible thrall. "I must die first; the cords of gratitude are bound about me so closely. It is killing me, as nothing else could kill," she added, in a lower voice. "I lived under your loss, and the knowledge of my own disgrace; but I cannot live under his perpetual kindness and perfect trust. It cannot ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... stockade make known to Pitt and the others his presence, and so have them join him that their project might still be carried out. But in this he reckoned without the Governor, whom he found really in the thrall of a severe attack of gout, and almost as severe an attack of ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he knew was this—that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad

... thine, and soul and body render Faith to thy faith; I give nor hold in thrall: Take all, dear love! thou art my life's defender; Speak to my soul! Take ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... understand, yet who are spellbound. The children themselves sit spellbound on the benches till the play is over. They do not fidget or lose interest. They watch with wide, absorbed eyes at the mystery, held in thrall by the ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence



Words linked to "Thrall" :   slavery, bond servant, vassalage, subjection, servitude, thralldom, villein, serfdom, subjugation



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