"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when the wattle gold trembles 'Twixt shadow and shine, When each dew-laden air draught resembles A long draught of wine; When the sky-line's blue burnish'd resistance Makes deeper the dreamiest distance, Some song in all hearts hath existence,— Such songs ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... word here, enbarnis, which has so long been lost to French that it is not even in Littre. But Dryden's "burnish into man" probably preserves it in English; for this is certainly not the other "burnish" ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... out of the ground, Were of one colour with the robe he wore. From underneath that vestment forth he drew Two keys, of metal twain: the one was gold, Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, And next the burnish'd, he so ply'd the gate, As to content me well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the key-hole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... does love it, not for itself, but for its protection, leading her brood into its labyrinths out of the dusty road when danger draws near. Best of all winged creatures it is loved by the iris-eyed, burnish-breasted, murmuring doves, already beginning to gather in the deadened tree-tops with crops eager for the seed. Well remembered also by the long-flight passenger pigeon, coming into the land for the mast. Best of all wild things whose safety lies not ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel: "As you deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... become beliefs; let your imaginings develop into faith. Complete the process by resolving to make that belief come true. Then go ahead and make it come true. Keep your resolution bright. Never let it rust. Burnish it with work—untiring, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... glorious to behold; Wasted he appears, and pale, Watching for the public weal: Emblem of the bashful dame, That in secret feeds her flame, Often aiding to impart All the secrets of her heart; Various is my bulk and hue, Big like Bess, and small like Sue: Now brown and burnish'd like a nut, At other times a very slut; Often fair, and soft, and tender, Taper, tall, and smooth, and slender: Like Flora, deck'd with various flowers, Like Phoebus, guardian of the hours: But whatever be my dress, Greater be my size or less, Swelling ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... post of the Blonde, and some other light ships, was between the blockading fleet and the blockaded, where perpetual vigilance was needed. This sharp service was the very thing required to improve his character, to stamp it with decision and self-reliance, and to burnish his quiet, contemplative vein with the very frequent friction of the tricks of mankind. These he now was strictly bound not to study, but anticipate, taking it as first postulate that every one would cheat him, if permitted. To a scrimpy and screwy man, of the type most abundant, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... sat in, like a burnish'd throne Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... The car drew up and she stepped into it—a tall, slim figure, wonderfully graceful in her unrelieved black, her hair gleaming as though with some sort of burnish, as she passed underneath the electric light. She looked back at him with a smile of farewell as he stood bareheaded upon the steps, a smile which reminded him somehow of her father, a little sardonic, a little tender, having in it some faintly challenging ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tarnished gold Hung by a faded cord from a hole Pierced in the hard wood, Circled with silver. For years the Poet had wrought upon this cane. His wealth had gone to enrich it, His experiences to pattern it, His labour to fashion and burnish it. To him it was perfect, A work of art and a weapon, A delight and a defence. The Poet took ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell
... with those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet. I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... column'd towers, Unconscious of the stony hours; Harsh gateways startled at a sound, With burning lamps all burnish'd ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... MIRROR was not made of glass, (for glass mirrors cannot be shown to have existed before the thirteenth century,) but of polished metals; and amongst these, silver was in the greatest esteem, as being capable of a higher burnish than other metals, and less liable to tarnish. Metallic mirrors are alluded to by Job, xxxvii. 18. But it appears from the Second Book of Moses, xxxviii. 8, that in that age, copper must have been the metal ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... for Troy, And we, around a fountain, to the Gods Our altars rear'd, with faultless hecatombs, Near a fair plane-tree, where bright water flow'd, Behold a wonder! by Olympian Jove Sent forth to light, a snake, with burnish'd scales, Of aspect fearful, issuing from beneath The altars, glided to the plane-tree straight. There, on the topmost bough, beneath the leaves Cow'ring, a sparrow's callow nestlings lay; Eight fledglings, and the parent bird the ninth. ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... deep gloom had been, Unseen the moonlight brightness of the green; In vain the stream's blue burnish met her eye, Lovely its wave, but pass'd unnoticed by: The airs of heaven had breath'd around her brow Their cooling sighs—she felt them not—but now That lonely bower appeared, and with a start Convulsive shudders ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... and dale, and plain, Both where the morning sun first warmly smote The open field, and where the unpierced shade Imbrown'd the noontide bowers; thus was this place A happy rural seat of various view; Groves whose rich, trees wept odorous gums and balm; Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste: Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks Grazing the tender herb, were interposed; Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap Of some irriguous valley spread ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... is Nature made for? is it for us The beautiful world is burnish'd and blent? If we had not eyes, would blossoms shine thus? If we had not nostrils, would ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... Sir Evan, undaunted Lochiel, Place thy targe on thy shoulder and burnish thy steel! Rough Keppoch, give breath to thy bugle's bold swell, Till far ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... withouten mair.[42] The third he hit in his harness of steel, Throughout the cost,[43] the spear it brake some deal. The great power then after him can ride. He saw no waill[44] there longer for to bide. His burnish'd brand braithly[45] in hand he bare, Whom he hit right they follow'd him na mair.[46] To stuff the chase feil freiks[47] follow'd fast, But Wallace made the gayest aye aghast. The muir he took, and through their power yede, The horse was good, but yet he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... level sea, inset with tracts of heath and bracken, for miles around. The whole arc of the sky, the whole circle of the world's rim, lay bare to the eye, infinitely varied by clouds and cloud-shadows, by pasture and arable, dark patches of woods and pallor of pools, by the lambent burnish of the west and the soft purpling of the east, even by differing weathers—here great shafts of sunlight, there the blurred column of a distant shower, or the faint smear, like a bruise upon the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... cordiality, an exaggeration of family importance, and—the sniff. Danger—so indispensable in bringing out the fundamental quality of any society, group, or individual—was what the Forsytes scented; the premonition of danger put a burnish on their armour. For the first time, as a family, they appeared to have an instinct of being in contact, with some strange ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... catalogue of names, which she claims as of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of LA FAYETTE has already for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame: for, if in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of one individual, during the age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves at ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... Where hast thou left that page of thine, That used to serve thy cup of wine, Whose beauty was so rare? When last in Raby towers we met, The boy I closely eyed, And often marked his cheeks were wet, With tears he fain would hide: His was no rugged horse-boy's hand, To burnish shield or sharpen brand, Or saddle battle-steed; But meeter seemed for lady fair, To fan her cheek or curl her hair, Or through embroidery, rich and rare, The slender silk to lead: His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, His bosom—when he sighed - The russet ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... niches of one; the remains of a richly-carved chimneypiece in another; the highly-wrought ceilings, to which ancient history and allegory have supplied grandiose figures—their deep colours unfaded, the ruddy burnish of their gilding as splendid as ever. Here and there great black-and-gold court-stools, raised at the sides, and finished off with bullet heads of dogs, arouse a recollection of Versailles or Fontainebleau, and look as if they had offered seats to Court ladies in hoops and brocades, ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... sair distrest, Down drops her ance weel burnish'd crest, Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest Can yield ava; Her darling bird that ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... turgid tide, Young Richmond roughens on his masted side; Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs, A golden phoenix on refulgent wings; Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread, And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head, Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays, The bank to burnish with a purer blaze, Gives all his art, on this bright hill to trace His future seat and glory of his race; Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own, The kings predestined to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water—the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tunes of flutes kept stroke, and made The water, which they beat, to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own person, ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... and bright with burnish'd shields, The embattled legions stretch their long array; Discord's red torch, as fierce she scours the fields, With bloody tincture ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.] |
