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Yearn   Listen
verb
Yearn  v. t.  (past & past part. yearned; pres. part. yearning)  To pain; to grieve; to vex. (Obs.) "She laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn your heart to see it." "It yearns me not if men my garments wear."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Yearn" Quotes from Famous Books



... Bolshevist rule or a dictatorship by the proletariat, but a matter of ascertaining the relative strength and probable behavior of the classes in a given society. It is as futile to "see red" in America because of Bolshevism in Russia as to yearn for Bolshevism's advent in the United States. Either view misses the all-important point that so far as social structure is concerned America is the antipodes of Russia, where the capitalists have shown little fighting spirit, ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... glow'd the breast Where a God yearn'd to cling; Drink-hael! so Jesu press'd Life from its mystic spring; Then hush and bend in reverent sign And breathe the thrilling reeds ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... particularly yearn to come to blows with us, Frank," said Mr. Temple. "And not all Mexicans are involved, if my suspicions are correct, but only a faction. You see, boys, General Obregon has been President of Mexico now for several years, but the country is ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... were possible I might return, Unto that vanished land whence I was torn, There, there alone to live my heart doth yearn, To ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... of thy magic, Egyptian," she said. "It is yet hot abroad, and I am weary of those Hebrew Ambassadors and their talk of Herod and Jerusalem. I hate that Herod, as he shall find—and will have none of the Ambassadors to-day, though I yearn a little to try my Hebrew on them. What canst thou do? Hast thou no new trick? By Serapis! if thou canst conjure as well as thou canst prophesy, thou shalt have a place at Court, with pay and perquisites to boot, if thy lofty soul does not ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... are all things seen to yearn In due time for due return; And no order fixed may stay, Save which in th' appointed way Joins the end to the beginning ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... whole heart is molten with thy tears, And my limbs yearn with pity of thee, and love Compels with grief mine eyes and labouring breath: For what thou art I know thee, and this thy breast And thy fair eyes I worship, and am bound Toward thee in spirit and love thee in all my soul. For there ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... she, as she kissed him fondly, "for we are not going away again just yet. You will stay and dine with me—I have given the necessary orders. You must be quite sick of the monotonous hotel meals. For my part, I simply yearn to eat at my ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau

... It must be one thing or the other; God deals not in half-measures! Pause, oh pause, ere you decide to fall! Even at the latest hour the Lord desires to save your soul,—the Lord yearns for your redemption, and maketh me to yearn also. Froeken Thelma!" and Mr. Dyceworthy's voice deepened in solemnity, "there is a way which the Lord hath whispered in mine ears,—a way that pointeth to the white robe and the crown of glory,—a way by which you shall possess the inner peace of the heart ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... masquerade is over we'll then turn our undivided attention to laying the juniors up for the winter. That may be the last game of the year, unless the freshies yearn for another. I am tired of playing, to tell you the truth. I don't ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... she is guilty or not—beautiful, devout, and, whatever errors she has committed, desirable Queen, that the troubles which it is so hard for your ambitious soul to bear will then vanish? When you have won the woman for whom you yearn, the throne, and the sceptre, will your sore heart be healed and happiness make its joyous entry, and also remain in your soul, that is so hard to satisfy? For—I see and feel it—it is carried away by the 'More, farther,' ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... softened toward the whole world, and most of all did he yearn for the old look of confidence from the now constantly averted eyes of his son. Just as these feelings were strongest in his bosom, Frederick entered the room where he sat. The ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... kindness. It would be my shame if I denied it; I live here at your mercy and by your favour, and glory to acknowledge it. You have pity on my wretched body, which is but grass, and must soon be trodden under: but O, Haddo! how much greater is the yearning with which I yearn after and pity your immortal soul! Come now, let us reason together! I drop all points of controversy, weighty though these be; I take your defaced and damnified kirk on your own terms; and I ask you, Are ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... here is democratic America, where every man has to earn his living or marry rich, people will scorn my high-born love of the fox-chase, and speak in a slighting manner of my wild, wild yearn for the rush and scamper of the hunt. By Jove, but it is joy indeed to gallop over the sward and the cover, and the open land, the meet and the cucumber vines of the Plebian farmer, to run over the wife of the ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye

... over! For the winds and the waters surcease; Ah, few were the days of the rover That smiled in the beauty of peace, And distant and dim was the omen That hinted redress or release! From the ravage of life, and its riot, What marvel I yearn for the quiet Which bides in the harbor at last,— For the lights, with their welcoming quiver That throb through the sanctified river, Which girdle the harbor at last, ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various

... criticism of an elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his own career, too. Ough! they are first-rate, these people, at making a career! Damn ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God! I love you more than any one. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... doing right, we enjoy the same seeming serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight, which follows on one receiving praise from a father,—we certainly have within us the image of some person to whom our love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in whose anger we waste away. These feelings in us are such as require for their exciting cause an intelligent being; we are not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... has filled me with a most peculiar sensation. A melancholy feeling has come over me, and I seem to yearn after some long-forgotten object of affection. Singular, ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... a miserable blank in my memory. Towards the sixth day, however, the savoury flavour of a splendid salmon-trout floated past my dried-up nostrils like "Afric's spicy gale," and caused my collapsed stomach to yearn with strong emotion. The ship, too, was going more quietly through the water; and a broad stream of sunshine shot through the small window of my berth, penetrated my breast, and went down into the centre of my heart, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... 1592, without having had the good fortune to see Henry IV. in peaceable possession of the kingdom which was destined to receive from him, together with stability and peace, a return of generous hope. All the writers of mark in the reign of Henry IV. bear the same imprint; they all yearn to get free from the chaos of those ideas and sentiments which the sixteenth century left still bubbling up. In literature as well as in the state, one and the same need of discipline and unity, one universal thirst for order and peace was bringing together ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... in what he doth, and that he doth what he doth for us, with complacency and delight. But when it is set forth to us under the notion of 'mercy,' then it bespeaks us to be in a state both wretched and miserable, and that his bowels and compassions yearn over us in this our fearful plight. Now, the Holy Ghost chooseth—as it should seem—in this place, to present us with that goodness that is in God's heart towards us, rather under the term of mercy; for that, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... longer, slowly calming down. Wonderful indeed had been some of the moments of thrill, but there had been others not conducive to happiness. Why do men yearn for adventure in wild moments and regret the risks ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... you. When you realise what you've let yourself in for you'll break loose, suddenly—like that." He threw out his arms as if he burst bonds asunder. "You can't help yourself. You simply can't live the life. You may yearn for it, but you can't ...
— The Immortal Moment - The Story of Kitty Tailleur • May Sinclair

... little group of poets and humorists attracted as much custom to good Mr. Pfaff's beer-saloon as did his fresh, cool lager; and that young men, and, for the matter of that, men not so young, stole in there to listen to their contests of wit, and to wish and yearn and aspire to be of their goodly company. For the old gentleman little dreamed, as he went on his course up Broadway, that he had seen the first Bohemians of New York, and that these young men would be written about and talked about and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner

... and several parties having responded who were no more essentially saturated with literature than I am, I now take my pen in hand to reveal the true inwardness of my literary life, so that boys, who may yearn to follow in my footsteps and wear a laurel wreath the year round in place of a hat, may know what the personal habits of ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... damsel's song, both words and verses pleased him and he said to Al-Abbas, "O my son, verily long versifying hath tired these damsels, and indeed they make us yearn after the houses and the homesteads with the beauty of their songs. These five have adorned our meeting with the charm of their melodies and have done well in that which they have said before those who are present; so we counsel thee ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... quit this ancient casement, tell me, is it well to yearn For the evanescent visions, vanished never to return? Is it well that I should with to leave this dreary world behind, Seeking for your fair Utopia, which perchance I may not find? Passing through a gloomy forest, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... rollicking young of his kind Yearn for the paths that the vagabonds find, He leads them out over loitering ways Where the Southland beckons with luring days; To wait till the laughter-like lilt of his song Is ripe for the North ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch

... liquid interlude, Voice of the lonely souls that yearn and brood, Voice of the unseen Life, the unsubdued, What wonder that He draweth nigh to taste Of your cool waters. Hail thou nameless One, Fair stranger from a realm beyond the Sun, Knowing that ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer

... known, and has been described so much, that one must needs look through other people's eyes, and feels as if he were seeing a picture rather than a reality. Man has, in short, entire possession of Nature here, and I should think young men might sometimes yearn for a fresher draught. But ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... to gaze at ruins need not go to it. Those who only yearn for the sight of crown jewels, or ancient armour, had better stay away. But to all who would see the realm which Nature has spread out, in her largest features, for the development of the Anglo-Saxon race, under institutions once deemed Utopian, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... at home says, "Hark! For his voice I listen and yearn; It is growing late and dark, And my boy ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... to the open, you are not so much a political leader as a warlike Scot at the head of his clan, and readier by far to make a dash into the neighbouring fastness than to wait for an attack. Are you and Jefferson going to fight straight through this session?—for if you are, I shall no longer yearn so much for the repose of Mount Vernon as for ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... engagement, you bore it bravely, you kept my counsel, you assisted me in my projects; you proved yourself all that was noble and magnanimous in woman. What marvel, then, that I more than ever loved you, and wished the obstacle removed that divides us, and yearn for my lost happiness now dearer to me than before, only to be renewed through you, Evelyn! that I still adore!—woman most beautiful, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... will, pitiless to myself, confess the whole truth to you. It was not alone because the God of my fathers called me, but because His summons reached me through you and my father that I came. You yearn for a land in the far uncertain distance, which the Lord has promised you; but I opened to the people the door of a new and sure home. Not for their sakes—what hitherto have they been to me?—but first of all to live there in happiness with you whom I loved, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of his earlier life, when he was a farmer at Mount Vernon, brought pleasing pictures of the past to his memory, and he seemed to yearn for a renewal of those social pleasures which had been the delight of his young manhood. To Mrs. Fairfax, in England, who had resided at ruined Belvoir, and had been a beloved member of the society of that neighborhood, he wrote, in ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing

... breasts begirt with steel? To those, whom Nature taught to think and feel, Heroes, alas! are things of small concern; Could History man's secret heart reveal, And what imports a heaven-born mind to learn, Her transcripts to explore what bosom would not yearn? ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... Henry, explaining easy in the idioms he learned at college, 'are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the phonograph. They have the artistic temperament. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They give wampum to the hand-organ man and the four-legged chicken in the tent when they're months behind with the grocery and the ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry

... ergo Filius liberavit, vere liberi eritis." "If the Son should make you free, then are ye free indeed." And for the first time was the true liberty of the redeemed soul comprehensibly proclaimed to the young spirit that had begun to yearn for something beyond the outside. Light began to shine through the outward ordinances; the Church; the world, life, and death, were revealed as something absolutely new; a redeeming, cleansing, sanctifying power was made known, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Surbiton. I repeated the name aloud, tasting its flavour. It has always had to me something brackish, something that fills my mind with grey pain and makes me yearn for my old toys. It is curious how the places and streets of London assume a character from one's own moods. All the big roads have a very sharp character of their own. If all other indications were lacking, one might know at once whether ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke

... believe, Earth being so fair, the dead might wish to return! Is it so strange if, even in heaven, they yearn For the May-time and the dreams ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... beautiful sister of the popular lawyer, as he was now driven by an aching heart toward the same woman stripped of every adventitions advantage and placed, by custom, beyond the pale of marriage with men of his own race. Custom was tyranny. Love was the only law. Would God have made hearts to so yearn for one another if He had meant them to stay forever apart? If this girl should die, it would be he who had killed her, by his cruelty, no less surely than if with his own hand he had struck her down. He had been so dazzled by his own superiority, so blinded by his own glory, that he had ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... indeed, a trying summer for our emotions, torn as we were between our pity for Mrs. Bentley and our compassion for her daughter. We had no repose, except when we centred our sympathies upon Glendenning, whom we could yearn over in tender regret without doing any one else wrong, or even criticising another. He was our great stay in that respect, and though a mere external witness might have thought that he had the easiest part, we who knew his gentle and affectionate ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... this mass, nothing is required but faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin

... quickened doubtless by jealousy, had grown more and more to yearn for Sukey's manifold charms, physical and temperamental. Billy Little, who did not like Sukey, said her charms were "dimple-mental"; but Billy's heart was filled with many curious prejudices, and Tom's judgment was much more to be relied upon ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major

... turn again," once they rang cheerily, While a boy listened alone; Made his heart yearn again, musing so wearily All by himself ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various

... prayer, as well as for the ends of prayer, it is enough, and He will prove it to be enough presently. I have been when I could not pray at all. And then God's face seemed so close upon me that there was no need of prayer, any more than if I were near you, as I yearn to be, as I ought to be, there would be need for this letter. Oh, be sure that He means well by us by what we suffer, and it is when we suffer that He often makes the meaning clearer. You know how that brilliant, witty, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... agree with you that we all have derived from nature the right to feed our diversified passions according to their several cravings; but while we are authorized, by the very laws of our being, to seek those delights of sense for which we yearn, a perverted and ridiculous PUBLIC OPINION prohibits such indulgences, unless under certain restrictions, and accompanied by certain forms. Now, though this public opinion undoubtedly is ridiculous and perverted, ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... they are financially established, they usually do so, but a craving for a home of her own is the first stirring of maturity in a woman. To many women, however, a home is not wholly satisfying unless she is making it for someone else, and nature has made most women yearn for a ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various

... prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance, an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... toward them a parental tenderness, and spoke as a dying father might have done to the helpless babes that gathered around his bed, "I am to be with you for a very little time longer; the sand has nearly run out in the hour-glass. I know you will seek Me; your love will make you yearn to be with Me where I am, to continue the blessed intimacy, the ties which within the last few weeks have been drawn so much closer; but it will not be possible. As I said to the Jews, so must I say to you, Whither I go, ye cannot come." He then proceeds to give them a new commandment ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... belief to their children. Moreover, nothing was better calculated to give to a primitive people, like the Irish, a strong supernatural spirit and character, than to make them despise the joys of this earth and yearn for a better country. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... kiss from Regina's lips. Of course everybody is astounded at his insolence, and the angry {271} Burgomaster bids him leave the town at once, without his money. But Hunold, nothing daunted, begins to sing so beautifully that the hearts of all the women yearn towards him, he continues still more passionately, addressing himself directly to Regina, and never stops, till the maiden, carried away by a passion unconquerable, offers her lips for a kiss, swearing ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley

... are willing, we are ready: We would learn if thou would teach: We have hearts that yearn towards duty, We have minds alive to beauty, Souls that any heights ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope

... was not so much hardness as a wounded spirit that made her look so rigid. It might have been better if the return could have been delayed so as to make her yearn after her son, but there was nowhere for him to go, and the coach was already on its way. How strange it was to feel the wonted glow at Clarence's return coupled with a frightful sense ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of course," mused her Father, "you have to spend the day the way your elders want you to!... You crave a Christmas Tree but they prefer stockings! You yearn to skate but they consider the weather better for corn-popping! You ask for a bicycle but they had already found a very nice bargain in flannels! You beg to dine the gay-kerchiefed Scissor-Grinder's child, but they ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... the far eastern skies, Then, down the western slopes pursues his way, Till shadows deepen and the twilight dies;— And still I muse, and wait, and list in vain For feet that never, never will return,— For loving words I may not hear again, Howe'er with ear attent I wait and yearn. ...
— Poems of the Heart and Home • Mrs. J.C. Yule (Pamela S. Vining)

... artist, should demand from him this sham of Divine Omnipotence, is utterly incomprehensible. But so it is; and these solutions are legitimate inasmuch as they satisfy the desire for finality, for which our hearts yearn with a longing greater than the longing for the loaves and fishes of this earth. Perhaps the only true desire of mankind, coming thus to light in its hours of leisure, is to be set at rest. One is never set at rest by Mr. Henry James's novels. His ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad

... hope, weep, and wait!" "Saved, Lucile!" sobb'd Matilda, "but saved to what fate? Tears, prayers, yes! not hopes." "Hush!" the sweet voice replied. "Fool'd away by a fancy, again to your side Must your husband return. Doubt not this. And return For the love you can give, with the love that you yearn To receive, lady. What was it chill'd you both now? Not the absence of love, but the ignorance how Love is nourish'd by love. Well! henceforth you will prove Your heart worthy of love,—since it knows how ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... Tutmosis, crossing his arms on his breast: "For four and thirty years have I directed the weighty car of Egypt, and I am so wearied that I yearn to join my mighty forefathers who dwell now in the western kingdom. Soon I shall leave this earth, and then my son, Ramses, will sit on the throne, and do with the state what wisdom points out ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... long for this ultimate experience! How I yearn for the fullness of this knowledge now; for the ripened wisdom that shall unlock the doors of my own consciousness, but I know, dear, this will come to us if we are faithful to the few little steps ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... wantest thou, O Salih?" He answered, "O King of the Age, indeed thou hast done us overabundant favours, and we crave of thy bounties that thou deal charitably with us and grant us permission to depart; for we yearn after our people and country and kinsfolk and our homes; so will we never forsake thy service nor that of my sister and my nephew; and by Allah, O King of the Age, 'tis not pleasant to my heart to part from thee; but how shall we ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... set them free. Under those dark, deep waters, asleep for three hundred years, lay Eileen, with all her massive ornaments on her neck and arms, and red-gold Irish hair. How often did the boy think of her, and picture to himself the motionless face, with its closed, waiting eyes, and yearn to see it. Asleep there for three hundred years! His heart used to burn at the imagination. In all these centuries had no M'Swyne been found bold enough to find the black cat and kill him? Could it be so hard a thing to kill a black cat? ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth

... its atmosphere most worthless, most selfish, most impure. I want to be free—to shake the dust of London off my feet, and enter on a life made holy by love. You can respond to such an aspiration: you, too, must yearn for a pure and free life. It is within our reach: you have but to stretch out your hand. Say something ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... though I do not mean to treat at length about that building in this chapter, I cannot omit an autograph postscript added by Clement to one of his secretary's missives: "Thou knowest that Popes have no long lives; and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or at any rate to hear that it is finished. Likewise, as regards the library. Wherefore we recommend both to thy diligence. Meantime we will betake us (as thou saidst ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds

... Godward, past the shades where blind men grope Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope, And makes for joy the very darkness dear That gives her wide wings play; nor dreams that fear At noon may rise and pierce the heart of hope. Then, when the soul leaves off to dream and yearn, May truth first purge her eyesight to discern What once being known leaves time no power to appal; Till youth at last, ere yet youth be not, learn The kind wise word that falls from years that fall— "Hope thou not much, and fear thou ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... bloom but once in a hundred years, but here in this tomb had blossomed one of those marvellous flowers that bloom but once throughout eternity. Poets and kings in after-times, O men of Verona, will yearn to have seen what you look upon to-day. For you, you thick and greasy citizens, are chosen out of all time to behold this beauty. There were once in the world thousands of men and women who had heard the very words of Christ as they fell from ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... was not a single Jew in the tavern on that memorable Sunday. The twelve Israelitish families of Togarog found sufficient relaxation and entertainment in their own circle, and did not in the least yearn after the boisterous and uncivil companionship of Russian moujiks. Alas! they knew but too well that taunts and insults would be their portion, if they but dared to show themselves at one of these public gatherings. Moreover, the Jews were ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith

... a knowledge of “bluff,” our friends plunge with delight into the fray, only to find English society so formed that, climb they never so wisely, the top can never be reached. Work as hard as they may, succeed even beyond their fondest hopes, there will always remain circles above, toward which to yearn—people who will refuse to know them, houses they will never be invited to enter. Think of the charm, the attraction such a civilization must have for the real born climber, and you, my reader, will understand why certain of our compatriots enjoy living in England, and why when ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... with an alas! that her charming friend loves me: she must therefore yearn after this reconciliation—prospects so fair—if she showed me any compassion; seemed inclinable to spare me, and to make the most favourable construction: I cannot but say, that it would be impossible not to show her some. But, to be insulted and defied ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... all this! That is the sorrow of rifted lives—the dark between, on each side the thoughts that yearn. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... towards the far valley, shimmering in earliest daylight. He, too, had he not suffered dread things whilst living in the world? And could he expect that life in the future would be more kindly to him? None the less did his heart yearn for that valley of human tribulation. He struggled ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing

... and discover the means of extending their memorial far beyond their own lifetime. That is the beginning of history, the offspring of noble and useful sentiments, which cause the mind to dwell upon the future, and to yearn for long continuance; sentiments which testify to the superiority of man over all other creatures living upon our earth, which foreshadow the immortality of the soul, and which are warrant for the progress of the human race by preserving for the generations to come ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... left her to wander further in the pilgrimage of life, we confide in thy goodness. She is of a long-suffering race, and thou wilt not desert her to the blindness of the heathen. She is thine, she is wholly thine, King of Heaven! and yet hast thou permitted our hearts to yearn towards her, with the fondness of earthly love. We await some further manifestation of thy will, that we may know whether the fountains of our affection shall be dried in the certainty of her blessedness—" ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... have yearn'd 830 With too much passion, will here stay and pity, For the mere sake of truth; as 'tis a ditty Not of these days, but long ago 'twas told By a cavern wind unto a forest old; And then the forest told it in a dream To a sleeping lake, whose cool and level gleam A poet caught as he was journeying ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats

... twelve-year-old son, the Crown Prince Yoshinaga, whose historical name is Go-Murakami. Go-Daigo's will declared that his only regret in leaving the world was his failure to effect the restoration, and that though his body was buried at Yoshino, his spirit would always yearn for Kyoto. Tradition says that he expired holding a sword in his right hand, the Hokke-kyo-sutra in his left, and that Kitabatake Chikafusa spoke of the event as a dream within ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... proudest mother's eyelids fill, As dares her gallant boy, And Plymouth Rock and Bunker Hill Yearn ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin

... returned Emma modestly. "To-night I happened to be one in disguise. But I yearn to cast aside my sable robes of prophesy and emerge from my room in gala garments. Lead me to my trunk, J. Elfreda. The night is yet young and I'm anxious to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... may yearn to be the filling in an ice sandwich, but I don't! Another shock and we'll be buried so deep even a drill couldn't find us. Let's get out now. The kid is right about that—if ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... answer," he said. "If those fish, now in process of being eaten, were caught and kept in an aquarium tank, it might be more monotonous for them than furnishing fun and food to the first comer in the way of bigger fish. Possibly they might yearn for the excitement of being harried, though I doubt it. That sort of philosophy is reserved for us humans. If we knock our heads against a brick wall we howl; if we haven't got a brick wall to knock them against we ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... visits its earthly home no more, Nor looks on the haunts it loved before. But why should the bodiless soul be sent Far off, to a long, long banishment? Talk not of the light and the living green! It will pine for the dear familiar scene; It will yearn, in that strange bright world, to behold The rock and the ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant

... Coventry of Bollinghope; for, if she loved him, she would have nothing to brood on but her wedding-dress; and they never knit their brows, nor bedew their eyes, thinking of that; that's a smiling subject. No, it is true love on both sides, I do believe; and that makes my woman's heart yearn. Harry, dear, I'll make you a confession. You have heard that a mother's love is purer and more unselfish than any other love: and so it is. But even mothers are not quite angels always. Sometimes they are just a little jealous: not, I think, where they are blessed with many children; but you are ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... fit of hypochondriacal humour which had fallen black upon him that day of deliverance and made him yearn, with an intensity increasing every moment, to separate himself from his repugnant associates and haste the moment of solitude and silence, he might have been rescued, then and for ever, from the quagmire in which perverse ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle

... People, and not only old people, as you know, appear sometimes to have been quite charmed away by what dismays most of us. The tiny shrouded figures which the sirens carry are carried very tenderly, and seem to yearn in their turn towards those kindly nurses as they pass on their way to a new world. Their small stature, as I said, does not prove them infants, but only new-born into that other life, and contrasts their ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... afraid of it, because the rest of Europe did not care for it,—and perhaps because the Jews themselves were not generally enthusiastic over it. Perhaps the majority of them would rather stay where they are. Perhaps they do not yearn passionately for ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke

... that breath in the air, A perfume and freshness strange and rare, A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere, When young hearts yearn together? All sweets below, and all sunny above, Oh! there's nothing in life like making Love, Save making hay ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... that divine discontent, which William Morris celebrates, that makes men yearn for higher things. Department stores still rolled out their multitudinous cards of hooks-and-eyes, but the person of Sebastian Early passed unnoticed in the crowd. He yearned for fame, not for his product, but for himself, and the same ability that led him to serve ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter

... by disposition a pioneer; I belong instinctively to the old civilisations. In the midst of rudimentary towns and incipient fields, I yearn for grey houses, a Norman church, an English ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... the hour at which she usually returned home from her walk. On that day she had sent the nursemaid out with Fritz—not so much as once did she yearn for her boy. Indeed, for one moment there even fell on her child a ray of the anger which she felt against all mankind and against her fate. And, in her vast discontent, she was seized with a feeling of envy against many people who, at ordinary ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler

... troublesome, battering appeals of the day are suspended, in which everything fades from the eye, leaving it free to fix itself upon the only reality, love,—the night is fosterer and patroness of truth. To love the night, to yearn for it, to wish it forever prolonged, is natural in these lovers who have drank of the cup; and, by a natural step further, since earthly life affords no such night, to wish for the night of death, as ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall

... seemingly, The open book upon thy knee, And through the quiet woodlands hear Sounds full of mystery to ear Of grosser mould—the myriad cries That from the teeming world arise; Which we, self-confidently wise, Pass by unheeding. Thou didst yearn From thy weak babyhood to learn Arcana of creation; turn Thy eyes on things intangible To mortals; when the earth was still. Hear ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various

... my lord Gawain and the king when they can no longer keep him. But he longs to reach her whom he loves and desires; and he hastens o'er sea and land; and the way seems very long to him, so eagerly does he yearn to see her who takes away and purloins his heart from him. But she yields him a fair return; and well does she pay and compensate him for the toll she has extorted from him; for she in her turn gives ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... farmer Allan at the farm abode William and Dora. William was his son, And she his niece. He often look'd at them, And often thought "I'll make them man and wife." Now Dora felt her uncle's will in all, And yearn'd towards William; but the youth, because He had been always with her in the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various

... you're gwinter have the laugh on me, for the old mood is on me an' I'm yearnin' to do this jes' like you yearn to hold up the bank ag'in. It's the old instinct gettin' to wurk. But, Jack, you see—this—mine—ain't so bad. God sometimes provides in an ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... all the greater for the contrast with the spell of peace which he had just enjoyed; and, almost paralysed in every sense, he stood and watched the fatal vision and the wrinkly, crawling quicksand that seemed to writhe and yearn for something that lay between. There could be no mistake this time, for though the moon behind threw the face into shadow he could see there the same shaven cheeks as his own, and the small stubby ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... do you find that ever the Lord did thus yearn in his bowels for and after any self-righteous man? No, no; they are the publicans and harlots, idolaters and Jerusalem sinners, for whom his bowels thus yearn and tumble about within him: for, alas! poor worms, they ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan

... that had a tinge of summer in it. As the doctor paid his afternoon visit the sun's beams streamed in at the little window, and hitting some of the tins hung on the wall for ornament, made a glory in the room which caused Bell to yearn for out-door sunshine ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various

... I yearn to reach thy dwelling, Yearn to rise from earth's fierce turmoil; Sweetest star upward to thee, Yearn to ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... and unearned distinction, my faith in practical realization of republican ideals is small, and I falter in the work of their maintenance in the interest of a people for whom they are too good. Seeing that we are immune to none of the evils besetting monarchies, excepting those for which we secretly yearn; that inequality of fortune and unjust allotment of honors are as conspicuous among us as elsewhere; that the tyranny of individuals is as intolerable, and that of the public more so; that the law's majesty is a dream and its failure ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... prevent them from wasting away in their longing for the dam: they should be tempted to eat by giving them appetizing food, and care should be taken that they do not suffer from cold or heat. When at last they have forgotten the taste of milk and no longer yearn for the dam, they may be ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... there. I'm about ready to pull out and go it alone." "Right! And don't hook up with anybody." The old man spoke with feeling. "Look at me. I'm nesting with a dodo—darned gray-whiskered milliner! He's so ornery I have to hide the ax every time I see him. I just yearn to put him out of his misery, but I dassent. Of course he has his points—everybody has; he's a game old rooster and he loves me. That's ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... fluttering did not bring that light back to Wayne's face. He went over to the far side of the room and began reading the paper, and that grim little understanding smile—a smile at himself—made Katie yearn to go over and wind her arms about his neck—dear strange Wayne who had believed there was so much, and found so little, and who was so alive to the bitter humor of being drawn to the heart of things only to be pushed back to the outer rim. But ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell

... scandalous stories against my character—which have often interrupted the full enjoyment I should have felt had they not made me tremble for the security of that attachment, of which I had so many proofs, and which formed my only consolation amid all the malice that for yearn had been endeavouring to deprive me of it! So far as regards my husband's estimation, thank fate, I have defied their wickedness! Would to Heaven I could have been equally secure in the estimation of my people—the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... vernacular translators have totally misunderstood the second line. Asyatam is explained by the commentator as tushnim sthiyatam. Ruchitahchcchandah means chcchandah or yearning arises from ruchi or like. What the Rishi says is Asyet I do not yearn after thy company, for I do not like thee. Of course, if, after staying with thee for some time, I begin to like thee, I may then feel ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... that Dolph should appear like a gentleman, and all the money she could save went towards helping out his pocket and his wardrobe. She would look out of the window after him, as he sallied forth in his best array, and her heart would yearn with delight; and once, when Peter de Groodt, struck with the youngster's gallant appearance on a bright Sunday morning, observed, "Well, after all, Dolph does grow a comely fellow!" the tear of pride started into the mother's ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving

... course, every Monday that I pay. The things one gets to eat in the country, the air one breathes, the utter freedom from restraint, the thousand and more things one enjoys in the suburbs that are not attainable here—it is these that make my heart yearn for the open." ...
— Coffee and Repartee • John Kendrick Bangs

... good they were! And, oh, how we watched the mails; But nobody writes of the quaint delights Of the sunny days and the merry nights Or tells us the things that we yearn to know— That art passed out with the long ago, And lost are the simple tales; Yet we all would happier be, I think, If we'd spend more time with our pen ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest

... and while we were there, talking pleasantly by the open window, a mocking-bird, caged before a house across the way, had struck up a perfect symphony of his rich and multitudinous song. Cornelia was delighted beyond measure, and seemed to yearn for the bird. John tried to buy it; but it was a pet; its owners were well-to-do, and would not sell: so Cornelia had to go away without it, and I fancied she was greatly chagrined, though, of course, she said nothing, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... fetching and carrying cargoes, Nor machinery, vehicles, trade, nor revenues—but you as henceforth I see you, Running up out of the night, bringing your cluster of stars, (ever-enlarging stars,) Divider of daybreak you, cutting the air, touch'd by the sun, measuring the sky, (Passionately seen and yearn'd for by one poor little child, While others remain busy or smartly talking, forever teaching thrift, thrift;) O you up there! O pennant! where you undulate like a snake hissing so curious, Out of reach, an idea only, yet furiously fought for, risking bloody death, loved ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... we thought to be an oak against which we leaned is but a broken reed that has no pith in it, and no possibility of support. So far as it goes, all trust is blessed, but the most blessed is simple reliance upon, and aspiration after, Jesus Christ. Ever to yearn for Him, not with the yearning of those who have no possession, but with that of those who, having a little, desire to have more, is to bring into our lives the one solid and sufficient good without which there is no gladness, and with which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... when I think of these things, what is there in life worth having; when I think of these things, what is there that should not be spurned away: kings in their palaces should groan for such advantages; but we, humbled as we are, should yearn ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith

... few houses along shore, but far in the distance, seen across wide, flat expanses, shadow villages and tapering spires were painted in violet on the horizon—such a shimmering horizon as we of the lowlands love, and yearn for when we sojourn in mountain lands. At Halfweg, a little cluster of humble dwellings, I turned out of the main canal, skirting the side of the Haarlemmer-meer Polder, opposite to that which we ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... these," my calm companion said, "From the crowd yonder! These yearn not for bed As rest from leaden labour." The night may be far spent, the Sabbath dawns, But here no dull brain-palsied drowser yawns At his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various

... lacerate your back—he can break your heart, but he is very tender of your skin. He can strip you of all protection and thus expose you to all outrages, but if you are exposed to the weather, half clad and half sheltered, how yearn his tender bowels! What! slaveholders talk of treating men well, and yet not only rob them of all they get, and as fast as they get it, but rob them of themselves, also; their very hands and feet, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... they return o'er the emerald hills of the prairies; Like grey-hounds they pant and they yearn, and the leader of all is Tamdoka. At his heels flies Hu-pa-hu,[AA] the fleet—the pride of the band of Kaoza,— A warrior with eagle-winged feet, but his prize is the bow and the quiver. Tamdoka first reaches the post, and his are the knife and the blanket, ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... notes reach us in the golden speech of those endowed with hearing to catch its echoes! What harmony of beatitude is taught by the mystery of heavenly colour! How dull must be our faculties, or how distant the bliss for which our souls yearn as from behind a lattice, seeing only as in a mirror of burnished silver, which, though it be never so bright, reflects but dimly! How unutterable are our ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... unwillingly, Thad saw. It must have seemed good and safe up there, so far removed from the fangs of the encircling wolves; but after the fires had burned completely out, it would prove a pretty cold perch; and for one the young scoutmaster did not yearn to try it, unless every other resort ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter

... in his arms, and in pity brought thee home! A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam? A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee yearn Upon the mountain tops ...
— Phebe, The Blackberry Girl • Edward Livermore

... as bad as at Monte Carlo. (I didn't know who he wuz, but spozed that he wuz a real out and out gambler and blackleg). And sez she, "Oh, how bad it makes me feel to see such wickedness carried on. How it makes my heart yearn for my own dear America!" Miss Meechim is good in some things; she is as loyal to her own country as a dog to a root, but ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... aspire. They must feel the impulse to sacrifice greatly, to consecrate themselves deeply, to give and give and give of themselves that their children may know better things. And it is my work to arouse their dreams, to inspire their visions, to make them yearn for better living. I am trying to teach them to use and to love beautiful things, that they may be restless among ugly things. I think beauty only serves God as the handmaiden of discontent! And, father, way down deep in my heart—I know—I know ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... her hand in silence, and turned away her pretty head. He carried her hand respectfully to his lips; and his manly heart began to yearn over this suffering virtue,—so grave, so dignified, so meek. He was no longer a young man; he began to talk to her like a friend. This tone, and the soft, sympathetic voice in which a gentleman speaks to a woman in trouble, unlocked her heart; and for the first time in her life she ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various

... nor death, nor love whose child is hate, May sunder hearts made one but once by fate. Wrath may come down as fire between them—life May bid them yearn for death as man for wife - Grief bid them stoop as son to father—shame Brand them, and memory turn their pulse to flame - Or falsehood change their blood to poisoned wine - Yet all shall rend them not in ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... Christs and Buddhas yearn, However high their spirits' stage, For man's salvation to return, ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard

... moderate fame, Have made completely happy in their sight. Well, I am no barbarian: let them have The bliss of envying.... But I am sick With the hour's emptiness; and great desire Fills me for those high beauties which my dreams Yearn ever toward. I am weary; I would go Out to some golden sunset-lighted ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... foot-worn travellers laid them down, and slept, Save one alone. Old Cedd his vigil made, And, kneeling by the tabernacle's lamp, Prayed for the man he mourned for, ending thus: 'Thou Lord of Souls, to Thee the Souls are dear! Thou yearn'st toward them as they yearn to Thee; Behold, not prayer alone for him I raise: I offer Thee my life.' When morning's light In that great church commingled with its gloom, The monks, slow-pacing, by that kneeler knelt, And prayed for Sigebert, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere

... anxiety evident in the tone of his soft speech, "we have remained in solemn prayer ever since the hour of thy departure, and, while we doubt not our petitions have found favor of both Mother and Child, yet the flesh sorroweth, and we yearn greatly to know all from thine own lips as to the fortunes of this day. Tell us, I beg thee, hast thou discovered aught of comfort or ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... the four greatest players in the world, perhaps; but they forget themselves, and we forget them (as it is their wish we should), in the master whose work they interpret so reverently, that we may yearn with his mighty desire and thrill with his rapture and triumph, or ache with his heavenly pain and ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al

... feasts; I want only Lygia. I am yearning for her, in sincerity I tell thee, Petronius, as that Dream who is imaged on the Mosaic of thy tepidarium yearned for Paisythea,—whole days and night do I yearn." ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... the rate of car number 640. Just whisper to him that when he has an infinite number of cars with an infinitesimal difference in their lengths, he will have obtained that infinite speed for which he seems to yearn. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various

... best of all men; for then shalt thou slay those my wooers, if thou hast heart thereto; I have been in battles with the king of the Greeks, and our weapons were stained with red blood, and for such things still I yearn." ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous

... there was a touch about A—-'s singing which made my heart yearn with a nameless longing. Each of the little joys of life, which remain unappreciated amid the hubbub of the town, send in their claims to the heart when far from home. I love music, and there is no dearth of voices and instruments in Calcutta, yet I turn a deaf ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore

... the shock that Honora moved about mechanically, hardly able to think. She knew that in time she should pardon her boy; but she could not yearn to do so till she had seen him repent. He had sinned too deeply against others to be taken home at once to her heart, even though she grieved over him with deep, loving pity, and sought to find the original germs of error rather in ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... any "bowels of compassion" it is fit that they should yearn now. This frothy and frenzied Republic is at that ebb where national "extreme unction" must be administered speedily, else the sufferer will pass away from the theatre of sublunary things without the benefit ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various

... "Hanaford San nice gentleman. I give wonder why he stay this far-away place. I hear some time he have much sadful. Too bad. Maybe he have the yearn for his country. If this be truthful why he not give ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... her breast, and rocking herself to and fro, uttering her incessant "Mea culpa!" "Tell me more," she said again, presently; "show me more dreadful sights, that I may suffer more. I yearn for it; it will do my soul good—it is like purgatory. ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... Enoch yearn'd to see her face again; 'If I might look on her sweet face gain And know that she is happy.' So the thought Haunted and harass'd him, and drove him forth, At evening when the dull November day Was growing duller ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... his hands and wept, because he had reached the zenith of his glory; his ambition had been spent, his work had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead waters of life, where ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given

... waste! Mighty, and inhospitable, and stern; Hiding a meaning over which we yearn In eager, panting haste— Grasping and losing, Still being deluded ever by our choosing— Answer us Sphinx: What is thy meaning double But ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... never strenuous (if they can help it), and their accomplishments hardly ever of practical use. This is all true of the born artist, as well. Both inverts and artists are inordinately fond of praise; both yearn for a life where admiration is the reward for little energy. In a word, they seem to be 'born tired,' begotten by parents who ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... name, which throbs with guns and bells, Clashes and thunders, ceaselessly reproaches Against my languor with its bells and guns! Silence your tocsins and your salvos! Poison? What need of poison in the prison-house? I yearn to broaden history!—I am A pallid visage watching at a window. If I could only rid myself of doubt! You know me well! what do you think of me? Suppose I were what people say we are And what we often are, we great ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand

... who, to life's end, will suffer over and over all that their dear ones endured. Pity the mothers who hear their sons' faint calls in dreams, who in many a weary night-watch see them pining and wasting, and yearn with a lifelong, unappeasable yearning to have been able to soothe those forsaken, lonely death-beds. O man or woman, if you have pity to spare, spend it not on Lee or Davis,—spend it on their victims, on the thousands of living hearts which these men of ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... he knew not why, save that he was possessed by a nebulous awareness that Skipper must be considered as a god should be considered, and that this was no time to obtrude himself on Skipper. His heart was torn with desire, although he made no sound, and he continued only to yearn over the companion combing and to listen to the faint ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... plagiaristic, and even irrational suspicions about the low level of his tea caddy, or a neap tide in his brandy bottle, or any false evidence of the eyes (which ever go spying to lock up the heart), or the ears, which are also wicked organs—these memories truly are grievous to him, and make him yearn now to be robbed again; but what he feels most sadly is the desolation of having nobody who understands his locks. One of the best men I ever knew was so plagued with his sideboard every day for two years, after dinner, that he married a little new maid-of-all-work—because ...
— George Bowring - A Tale Of Cader Idris - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore

... write his name it is as though I gave him one of those caressing touches for which my fingers yearn and quiver.... ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis

... has her way to make. She's been rather overdoing lately. I don't like the look in her eyes at times. She never asks for sympathy or consideration, you understand, but she makes every woman, and man, too, judging by that rich cripple, Mr. Boswell, yearn over her. She'd be the merriest soul on earth, with half a chance, and she's the most capable girl I have: ready for an emergency; never weary. Why, of ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... to yearn for the repose of Arcady Cottage. She wants to see herself mistress of a house. She longs to have to order dinner, inspect the dusting of the drawing-room, pour out tea from our own tea-pot, and work antimacassars for our chairs. I can see already that ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... is my new boy? I am glad to see you, my dear, and hope you'll be happy here," said the lady, drawing him to her, and stroking back the hair from his forehead with a kind hand and a motherly look, which made Nat's lonely little heart yearn toward her. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... folded, Ray droned, "Naow, sistern, it behooveth us heuh in St. Timothee's Chutch," while Carl pounded the table in his delight at seeing old Ray, the broad-shouldered, the lady-killer, the capable business man, drop his eyes and yearn. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... rest without motion, has been also the most fruitful of all ideas. It is the beginning of a priori thought, and indeed of thinking at all. Men were led to conceive it, not by a love of hasty generalization, but by a divine instinct, a dialectical enthusiasm, in which the human faculties seemed to yearn for enlargement. We know that 'being' is only the verb of existence, the copula, the most general symbol of relation, the first and most meagre of abstractions; but to some of the ancient philosophers this little word appeared to attain divine ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... thinkin' all the time of Guinevere. I reckon he writes her a letter, and he says, says he, 'Dear Lady, I send thee my undyin' love,' says he. 'I kiss the picture which is a-layin' on my breast,' says he; 'and with my last breath,' says he, 'I shorely yearn for thee!'" ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... severance. But thou departest from us at peep of day and returnest not to us till sundown, wherefore there betideth us extreme desolation. Indeed this is exceeding grievous to us and we abide in sore longing for such reason." The Francolin replied, "Indeed, I love you also and yearn for you yet more than you can yearn for me, nor is it easy for me to leave you; but my hand hath no help for this, seeing that I am a fowl with wings and may not wone with you always, because that is not of my nature. For a bird, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... the merciless tongue, which, since it has once started, finds it best to clear up this matter which has tortured her conscience ever since she has begun to realize that this rich man who owned this big estate had a heart too which could suffer and yearn. So while her tongue is so well started and all shyness seems to have fallen from ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... my heart for one doth yearn, "Find love in kindly service," sweet fern leaves sighed, "Return." Sad waves then cease thy moaning—let hope's resplendent rays Imbue my heart with courage—God's love's ...
— Poems - A Message of Hope • Mary Alice Walton

... aristocracy does not exist, he had a high opinion of it. He would yearn for the swords and the stately manners of the Pommards before the Revolution—most of whom had been (in theory) Republicans. But he turned with a more practical eagerness to the one country in Europe where the tricolour has never flown and men have ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... increasing bloom, an air of conscious privilege that, cleverly corrected by pretty charities, gave distinction to her appearance—it had yet not a direct influence on her work. That only made—everything only made—one yearn the more for it, rounded it off with a ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James

... sufficient results. You see, so many fine spirits passed over at once, suddenly, on that First of July, that the twentieth plane is quite thronged with them, and they are just as eager to come back as their friends could be to welcome them. One good yearn deserves another, as we say. The only time when these seances fail is when some inharmonious soul is present—some personality not completely EN RAPPORT with the spirit of the gathering. I remember, for instance, ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... that I am still as honest as the best blood in me. But now," he added drearily, "what is there for me? Commissioner, you have done me the irreparable wrong of making me what I am. All our two lives there can never be any righting of that wrong. I am a half-breed, and must forever yearn vainly for better things that I know I can ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... ours), 'The breath of the blind girl closes The leaves of the saddening roses— We are tender, we sons of light, We shrink from this child of night; From the grasp of the blind girl free us— We yearn for the eyes that see us— We are for night too gay, In your eyes we behold the day— O ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... thee? If I thought—but no, it cannot be— Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentle, yet so free. And yet, if haply, when thou'rt gone my lonely heart should yearn, Can the hand which casts thee from it ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... swarm naturally. They sense this generosity, this non-protective attitude from afar. A girl like Jennie is like a comfortable fire to the average masculine mind; they gravitate to it, seek its sympathy, yearn to possess it. Hence she was annoyed ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... thy house, thou who hast no foes. O fair youth, come to thy house, that thou mayest see me. I am thy sister, whom thou lovest; thou shalt not part from me. O fair boy, come to thy house. . . . I see thee not, yet doth my heart yearn after thee and mine eyes desire thee. Come to her who loves thee, who loves thee, Unnefer, thou blessed one! Come to thy sister, come to thy wife, to thy wife, thou whose heart stands still. Come to thy housewife. I am thy sister by the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer



Words linked to "Yearn" :   yearning, treasure, desire, hanker, cherish, want, hold dear, yearner



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