"Blithe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... village of their own, just west of the quartermaster's corral, and sheltered by the long line of bluffs from the northerly gale. Deep in snowdrifts lay the snug little cabins, cottages and shacks, wherein dwelt these blithe-hearted folk—many of the girls as pretty, and to the full as coquettish, as their sisters of the official circle in the big "fort" enclosure above. Still farther to the west lay three little houses on the ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... (C.) No; for my manly heart doth yearn.— Bardolph, be blithe;—Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins; Boy, bristle thy courage up; for Falstaff he is dead, ...
— King Henry the Fifth - Arranged for Representation at the Princess's Theatre • William Shakespeare
... hid my rage at the legal mandate which here compelled us to "go no faster than a man can walk." Under an air of blithe insouciance I disguised my fears, never starting perceptibly at "any toot" behind us which might mean Sir Alec on our track, and appearing to enjoy with the free spirit of a boy, the one great ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... in his blithe and cock-sure youth was born to politics as the sparks fly upward. Men looked to him for leadership and he blandly demanded that they follow him. He was every man's friend. He knew the whole county by its first name. The men, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Humorist, still rings freshly and musically in our remembrance. And the recollection of it is doubtless all the more vivid because of the mirthful retrospect having relation to one of the most recent of Dickens's blithe home dinners in his last town residence immediately before his hurried return to Gad's Hill in the summer of 1870. Although we were happily with him afterwards, immediately before the time came when we could commune with ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... just coming down from his office, arrested her. Fosdick, whose blithe spirit was never greatly disturbed by the failure of his enterprises, greeted Phil gayly. He entertained a high opinion of Phil. At family gatherings, which his wife and sisters-in-law made odious by petty bickerings, Phil was always a refuge. It was nothing to Phil which of her aunts wore ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... their rough serviceable walls, of the same stone as the crags behind them, and the ravines, in which the shrunken becks trickle musically down through the debris of innumerable Decembers. The country is blithe, but soberly blithe. Nature shows herself delightful to man, but there is nothing absorbing or intoxicating about her. Man is still well able to defend himself against her, to live his own independent life ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Harek's voice outside, where he hung up fish to freeze against the morrow; and he sang softly some old saga of the fishing for the Midgard snake by Asa Thor. And that grated on me, though I ever waited to hear what song the blithe scald had to fit what was on hand, after his custom. Alfred heard too, and he glanced at me, and I was ...
— King Alfred's Viking - A Story of the First English Fleet • Charles W. Whistler
... by relays of generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie. Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life's ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... sun and rain, Uncertain as a child's quick moods; And I shall never pass again So blithe a day ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... song like a bird laugh, blithe and clear, As though of some airy jest he had heard 15 The last and the most delightful word, A laugh as fresh in the August haze As it was in the full-voiced April days, Then I know that my heart is stirred By the laugh-like song ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... morning. The dew still lay on the grass of the meadows, over which they had just ridden to reach the thicket of the forest, in whose trees resounded the melodious voices of blithe birds. Then they rode along the banks of a babbling forest stream, and spied the deer that came forth into the glade on the other side, as if they wanted, like the queen and her train, to listen to the song ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... little feeling of sheepishness that he would not have acknowledged at the time, and he found himself in a company where he was entirely at his ease. He admired the dancing of the blithe, graceful girl, he applauded her as the rest did with hand-clapping and bravas, and said it was ravishing. It all suited him perfectly. And somehow, in the midst of it all, in the sensuous abandon of this electric-light eccentricity at mid-day, he had ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were blithe as we rode in the still frosty air across the Quantocks by the way we had come, and by and by, when we gained the wilder crests, I began to look about me for some chance of proving the good hawk that sat waiting ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... is the word—so here goes! I am determined to be blithe and keep the salt of humor sprinkled thick across the butter-crock of concession. Dinky-Dunk watches me with a guarded and wary eye and Pauline Augusta does not always approve of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... Dressed, paid a Visit to old Lady Blithe and her Sister, having before heard they were gone out of ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... that abominable glade, with that across her white neck for which my conscience and my grandmother would reproach me as long as I (and she) lived. One thing comforted me during that weary waiting. The hollow thudding as of axe on wood never ceased for a moment. So from that I gathered (and was blithe to believe) that the alarm had not been given, and that wherever Agnes Anne was, she herself was ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... do you see? Why, with a trip and a courtesy, As if to say,—"Good day, good day," Out steps a tiny bird! And though no soul were near to hear He'd pipe that same blithe word. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... because she fears that her husband is in love, or is going to be in love, with those companions of his student hours. If, instead of being folios, quartos, octavos, and the like, the Judge's books were buxom, blithe maidens, his wife could hardly be more jealous of the Judge's attentions to them than she is under existing circumstances. On one occasion, having found the Judge on two successive afternoons sitting alone in the library with Pliny in his lap, ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... taen the grue, An' winnae blithely hirsle through, Ye've fund the very thing to do - That's to drink speerit; An' shune we'll hear the last o' you - An' blithe to hear it! ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... street to the Avenue and then struck northward into the heart of the district where Easter—modern Easter, in new, bright raiment—leads the pascal march. Out of towering brown churches came the blithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were moving parterres of living flowers—so it seemed when your eye looked upon the ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... not think of death and her together. So he and the widow Kalm walked on silently—and so slowly that they soon lost sight of the two blithe sisters. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... and Gog, Magog, And trump'ts high chiming anthrophog, Come sing blithe choral all in og, Caralog, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... were his people, a stark and a jealous horde— Not to be schooled by the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword; Blithe to turn at their pleasure, bitter to cross in their mood, And set on the ways of their choosing as the hogs ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... not seen its horror pass; His heart is blithe; the village hears His distant laughter; he careers In festive waltz athwart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... saw the same blithe day return, The same sweet fall of even, That rose on wooded Craigie-burn, And ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... red-men rally; With dance and song the woods resound: The hatchet's buried in the valley; No foe profanes our hunting-ground! The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver, The verdant hills with song-birds ring, While our bark-canoes the river Skim like swallows on the wing. Mirth pervades the land and water, Free ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... little troubles pass Like little ripples down a sunny river; Your pleasures spring like daisies in the grass, Cut down, and up again as blithe as ever. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... loamy furrow sings, The sailor whistles as he reefs the sail, Blithe is the smith as the blows fall like hail From his huge hammer, and the stithy rings. Work is the sole and sovereign balm that brings Peace to the torpid soul when doubts assail, And sickening pleasures are of no avail To lull the torture of affliction's stings. Give me the ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... blithe, life-loving Minnie, whose going had hurt us so, had come back to Our Square, with all her love of life quenched. She had promised that she would come back, in the little, hysterical, defiant note she left under the door. Her father and mother must wait and ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... too canny to bungle, With footsteps too cunning to swerve, They swing through the heights of the jungle, These stalwarts of infinite nerve; Blithe sailors who heed not the breezes Which play round their riggings and spars, Lithe gymnasts who live on ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 11, 1914 • Various
... his delicate pale face A quizzical thin smile is showing, His cheeks are wrinkled like fine lace, His kind blue eyes are gay and glowing. He wears a brilliant-hued cravat, A suit to match his soft grey hair, A rakish stick, a knowing hat, A manner blithe and debonair. ...
— The Haunted Hour - An Anthology • Various
... treasures; but the writing on the scroll he set in his bosom and so hid it. He went joyfully and proudly, as one who knoweth more tidings and better than those around him. But Stone- face beheld him, and said 'Foster-son, thou art happy. Is it that the spring-tide is in thy blood, and maketh thee blithe with all things, or hast thou some new tidings? Nay, I would not have an answer out of thee; but here is good rede: when next thou goest into the wood, it were nought so ill for thee to have a valiant old ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... she had stopped and talked to him. But it was not until the third time that he had ventured to ask her to whistle it. And then—Old '61, now peering down the road for the blithe little figure, thrilled again at the remembrance of what had happened. She had laughed gently and said she did not know how to whistle, but if he would like her ...
— Four Girls and a Compact • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... him, Sir Fulke," added he, to the baronet, who began to frown: "let him enter the lists with the boldest of us; faint heart never won fair lady! So, forward, Robert! and give me another sweet sister to love and to cherish as I do our blithe little Dora." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... of vernal breeze, And beckoning bough of budding trees, Hast left thy sullen fire; And stretched thee in some mossy dell, And heard the browsing wether's bell, Blithe echoes rousing from their cell To swell ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... that makes the journey pass all the quicker. I came down here today with a stout young fellow, who overtook me this side of Moffat. He was somewhat out at elbow, and I looked askance at him at first; but he turned out a blithe companion, and we got on well together. He could troll a good song, and my own voice is not wanting in power. It was curious that he also was from Dunbar, though not immediately; having, it would seem, wandered for some time, on the ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... away, and the day promised to be fine. White clouds sailed aloft in a deep, deep blue, looking happy and serene like good thoughts of the Lord. Maya was cheered. She thought of the rich shaded meadows by the woods and of the sunny slopes beyond the lake. A blithe activity must have begun there by this time. In her mind she saw the slim grasses waving and the purple iris that grew in the rills at the edge of the woods. From the flower of an iris you could look across to the mysterious ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... next instant we both were laughing there, she still in tears, I with blithe heart to see her now surrender at discretion, with her grey eyes smiling at me through a starry mist of tears, and the sweet mouth ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... still further; but their danger was now so apparent they could not shut their eyes on it; therefore, both parties, as if actuated by the same spirit, made a desperate effort to join, and the greater part effected it; but some were knocked down, and others were separated from their friends, and blithe to become silent members of ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... hark! I hear a murmur on the meads,— Where as of old my children seek my face,— The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds, Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place, The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land; And happy laughter of a dusky race Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... of advice, which will stand thee in good stead, if thou canst carry it out to the letter. First of all, thou must ride home from the Thing, and by that time thy husband will have come back, and will be glad to see thee; thou must he blithe and buxom to him, and he will think a good change has come over thee, and thou must show no signs of coldness or ill-temper, but when spring comes thou must sham sickness, and take to thy bed. Hrut will not lose time in guessing what thy sickness can be, nor will he scold thee at all, ...
— The story of Burnt Njal - From the Icelandic of the Njals Saga • Anonymous
... beautiful time. Sincerely, he appreciated the playful grab his nocturnal friend had made in his general direction. Lad had countered this, by frisking away for another five or six feet, and then wheeling about to face once more his playfellow and to await the next move in the blithe gambol. The pup could see tolerably well, in the darkness quite well enough to play the game his guest had devised. And of course, he had no way of knowing that the man could not ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... to hearth, bustled buxom Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy and blithe as the queen bee of this busy little hive ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... stood up from Ludlow, And mist blew off from Teme, And blithe afield to ploughing Against the morning beam I ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... Ev'ry maid In silk arrayed At her partner shyly glances, Paws are grasped, Waists are clasped As they whirl in giddy dances. Then together Through the heather 'Neath the moonlight soft they stroll; Each is very Blithe and merry, Gamboling with laughter droll. Life is fun To ev'ry one Guarded by our magic charm For to dangers We are strangers, Safe from any thought ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... storm; here and there lay trees uprooted, while everywhere was a tangle of broken boughs and trailing branches, insomuch that I found my going no small labour. But presently as I forced a way through these leafy tangles, the birds, awaking, began to fill the dim world with blithe chirpings that grew and grew to a sweet clamour, ever swelling until the dark woods thrilled with gladsome music and I, beholding the first beam of sun, felt heartened thereby 'spite my lack of sleep and the gnawing of hunger's sharp fangs, and hastened ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... "His blithe work done, upon a bank the outlaw rested now, And laid the basket from his back, the bonnet from his brow; And there, his hand upon the Book, his knee upon the sod, He filled the lonely valley with the gladsome word of God; And for a persecuted kirk, and for her martyrs dear, And ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... rich in the things of home and heart. Luise, the first-born, had been staying with a Spanish relative, who had taken charge of her education, and had now come back to her native Lisbon "for good." Three younger children there were—blithe, affectionate prattlers—whose glee at the recovery of Luise had been so exuberant, so boisterous, that they were now sent to play in the neighboring vineyards, that they might not ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... and so tenderly? Their bringing-up had been the complex result of so much enlightened effort. War, pestilence, famine, slaughter, were only names in a history book to them. They thought hardship was sport. A blithe summer month had plunged them into the most terrible war of the scarred old earth. The battlefields where they had mustered, stunned, but tingling with vigor and eagerness, were becoming the vast cemeteries of their generation. The field where ...
— Four Days - The Story of a War Marriage • Hetty Hemenway
... betwixt Kingston and Hounslow, for it was across country, and the narrow lanes twisted and twined so that, had it not been for the sun, I should soon not have known if I was going north, south, east, or west. Except a few yokels trudging to their work, and now and then a blithe milkmaid calling to her cows, I met no one. These looked hard at me, and wondered what such a one as I, in cloak and sword and hat, wanted there at that hour. But I let them guess, and pushed on, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... girl here, and I'm sure you would like her; she is so slender, so blithe and winsome, and so wayward. She has been sent abroad for her health, and is forbidden to go out after sunset, but will not obey. I am afraid she is dying of consumption.... She has taken a great fancy to me. There is no one in our hotel but ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... the stubbled corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy spiders spin their ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... the prime of a blithe April day, The Northman's mailed "Invincibles" steamed up fair Charleston Bay; They came in sullen file, and slow, low-breasted on the wave, Black as a midnight front of storm, ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Gladstone, take refuge in humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a pigsty, where liars, hypocrites, and the obscene in spirit congregate; it has been so since the great Jew conceived it, and it will be so till the end. Far better the blithe modern pagan in his white tie and evening clothes, and his facile philosophy. He says, "I don't care how the poor live; my only regret is that they live at all;" and he ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... troubled eyes. Then, too, the sound of a whistle reached her. Some one was approaching from the direction of Charlie's house, whistling a tune which somehow seemed familiar. She promptly warned herself it could not be Charlie. She never remembered to have heard Charlie whistling so blithe ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... Anne's laugh, as blithe and irresistible as of yore, with an added note of sweetness and maturity, rang through the garret. Marilla in the kitchen below, compounding blue plum preserve, heard it and smiled; then sighed to think ...
— Anne's House of Dreams • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... bunches overhead were black, but the vines were trained on poles of silver. He ran a ditch of dark metal all round it, and fenced it with a fence of tin; there was only one path to it, and by this the vintagers went when they would gather the vintage. Youths and maidens all blithe and full of glee, carried the luscious fruit in plaited baskets; and with them there went a boy who made sweet music with his lyre, and sang the Linos-song with ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of my father ere ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... 'In the blithe days of honey-moon, With Kate's allurements smitten, I lov'd her late, I lov'd her soon, And call'd her dearest kitten. But now my kitten's grown a cat, And cross like other wives, O! by my soul, my honest Mat, I fear she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... from the big boy, now at the age when sisterly companionship is often despised, and Charlotte appreciated it. More than Justin Birch could understand was in her voice as her fingers rested upon his hair, but what she said gave him great satisfaction, although it was only a blithe: ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... wind in the trees, Blithe as the bird on the bough, Blithe as the bees in the sweet Heart's-ease Where Love ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... a military band passed glittering. A brave sound floated up, and again he laughed, loving the tune, the clash and glitter of the band, the movement of scarlet, blithe soldiers beyond the park. People were drifting brightly from church. How could it be Sunday! It was no time; it was ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... a clean breast of it," he became quite himself again. He had settled the point which had been worrying his mind, and doubtless considered himself established as a man of sentiment in my opinion. Before we had finished our morning's stroll, he was singing as blithe as a grasshopper, whistling to his dogs, and telling droll stories; and I recollect that he was particularly facetious that day at dinner on the subject of matrimony, and uttered several excellent jokes not to be found in Joe Miller, that made the bride-elect ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving
... saw him busy at his work, While blithe as skylark's song His merry, mellow whistle rang The pleasant street along. "Oh, that's the kind of lad I like!" I thought as I passed by; "These busy, cheery, whistling boys Make ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... the old familiar spot: One feels long vanished memories steal o'er him; The other sees, yet recognizes not His blithe companion in ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... they are not planted from seeds, but are a wild growth. Ah, but some great Planter or Gardener surely put all these wonderful shapes and splendid tints in the soft earth of a sea-garden. And it is all so blithe and gay! ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... rainbow-shimmer of joy, or a sudden lightning-flare of passion, this exquisite mystery we call Amor, comes, to some rapt visionaries at least, not with a song upon the lips that all may hear, or with blithe viol of public music, but as one wrought by ecstasy, dumbly ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... or simple, are welcome at Figeon's Farm, and doubly so anyone who claims kinship with our guest and very good friend Paul Stukely. And you come at a good time, too, young sir; for we have a wedding feast in prospect, and we shall want all the blithe company we can assemble ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Sometimes, as if her hope unloosed had The chains of grief, wherein her thoughts lay fettered, Upon her minions looked she blithe and glad, In that deceitful lore so was she lettered; Not glorious Titan, in his brightness clad, The sunshine of her face in lustre bettered: For when she list to cheer her beauties so, She smiled away the clouds of ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... guide, evidently there by appointment and sharply on time, leaped to the sidewalk, glanced at his watch, snapped the case shut with a satisfied nod, and stood with his eyes on the hotel entrance. One tiny black figure came forth, greeted him with a blithe "Bongjure," and intrepidly began the perilous ascent of the ladder he hastened to place against the side of the coach for her convenience. It was Aunt Nancy, dressed as she had been the night before, but ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... adventurer than Molly would have hesitated at his tone and grown cautious, but a certain blithe indifference to the consequences of her actions was a part of her lawless inheritance ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... cent, profit. Come back, Thompson!" Steve was making for the door, with apologies. "You're not in the way a bit. Sit down, man! Your six thousand won't be a starter, Joe. I've got some four thousand myself, in red, red gold. All I have in the world—wish it was more." His blithe insouciance was irresistibly charming. ...
— The Desire of the Moth; and The Come On • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... merry, sportive, frolicsome, lively, exhilarating, vivacious, jolly, blithe, airy, boon, convivial, jovial, joyous; brilliant, dashing, gallant, showy; garish, gaudy, flashing, tawdry; (Colloq.) loose, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... better work to do now; he's the man for us; let us choose him Doge to stem this current of adversity. You will urge by way of objection that he is now almost eighty years old, that his hair and beard are white as silver, that his blithe appearance, fiery eye, and the deep red of his nose and cheeks are to be ascribed, as his traducers maintain, to good Cyprus wine rather than to energy of character; but heed not that. Remember what conspicuous ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... every interview with Rachel, Kenkenes had forsworn some little prejudice, or sacrificed some of his blithe self-esteem. But the tragic narrative swept all these supports from him and left him solitary to face the charge of indirect complicity in murder. He was an Egyptian—a loyal supporter of the government and its policies; he had profited by Israel's toil, and if he succeeded to his father's office, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... he actually was to be her neighbour she was far from quarrelling with the destiny that made him so. He was so blithe and gay of heart, so blandly impudent, the very wine seemed to shine the redder for his presence. It was not in her nature to flirt with any man, but it was utterly impossibly not to enjoy his society. Less and less ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... I can see him all day long And hear his wild, spontaneous song, Before my window in his cage, A blithe canary sits and swings, And circles round on golden wings; And startles all the vicinage When from his china tankard He takes a dainty drink To clear his throat For as sweet a note As ever yet was caroled By ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... The world is blithe and gay—except for one depressing thought. The nearer you get to the New York custom-house, the heavier becomes the load of luggage on your mind. Dresses, hats, wraps, lingerie, so gaily bought in Paris, lie withering like Dead Sea fruit in the forlorn ...
— Ship-Bored • Julian Street
... which drowns all care, stout beer; Which freely drink to your lord's health, Then to the plough, the commonwealth, Next to your flails, your fans, your fats, Then to the maids with wheaten hats: To the rough sickle, and crook'd scythe, Drink, frolic boys, till all be blithe. Feed, and grow fat; and as ye eat Be mindful that the lab'ring neat, As you, may have their fill of meat. And know, besides, ye must revoke The patient ox unto the yoke, And all go back unto the plough And harrow, though they're hanged ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... It was close and hot, and, after buying sondaes at the drug store on the corner below, Alexander suggested riding out and strolling along some of the paths of Druid Hill Park. He put it humbly, but he was most blithe ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... burning brand is couched in my breast, Making a Phoenix of my faintful heart: And though his fury do enforce my smart, Ay blithe am ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... the children took the little dog down to the gate, happily. They were sobered, however, when Mr. Traill appeared, looking very grand in his Sabbath clothes. He inspected Bobby all over with anxious scrutiny, and gave each of the bairns a threepenny-bit, but he had no blithe greeting for them. Much preoccupied, he went off at once, with the animated little muff of a dog at his heels. In truth, Mr. Traill was thinking about how he might best plead Bobby's cause with the Lord Provost. The note that was handed him, on leaving ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... a blithe, bustling housewife, hastening herself to suply the guest with liquor—"Thou knowest well enow what the strange man wants, and it's thy trade to be a civil man. Thou shouldest know, that if the Scot likes a small pot, he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... watched her sunlight blithe As o'er their shells it dances— I've seen those winkles almost writhe ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... was less by school work or spoken addresses in juvenile debate, or early attempts in the great and difficult art of written composition, than by blithe and congenial comradeship that the mind of the young Gladstone was stimulated, opened, strengthened. In after days he commemorated among his friends George Selwyn, afterwards bishop of New Zealand and of Lichfield, 'a man whose character is summed ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... seemed to me that while the full enjoyment of La Fontaine must always be reserved for those who can read him in French, it might be possible at least to convey something of his originality and blithe spirit through the medium of light verse. In making the attempt I am fully aware of my temerity, and the criticism it will invite. To excuse the one and to meet the other I have taken refuge in the term "adaptation"—even though the word applies only in part to my paraphrases. Some of the ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... New England ancestry took flight and she would lie as magnificently as her father before her. And he had the same charm of manner, the same daring, the same ready laughter, the same vivacity. But what is lightsome and blithe in her, was debonaire in him. He won men's hearts always, or, failing that, their bitterest enmity. No one was left cold by him in passing. Contact with him quickened them to love or hate. Therein Paula differs, being a woman, I suppose, and not enjoying man's prerogative of tilting ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... a bright, blithe manner, and was pleasant to all the teachers. For she felt like the swan among the geese, of superior heritage and belonging. And her pride at being the swan in this ugly school ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... rough dark heath with a shaggy wilderness of pine for background, heightened here and there with a sudden surprise of gentle silver birch. How freshly the wind met one at the top of the road: a southwest wind soft and blithe enough to have blown ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... rose, since go you must, Flowerless and chill the winter draweth nigh; Closed are the blithe and fragrant lips which made All summer long perpetual melody. Cheerless we take our way, but not afraid: Will there not ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... adieu! Many and blithe have been the hours which I have spent around, and in, and on you—and it may well be I shall never see you more—whether reflecting the full fresh greenery of summer; or the rich tints of cisatlantic autumn; or sheeted with the treacherous ice; but never, ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... me the man who bears a heavy load lightly, and looks on a grave matter with a blithe and cheerful eye." And Carlyle has pointed out that "One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... cleanse Hart of ill. This eke have I heard say, that he, the fell monster, In his wan-heed recks nothing of weapons of war; Forgo I this therefore (if so be that Hygelac Will still be my man-lord, and he blithe of mood) To bear the sword with me, or bear the broad shield, Yellow-round to the battle; but with naught save the hand-grip With the foe shall I grapple, and grope for the life The loathly with loathly. There he shall believe ...
— The Tale of Beowulf - Sometime King of the Folk of the Weder Geats • Anonymous
... reaction against the decadent spirit. It is blithe, happy, full of the joy of life and the Greek within us—a herald of the ...
— The Purple Cow! • Gelett Burgess
... rite. Occasionally some one shouted: perhaps a dozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative of nothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at their own voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-capped shoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observe him seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away. Nevertheless, the solemn beating of ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... A blithe saint was Francis. He loved to laugh; he loved to sing; and he loved to hear the music of laughter and of song as it rippled from the lips of others. Every description that has come down to us lays stress on the sunshine that played ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... and cold We'd roved o'er many a hill and many a dale, Through many a wood and many an open ground, In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair, Thoughtful or blithe of heart as might befall Our best companions, now the driving winds, And now the trotting brooks and whispering trees, And now the music of our own quick steps With many a short-lived thought that ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... "had befallen young Master Bligh, once the hopeful heir of his parents and of the lands of Botathen. Whereas he had been from childhood a blithe and merry boy, 'the gladness,' like Isaac of old, of his father's age, he had suddenly of late become morose and silent—nay, even austere and stern—dwelling apart, always solemn, often in tears. The lad had at first repulsed ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... I began with a page and a half before breakfast. This is always the best way. You stand like a child going to be bathed, shivering and shaking till the first pitcherful is flung about your ears, and then are as blithe as a water-wagtail. I am just come home from Parliament House; and now, my friend Nap., have at you with a down-right blow! Methinks I would fain make peace with my conscience by doing six pages to-night. Bought a little bit of Gruyere cheese, instead of our domestic ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... you were of his acquaintance. On a Sunday he would appear coming out of the post-office usually at the hour when all cultivated Cambridge was coming for its letters, and wave a glad hand in air, and shout a blithe salutation to the friend he had marked for his companion in a morning stroll. The stroll was commonly over the flats towards Brighton (I do not know why, except perhaps that it was out of the beat of the better element) and the talk was mainly of literature, in which he was doing less than ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... foot) for then every branch will prove excellent for future setlings. After three years growth (being cropped the second and third) the first years increase will be 'twixt eight and twelve foot long generally; the third years growth, strong enough to make rakes and pike-staves; and the fourth for Mr. Blithe's trenching plow, and other ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... sightseers. The one was composed of Filipinos, cowed, melancholy, sullen, gazing through hopeless eyes at the final scene in the life of their great countryman—the man who had dared to champion their cause, and to tell the world the story of their miseries; the other was blithe of air, gay with the uniforms of officers and the bright dresses of Spanish ladies, the men jesting and laughing, the women shamelessly applauding with waving handkerchiefs and clapping palms, all alike triumphing openly in ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... once Lived on the river Dee; He worked and sang from morn till night, No lark more blithe than he. And this the burden of his song For ever used to be, "I care for nobody, no, not I, And nobody cares ...
— The Baby's Opera • Walter Crane
... the change in him. She had hoped and prayed for it, but had not looked for it so soon, and did not expect blithe spirits after such despair. In deep joy he poured out his soul to her all the evening, but never mentioned deeds or names in his tragedy. Martha hardly thought of them. She knew from the first that this man's soul had been nearly wrecked by some shocking deviltry, and that the best medicine for ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Jenny brings him ben,[12] A strappan youth; he taks the mother's eye; Blithe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en: The father cracks[13] of horses, pleughs, and kye:[14] The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, But blate[15] and laithfu',[16] scarce can weel behave; The mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy What makes the youth sae ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... thinking of Bea's happy face and blithe laugh, and after her sister had gone singing from the room, she came over to her mother's side, and sat down on ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... Musician, as he stood Illumined by that fire of wood; Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe, His figure tall and straight and lithe, And every feature of his face Revealing his Norwegian race; A radiance, streaming from within, Around his eyes and forehead beamed, The Angel with the violin, Painted by Raphael, he seemed. He lived in that ideal world Whose language is not speech, but ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Astrophil, Or any of the threadbare names inspir'd Poor rhyming lovers with a mistress fir'd. Come then! and while the slow icicle hangs At the stiff thatch, and Winter's frosty pangs Benumb the year, blithe—as of old—let us 'Midst noise and war of peace and mirth discuss. This portion thou wert born for: why should we Vex at the time's ridiculous misery? An age that thus hath fool'd itself, and will —Spite of thy teeth and mine—persist so still. Let's sit then at this fire, and while we ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... do ambitious longings, angry fret, The terror of the grave, torment you yet? Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones? Do you count up your birthdays year by year, And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow Gentler and better as your sand runs ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... to shades of underground, And there arrived, a new admired guest, The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round, White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest, To hear the stories of thy finish'd love From that smooth tongue whose ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... was standing near her husband was blithe to hear this, and reminded her gudeman, how she had often said, that when they did hear tidings of their son her words would be found true, for he had ever been all his days a brisk and ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... was customary of old thus to welcome guests. When the feast had been prolonged three days, the princess came forth to make herself pleasant to the envoys with a most courteous address, and her blithe presence added not a little to the festal delights of the banqueters. And as the drink went faster Westmar revealed his purpose in due course, in a very merry declaration, wishing to sound the mind of the maiden ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Sir, at my givin' her so much; Yes, divorce is cheap, Sir, but I take no stock in such! True and fair I married her, when she was blithe and young; And Betsey was al'ays good to me, exceptin' ...
— Farm Ballads • Will Carleton
... age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... be exchanged for morning walks to the summit of some mountain; to make his bow to Aurora, and listen to the joyous carol of the larks chanting high in the air their hymns of praise, or listening to their blithe little brothers of song, awakening in the bushes, and fluttering, amidst a shower of pearls and rubies—those dewy gems which hang in the sunny rays upon every branch. "Ah, it is all over with me!" wheezed the plethoric banker, when the junior doctor of the consultation of three informed ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... in her holland gown, apron, and cap, recalling and revelling in? The silly vanities and child's play of the past. Well, what harm was there in them? These had been blithe moments while they lasted, which had set young hearts bounding, young feet skipping, and young voices laughing and singing in a manner which was natural, and not to be forbidden lest ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler |
