"Disport" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exhibit the author of "John Gilpin" in a brilliant light; it was not even uttered by the poet—he had merely smiled at it; yet it had the effect of rekindling the vapid embers about the dear old hearthstone of Olney, and the shy, gentle creatures that used to disport there among the hares when nobody was looking became for a moment more real from the citation. Now, the question is, What is the superiority of a new piece of gossip like this, which involves no witticism and confers no wisdom, over the next bit of history that will be exchanged ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... is the night when unlicked cubs do disport themselves in our precincts. A mistaken sense of philanthropy has led my mother to make this house the fortnightly salon bleu of St. Thomas's. But there's a pipe at ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... steel plate: he was flesh and tender; he was a vulnerable, breathing boy, with highly developed capacities for pain which were now being taxed to their utmost. Once he had loved to run, to leap, to disport himself in the sun, to drink deep of the free air; he had loved life and one or two of his fellowmen. He had borne himself buoyantly, with jaunty self-confidence, even with some intolerance toward the weaknesses of others, not infrequently displaying ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... influence upon them, since they so multiply in his society. The birds of California, it is said, were mostly silent till after its settlement, and I doubt if the Indians heard the wood thrush as we hear him. Where did the bobolink disport himself before there were meadows in the North and rice fields in the South? Was he the same lithe, merry-hearted beau then as now? And the sparrow, the lark, and the goldfinch, birds that seem so indigenous to the open fields and so adverse to the woods,—we cannot conceive of their existence ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... sees a certain manly form coming up the garden-walk is wont to cry out in a miserable mockery of tenderness, "Oh, my darling! I'm so glad to see you!" and then smack his bill as near like a kiss as he can, and chuckle and laugh and turn somersaults, and otherwise disport himself as parrots do when ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... Mr. Taylor, and I shall never forget you, sir." And after a short silence, he added: "All I desire is a chance, for with it, I can make Louise happy. I need but little money, I should not know how to disport a large fortune, but I do desire a comfortable home with pictures and books. And I thank the Lord that I appreciate the refinements of this life." In silence he smoked, looking up at the rings. "Ah, ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... graceful, facile drawings, prepared to pay good prices for them; and the man himself became a favourite in society. He was handsome, ready, good-natured; well pleased to array his shapely person in smart raiment, disport himself in the drawing-rooms of the noble and rich, and add his name to the unprofitable list of ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... four small bodies, each naked save for a lifebelt, barrelshaped and extending from breast almost to knee, slipped over the side of the ship with awkward splashes and proceeded to disport themselves in the river. Scolding tugs sent waves for them to ride; ferries crawled like gigantic bugs with a hundred staring eyes. They found the Quartermaster on a stringpiece immersed to the neck and smoking his pipe, and surrounded ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... vastly increased by hundreds of water-fowl, which disport themselves on the surface of the lake, as if coquetting with their own reflections, or whistle round its margin while busy ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... convulse with laughter; set the table in a roar, be the death of one. recreate, solace, cheer, rejoice; please &c 829; interest; treat, regale. amuse oneself, game; play a game, play pranks, play tricks; sport, disport, toy, wanton, revel, junket, feast, carouse, banquet, make merry, drown care; drive dull care away; frolic, gambol, frisk, romp; caper; dance &c (leap) 309; keep up the ball; run a rig, sow one's wild oats, have one's fling, take ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Beaumont and the road along the Admiralty canal are now the citizens' chief places of disport. Before the year 1869 the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, that skirts the sea on the south side of the old town, was their sole promenade. And even this street was built only a short time ago. Vainly one conjectures where the medieval Tarentines took the air. It must have ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... seriousness of the programme, was interrupted by the formidable sound of the governed proletariat beyond the walls of the Town Hall. And Edwin's memory, making him feel very old, leapt suddenly back into another generation of male glee-singers that did not disport humorously and that would not have permitted themselves to be interrupted by the shouting of populations; and he recalled 'Loud Ocean's Roar,' and the figure of Florence Simcox flitted in front of him. The proletariat was cheering ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... ducklings, with fresh young instincts, hear far off the delicious drippings from the new dam which has been built higher up to catch the water, and they smell the chickweed and the long grass that is growing up beside it; and absolutely refuse to disport themselves on the baked mud or to pretend to seek for worms where no worms are. And they leave the ancient mother quacking beside her pond and set out to seek for new pastures—perhaps to lose themselves ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... depesxo. Dispel peli, forpeli. Dispensary kuracilejo. Dispense (to give out) disdoni. Disperse dispeli. Display vidajxo, montrajxo. Display (show, pomp) lukso. Displace transloki. Displease malplacxi. Displeasure malplacxo. Disport ludi. Dispose disponi. Disposable disponebla. Disposition inklino. Dispraise mallauxdi. Disproof refuto. Disprove refuti. Dispute disputo. Dispute (quarrel) malpaci. Disputatious disputa. [Error in book: Disputations] Disqualify malkapabligi. Disquiet ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... ignorant of what is commended by all good men, disdainful of the petty certainties of pedagogues and green-grocers, not caring a damn what becomes of the Republic, or the Family, or even snivelization itself, he is at liberty to disport himself pleasantly with his nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns, arranging them with the same free hand, the same innocent joy, the same superb skill and discretion with which the late Jahveh arranged carbon, nitrogen, sulphur, ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... which Leander Yerby hearkened to this criticism intimated a persuasion that there were many obedient people in this world, but few who could so disport themselves in the intricacies of the English language; and Sudley, as he plodded homeward with his rifle on his shoulder, his dog running on in advance, and Leander pattering along behind, was often moved to add the weight of his admonition to the ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... had taught him that since the men he wanted had money in their pockets to burn gregarious impulse would drive them from the far silent places of the desert to the roulette and faro tables where the wolf and the lamb disport ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... of walks, and spruce hedges of rare beauty; occasionally you stumble unexpectedly on a rustic bower, tenanted by an Apollo or Greek slave in marble, or else you find yourself on turning an angle on the shady bank of a sequestered pond, in which lively trout disport themselves as merrily as those goldfish you just noticed in the aquarium in the hall hung round with Krieghoff's exquisite "Canadian scenery." You can also, as you pass along, catch the loud notes issuing from the house aviary and blending ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... Lieut. D'Hubert, with an innocent laugh, "I think you ought to be. I had no end of trouble to find out where you were. It wasn't exactly the place for you to disport yourself in under the circumstances. If the general had caught you there making eyes at the goddess of the temple . . . oh, my word! . . . He hates to be bothered with complaints against his officers, you know. And it ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How well ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... it, make up the bed for 'im," volunteers the military officer, towards eleven o'clock; and, as there isn't much going on, we say, "All right—we'll have it now;" and we disport ourselves in the corridor, while he works a sort of transformation in our Gladstone Bag compartment, which seems greatly to diminish its "containing" capacity. Indeed, if it were not for the floor, the ceiling, and the walls, one would hardly know where to stow one's packages. Le ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99, October 18, 1890 • Various
... and when spring cometh, the weather groweth fair, the wood bloometh, the grass groweth, and ships may glide betwixt land and land. So on a day the king says to his folk: "I will that ye come with us for our disport out into the woods, that we may look upon ...
— The Story Of Frithiof The Bold - 1875 • Anonymous
... at last, we have got to the slates on the roof, and may disport ourselves over them—like ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... very delightful place for fish to disport in, was shallow, and by no means adapted for the recreation of so large a being as myself; it was, moreover, exposed, though I saw nobody at hand, nor heard a single human voice or sound. Following the winding of the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... "carriage ladies and gentlemen" who disport themselves in Newport during the summer months, yachting and dancing through the short season, then flitting away to fresh fields and pastures new, realize that their daintily shod feet have been treading historic ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... opportunity of inspecting at close quarters the genitals of women or young girls, and a stay at the seaside when I was 12 made the latter at least feasible. When the shore was nearly deserted, between 1 and 2 P.M., the daughters of the fisherfolk used to besiege the bathing machines and disport themselves in the water, bathing and paddling in various stages of nudity. I would pretend that my whole attention was being given to the making of miniature tunnels in the sand, while all the time I slyly peeped at what I most desired to see, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... like a huge wave, was to sweep over the land of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other nations against which our forefathers barred the door. Palaces in all but the name stand where the buffalo was wont to disport himself, and where the American eagle in human form once flapped his wings and screamed most viciously in contempt of the effete civilization of the older world. Sons and daughters of the pioneers who bolted their dinners ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... disappointing, had it not been for the two or three redeeming features left in the cold, bare structure; the beautiful screen of open brass-work, with its base of dark wood, on which brightly-painted, mystic beasts disport themselves among the coats-of-arms of divers ancient towns; and the ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... one Peter Fabell, that lyeth in Edmonton church, who is said to have beguiled the devell by policie for money; but the devell is deceit itselfe, and hardly deceived."—"Belike (says Weever) he was some ingenious, conceited gentleman, who did use some sleightie tricks for his own disport. He lived and died in the reign of Henry the Seventh, says the book of his merry pranks." The book Weever refers to is a pamphlet, now very scarce, called "The Life and Death of the Merry Devil of Edmonton, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... post of vantage he saw Cliges riding with three other striplings who were taking their pleasure, carrying lances and shields in order to tilt and to disport themselves. Now is the duke's nephew bent on attacking and injuring them if ever he can. With five comrades he sets out; and the six have posted themselves secretly beside the wood in a valley, so that the Greeks never saw them till they issued from the valley, and till the duke's nephew ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... passed, we had a good view of a daily Havana spectacle, the washing of the horses. This being by far the easiest and most expeditious way of cleaning the animals, they are driven daily to the sea in great numbers, those of one party being tied together; they disport themselves in the surge and their wet backs glisten in the sun. Their drivers, nearly naked, plunge in with them, and bring them safely back to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... the characteristic sights in Cho-sen is a private fight. The natives, as a rule, are quiet and gentle, but when their temper is roused they seem never to have enough of fighting. They often-times disport themselves in witnessing prize-fights among the champions of different towns, or of different wards in the same town, and on these occasions large crowds assemble to view the performance. The combatants generally fight with their fists, but, like the French, are much given to use their knees and ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... of place in the dining-hall than Kit Hatton's hounds, was the mule fairly mounted on which the Prince Pallaphilos made his appearance at the High Table after supper, when he notified to his subjects in what manner they were to disport themselves till bedtime. Thus also when the Prince of Purpoole kept his court at Gray's Inn, A.D. 1594, the prince's champion rode into the dining-hall upon the back of a fiery charger which, like the rider, was clothed in a ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... live oak (a species of ilex), orange-trees, etc., and trailing shrubs, with varnished leaves, that bind the tawny, rattling sedges together, and make summer bowers for the alligators and snakes which abound and disport themselves here in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... an enthusiasm of living; his generalized truth saturates a medium of passion and of beauty. In the Prologue to Fifine at the Fair he compares the joy of poetry to a swimmer's joy in the sea: the vigour that such disport in sun and sea communicates is the vigour of joyous play; afterwards, if we please, we can ascertain the constituents of sea-water by a chemical analysis; but the analysis will not convey to us the sensations of the sunshine ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... wainscoted with looking-glass. The garden is littered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and generals, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... marriage refers plainly to property. The language has prominent terms indicating how espousal means goods with a woman attached to them. There is scarcely an equivalent in English. Courtship in the form of natural little raptures that disport in and beautify enamored companionship in youth, the pure, unfettered, mystic attraction between the sexes in blossoming time, are practically unknown to the German social life. The full gloss of fancy, the velveting ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... fellow-spirits shall stand at his behest. Then, too, in a Lily-bush, shall he find the green Snake again, and the fruit of his marriage with her shall be three daughters, which, to men, shall appear in the form of their mother. In the spring season these shall disport them in the dark Elder-bush, and sound with their lovely crystal voices. And then if, in that needy and mean age of inward obduracy, there shall be found a youth who understands their song; nay, if one of the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... elements. The RATIONAL myths are those which represent the gods as beautiful and wise beings. The Artemis of the Odyssey "taking her pastime in the chase of boars and swift deer, while with her the wild wood-nymphs disport them, and high over them all she rears her brow, and is easily to be known where all are fair,"(1) is a perfectly RATIONAL mythic representation of a divine being. We feel, even now, that the conception of a "queen and goddess, chaste and fair," the abbess, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... are completely hidden from view, and nothing but the bright blue sky is visible, save where one little opening in the foliage reveals the prospect of a grand glittering river, where leviathans of the deep and small fry of the shallows, of every shape and size, disport themselves in the blaze ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... shawling processes commence; and servants are seen escorting home their padroni, holding lanterns carefully near the ground, to guard against the contingency of their stepping on the toads, which disport themselves in all the lanes at night, and are of the size ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 431 - Volume 17, New Series, April 3, 1852 • Various
... immediate entertaining the revel now began—no lesser word describes it. If, before the departure of his dinner guests, Brown had experienced a slight feeling of fatigue, it disappeared with the pleasure of seeing his present company disport themselves. They were not in the least afraid of him—how should they be, when he had spent months in the winning of their confidence and affection by every clever wile known to the genuine boy lover? That they respected him was plainly shown by the fact that, ill trained at home as most ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... our 'hairy quadrumanous ancestor' (Darwinian for the primaeval monkey, from whom we are presumably descended) used playfully to disport himself, as yet unconscious of his glorious destiny as the remote progenitor of Shakespeare, Milton, and the late Mr. Peace—in tropical woods, such acrid or pungent fruits and plants are particularly common, and correspondingly ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... vast chasms yawn beneath his feet when he lands, and at certain places the streams sink into the earth as if by magic, to reappear where least expected. A thundering noise is heard, and a mist hovers in the air, in which thousands of birds disport themselves,— marking the position of the great cataracts of the Corentyn. The scene, however, is too vast to be beheld in its full grandeur from any single point of view. No waterfall in the territory surpasses ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... he was saying, smiting himself on the breast with his fist. "I disport myself in striped trunks for the sport of the sated mob! I have put out my torch, have hid my talent in the earth, like the slothful servant! But fo-ormerly!" he began to bray tragically, "Fo-ormerly-y-y! Ask in Novocherkassk, ask in Tvier, in Ustejne, in Zvenigorodok, in Krijopole.[10] ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Yet for disport we fawn and flatter both, To pass the time when nothing else can please, And train them to our lure with subtle oath, Till, weary of their wiles, ourselves we ease; And then we say when we their fancy try, To play with fools, O ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... roll of time, and burn More brightly fed with noble deeds. For souls Obedient to divine impulse, who urge Their force in steadfastness until the rocks Be hewn of their obstruction, till the swamp's Insatiability be choked and bound A hardened road for traffic and disport, Tall giant arches stride across the flood, Till tortured earth release its mysteries Which straight become slaves pliant unto man, Till labours at the desk at length result In law: who pondering on the stars proclaim ...
— My Beautiful Lady. Nelly Dale • Thomas Woolner
... by the wall of the Alcazar, on the outer part, that the Moors of the city might do no displeasure neither to him nor to his companions: and they were hard by a garden of the King's, that he might go out and disport himself therein whensoever it pleased him. And for these things King Don Alfonso loved to serve King Alimaymon. Nevertheless when he saw the great honour of the King of Toledo, and how powerful he was, and that he was the Lord of so great chivalry, and ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... and fragrance. We used to rise early, and after breakfast Flurry and I bathed. There was a little bathing-room beyond the cottage with a sort of wooden bridge running over the beach, and there Flurry and I would disport ourselves ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... such bits of wood, waterfalls, and mountains in North Wales, but seldom in September such unbroken sunshine to make a pic-nic exactly what it should be. It was warm enough for July, and young and old could disport themselves on the turf in ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... his letters of this time [Footnote: American Note-Books, Vol. I.] how the life wore upon him; and his journal apparently ceased during the whole bucolic experience. How joyously his mind begins to disport itself again with fancies, the moment he leaves the association, even temporarily! And in 1842, as soon as he is fairly quit of it, the old darkling or waywardly gleaming stream of thought and imagination flows freshly, untamably ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... she had gotten her breath again, she asked him what next she should do for his disport. And he bade tell him of how she lived with those two women, her aunts, and what she did from day to day. So she sat down as on the other day, with her legs hanging down over the grisly flood, and told him full sweetly of her joys and her work and her troubles. And some of the tale ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... have noticed how many and varied are the names of saints mentioned in these my reflections from "a Terrace in Prague." I do not profess deep knowledge of saints, and do not as a rule venture on the hallowed ground where saints disport themselves. Nevertheless, while dealing with the city of Prague in particular or the Bohemian people in general, and endeavouring to become acquainted with them, you are faced with the fact that there is in this country a strong and no ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... chepe, Out of the shoppe thither would he lepe, And till that he all the sight ysein, And danced well, he would not come agein; And gathered him a many of his sort, To hoppe and sing, and maken such disport." ...
— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various
... even though it were possible to build one big enough; what was needed was a good stanch sturdy boat of, say, twenty tons or so. And, having arrived at this point in his meditations, Escombe was naturally reminded that he had often wished that he possessed a small yacht wherein to disport himself on the lake. Why should he not have one? His will was law; he had but to speak the word and the best and most skilled workers in the valley would be at his disposal for the construction of the ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... skipping about but the front ones edged up in a sort of wild-eyed fascination. Closer and closer they got, then the first one was so near that reaching out to smell the lantern he burnt his nose, and at his alarm thump, all disappeared in the woods. But they soon returned to disport again in that amazing brightness; and, stimulated by the light, they danced about, chasing each other, dodging around in large circles till one of the outermost leaped over the camera box and another following ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton
... merchandise and jewels and ottars[FN660] and gain great profit on them; till, Allah willing, I will make my capital an hundred thousand dirhams. Then I will purchase a fine house with white slaves and eunuchs and horses; and I will eat and drink and disport myself; nor will I leave a singing man or a singing woman in the city, but I will summon them to my palace and make them perform before me." All this he counted over in his mind, while the tray of glass ware,: worth an hundred dirhams, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form; and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts a ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving
... I recollect secretly borrowing an old-fashioned flint gun from the bird-keeper of the farm to which I had been invited. I ensconced myself behind the door of the pig-sty, determined to make a victim of one of the many rats that were accustomed to disport themselves among the straw that formed the bed of the farmer's pet bacon-pigs. In a few minutes out came an old patriarchal-looking rat, who, having taken a careful survey, quietly began to feed. After ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... with flattery! Walk with me to the Battery, And see in glassy tanks the seals, The sturgeons, flounders, smelt and eels Disport themselves in ichthyic curves— And when it gets upon our nerves Then, while our wabbling taxi honks I'll tell you all about the Bronx, Where captive wild things mope and stare Through grills of steel that bar each lair ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something gladsome and mysterious ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... commanding the city gates to be opened, went himself to meet King Marcobrun, took him by his white hands, led him into the marble palace, seated him at an oaken table spread with checkered tablecloths and sweetmeats, and they fell to eating and drinking and disport. ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... before the one appointed to make the journey to the Market Town, he was in a great state of excitement and hilarious pleasure, and with difficulty controlled his inclinations to laugh, dance, and sing, and otherwise gayly disport himself. The exuberance of his spirits caused no little alarm to his family, who feared he was going mad with delight, and endeavored in every possible way to quiet down ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... of a pageant which took place at Christmas, 1440, is from the records of Norwich:—"John Hadman, a wealthy citizen, made disport with his neighbours and friends, and was crowned King of Christmas. He rode in state through the city, dressed forth in silks and tinsel, and preceded by twelve persons habited as the twelve months of the year, their costumes varying to represent the different seasons of the year. Alter King Christmas ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... prairie; but I affirm no man could exaggerate the fury of a blizzard on the unbroken prairie. To one thing only may it be likened—a hurricane at sea. People in lands boxed off at short compass by mountain ridges forget with what violence a wind sweeping half a continent can disport itself. In the boisterous roar of the gale, my shouts to the dogs were a feeble whisper caught from my lips and lost in the shrieking wind. The fine snowy particles were a powdered ice that drove through seams of clothing ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... poetry; since one of the noblest functions of its art is to describe the deeds and the subjects of stories, and adorned and delectable places with transparent waters in which the green recesses of their course can be seen as the waves disport themselves over meadows and fine pebbles, and the plants which are mingled with them, and the gliding fishes, and similar descriptions, which might just as well be made to a stone as to a man born blind, since he has never seen that which composes the beauty of the world, that is, ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... another in the water. They rise instantaneously to the bait and swim gratefully ashore holding it in their mouths. In the middle depth of the waters of the lake, the sardine, the lobster, the kippered herring, the anchovy and other tinned varieties of fish disport themselves with evident gratification, while even lower in the pellucid depths the dog-fish, the hog-fish, the log-fish, and the sword-fish whirl about in ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... ravine formed by a creek in the neighborhood—the ravine that is now bridged by one of our public streets. It consisted of two large wings, one for the boys and one for the girls, joined together by a dining hall used by the boys. There were also two pretty gardens in which the boys and girls could disport themselves separately. The large trees that surrounded the building have long since disappeared. The young girl spoken of as a pupil seems to have had her youthful mind captivated by the beauty of the site, and indeed nowhere could ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... large-headed, and with long slender bodies, to all appearance covered with a coat of dark brown wool, crawling and floundering about among the kelp, in constantly increasing numbers. Each new ledge of reef, as it rises to the surface, becomes crowded with them, while hundreds of others disport themselves in ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... about them. Their household teaching under Mrs. Elsmere and her old servant Martha—as great an original as herself—was so irregular, their religious training so extraordinary, the clothes in which they were allowed to disport themselves so scandalous to the sober taste of the rector's wife, that Catherine involuntarily regarded the little cottage on the hill as a spot of misrule in the general order of the parish. She would go in, say, at eleven o'clock in the morning, find her mother-in-law ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lake regains in a few days the ground it had lost: it encroaches on the tamarisk bushes which fringe its banks, and the district is soon surrounded by a belt of marshy vegetation, affording cover for ducks, pelicans, wild geese, and a score of different kinds of birds which disport themselves there by the thousand. The Pharaohs, when tired of residing in cities, here found varied and refreshing scenery, an equable climate, gardens always gay with flowers, and in the thickets of the Kerun they could pursue their favourite pastimes of interminable fishing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... globe, since we know not under what strange conditions it may manifest its presence; and our most powerful telescopes, besides, do not bring the lunar surface sufficiently near to us to disprove the existence there of even such large creatures as disport themselves upon our planet. Still, we find it hard to rid ourselves of the feeling that we are in the presence of a dead world. On she swings around the earth month after month, with one face ever turned ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... afraid, Bunny," she answered. "I'm not going to use your charms as a bait to lure this culinary Phyllis into the Arcadia in which you with your Strephonlike form disport yourself." ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... Gothic grotesque fancy are to be seen on the shrine, although treated outwardly with Renaissance feeling. A realistic life-sized mouse may be seen in one place, just as if it had run out to inspect the work; and the numbers of little tipsy "putti" who disport themselves in all attitudes, in perilous positions on narrow ledges, are ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... him a goodly tale or two, On which he may disport him at night. His high prudence hath insight very To judge if it be well made or nay. Write him nothing that soweneth to vice. Look if find thou canst any treatise Grounded on ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... With faire disport and courting dalliaunce She intertainde her lover all the way: But when she saw the knight his speare advaunce, 120 She soone left off her mirth and wanton play, And bade her knight addresse him to the fray: His foe was nigh at hand. He prickt with pride And hope to winne his Ladies ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... household and secretarial work, filled up her days; he knew too well that whist accounted for her evenings. He did not know if there was any margin, any dim intellectual region, out of time, out of space, where Miss Tancred's soul was permitted to disport itself in freedom; she seemed to exist merely in order to supply certain deficiencies in the Colonel's nature. Mrs. Fazakerly had once remarked that Frida was "her father's right hand." It would have been truer to have said that ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... easily. They are worn so often that they hang with the picturesque lines of the best tailor-made garments. That is why well-fed artists of pencil and pen find in the griefs of the common people their most striking models. But when the Philistine would disport himself, the grimness of Melpomene, herself, attends upon his capers. Therefore, Danny set his jaw hard at Easter, ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come among you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die among you all, to lay down for my God, for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... prominent women in metropolitan society were sponsoring the dances. A group of ladies, whose names were more familiar to Serina than the Christian martyrs, had rented a whole dwelling-house for a dancing couple to disport in, so that the universal amusement ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... country as a place where people of irreproachable income and hospitable instincts cultivated tennis-lawns and rose-gardens and Jacobean pleasaunces, wherein selected gatherings of interested week- end guests might disport themselves. Mrs. Gaspilton considered herself as distinctly an interesting personality, and from a limited standpoint she was doubtless right. She had indolent dark eyes and a comfortable chin, which belied the ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... on went the round hoods, old hats, red cloaks, and moccasins, and away trudged the four younger Bassetts, to disport themselves in the snow, and try the ice down by the old mill, where the great wheel turned and splashed so merrily ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed, and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and makes much of; and during his ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... to disport thyself on a long bridge and art prepared for the dance, but that fearest the trembling legs of the bridgelet builded on re-used shavings, lest supine it may lie stretched in the hollow swamp; may a good bridge take its place designed to thy fancy, on which e'en the Salian dances may ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... fille upon hire breste. In curteisie was set ful moche hire leste. Hire overlipp wypede sche so clene, That in hire cupp was no ferthing sene Of grec, whan sche dronken hadde hire draughte. Ful semly after hir mete sche raughte, And sikerly sche was of gret disport,{26} And ful plesaunt, and amyable of port, And peynede hir to countrefet cheere Of court, and ben estatlich of manere, And to ben holden digne of reverence. But for to speken of hir conscience, Sche ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... which two beings undertake through the fair domains of love, this moment is like a waste land to be traversed, a land without a tree, alternatively damp and warm, full of scorching sand, traversed by marshes, which leads to smiling groves clad with roses, where Love and his retinue of pleasures disport themselves on carpets of soft verdure. Often the witty man finds himself afflicted with a foolish laugh which is his only answer to everything; his wit is, as it were, suffocated beneath the icy ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... fragments, and it was with a tearful and apologetic face that he said, "Talaam, Tahib," when I came home from office. A hasty inquiry resulted in Imam Din informing Muhammad Din that, by my singular favour, he was permitted to disport himself as he pleased. Whereat the child took heart and fell to tracing the ground-plan of an edifice which was to eclipse ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... sea place! No, no: the only way to give the arrangement any shade of propriety, will be to be elderly, infuse as much vinegar as possible into my countenance, wear my spectacles, and walk at a staid pace up and down the parade, while my two sons disport themselves ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... affects some of us. The sin and the punishment of the Doctor, the thoroughly human figures of Genestas and the rest, save the situation from this and other drawbacks. We are not in the Cockaigne of perfectibility, where Marmontel and Godwin disport themselves; we are in a very practical place, where time-bargains in barley are made, and you pay the respectable, if not lavish board of ten francs per day for ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... rippling whispering waters. It was a resumption of the ways of his boyhood; it seemed like a holiday to have left all these cares behind him, just as it used to be when all his lessons were prepared, and he had leave to disport himself, by land or water, the whole afternoon, provided he did not go out beyond the Shag Rock. He took up his sculls and rowed merrily, singing and whistling to keep time with their dash, the return to the old pleasure quite enough at first, the ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Elysees, or to the gardens of Beaujon, and Tivoli—or to the yet more attractive magnificence of the palace and fountains of Versailles—where, in one or the other of these places, they carouse, or disport themselves—in promenades, or ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... damsel to the King, "When that the father had thus spoken to the lad, they returned together to the castle. When the morrow morning came, the lad arose and heard the birds sing and bethought him that he would go for disport into the forest for the day sith that it was fair. So he mounted on one of his father's horses of the chase and carried his javelins Welshman-fashion and went into the forest and found a stag and ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... blindness which alone can reconcile me to my barbarous lot! The insect feels itself as happy in a drop of water as though that drop was a paradise: so happy, and so contented! till some one tells it of a world of water, where navies ride and whales disport themselves! But you wish to make me happy, say you? (After a pause, she advances towards LADY MILFORD, and asks her suddenly.) Are you happy, lady? (LADY MILFORD turns from her hastily, and overpowered. LOUISA follows her, and lays her hand upon her bosom.) Does this heart wear ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... was enamoured of them as they were feeding, and covered them in the semblance of a dark-maned stallion. Twelve filly foals did they conceive and bear him, and these, as they sped over the rich plain, would go bounding on over the ripe ears of corn and not break them; or again when they would disport themselves on the broad back of Ocean they could gallop on the crest of a breaker. Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans, and Tros had three noble sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede who was ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... rest of the heroic band as protagonists. The saga embodies Celtic ideals and hopes; it was the literature of the Celtic folk on which was spent all the riches of the Celtic imagination; a world of dream and fancy into which they could enter at all times and disport themselves. Yet, in spite of its immense variety, the saga preserves a certain unity, and it is provided with a definite framework, recounting the origin of the heroes, the great events in which they were concerned, ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... and that—with its four cosy bunks made up shipshape, its big table, its swinging lamp, its soft bulging chairs (for Great-uncle Joe had been a man of solid weight as well as worth)—was just the place for boys to disport themselves in without fear of doing damage. All about were most interesting things for curious young eyes to see and busy fingers to handle: telescope, compass, speaking trumpet, log and lead and ...
— Killykinick • Mary T. Waggaman
... shady Bank Thick over-head with verdant Roof embower'd, He led her nothing loth: Flowrs were the Couch, Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel, And Hyacinth, Earths freshest softest Lap. There they their fill of Love, and Loves disport, Took largely, of their mutual Guilt the Seal, The Solace of their Sin, till dewy Sleep ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... offers a perfect surface for skating, and attracts not only the boys and girls of the village, but a large number of their elders. The lake grows lively with the gracefully gliding promenade of skaters, with here and there a group playing at hockey, while others disport themselves at "crack the whip." The friction of so many gliding feet imparts to the frozen surface a low and weirdly humming sound, and the droning note is echoed by the hills, until the valley resounds with monotonous music. There ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... and sixty years the restraint imposed on writers by the general feeling of readers has been constantly becoming more and more strict. At length even that class of works in which it was formerly thought that a voluptuous imagination was privileged to disport itself, love songs, comedies, novels, have become more decorous than the sermons of the seventeenth century. At this day foreigners, who dare not print a word reflecting on the government under which they live, are at a loss to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... an old established custom at the Villa Camellia that on the evening of the last day of March (unless that date happened to fall on a Sunday) the pupils were allowed special license after supper, and, regardless of ordinary rules, might disport themselves as they pleased until bedtime. Irene, who had not yet been present on one of these occasions, heard hints on all sides of coming fun, mingled with mystery. Peachy twice began to tell her ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... used to direct and superintend our games with the strictness that some parents do the studies of their children. He was very particular that we should play the old English games according to their original form, and consulted old books for precedent and authority for every 'merrie disport;' yet I assure you there never was pedantry so delightful. It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make his children feel that home was the happiest place in the world; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of the choicest gifts ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... aspect. He experienced something of that temporary relief from personal responsibility that moments of religious sentiment often give to minds that are unaccustomed to religion. He had been free for the time to disport himself in something infinitely larger and wider than his little world, and he took up his duty at the point at which he had left it with something of this sense of ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... have economized on ourselves, or rather included ourselves in a general scheme of economy in order the better to provide for our guests, I think even New Yorkers would hesitate to criticize the Jardines' iron beds,—especially if they ever got a chance to disport themselves on ...
— At Home with the Jardines • Lilian Bell
... his entirety. There is great sin in quarrelling with friends. They that are thy grandsires are theirs also. Give away in charity on occasions of sacrifices, gratify every dear object of thy desire, disport in the company of women ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrels that inhabited the trees in the front-yard were won in time by her blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, by trains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shining cherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngsters used to sit entranced with delight as they gambolled and waved their feathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbread ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... extremely pretty girls were bathing. With the evening sun glinting on their brown bodies and their piquant, oval faces framed by the dusky torrents of their loosened hair, they looked like those bronze maidens which disport themselves in the fountain of the Piazza delle Terme in Rome, come to life. I felt certain that they would take to flight when Hawkinson unlimbered his motion-picture camera and trained it upon them, but they continued ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... surging waters rinse them. Thou hast here a lovely village, Finest spot in all of Northland, In the lowlands sweet the verdure, in the uplands, fields of beauty, With the lake-shore near the hamlet, Near thy home the running water, Where the goslings swim and frolic, Water-birds disport in numbers." Thereupon the bride and bridegroom Were refreshed with richest viands, Given food and drink abundant, Fed on choicest bits of reindeer, On the sweetest loaves of barley, On the best of wheaten biscuits, On the richest beer of Northland. Many things ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... the power of the Trolls and other evil spirits, who are believed to be abroad that night; for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pours forth to dance and disport themselves for a time. The peasants believe that should any of the Trolls be in the vicinity they will show themselves; and if an animal, for example a he or she goat, happens to be seen near the blazing, crackling ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... full fair bridge to pass over the ditches. And in these vivaries be so many wild geese and ganders and wild ducks and swans and herons that it is without number. And all about these ditches and vivaries is the great garden full of wild beasts. So that when the great Chan will have any disport on that, to take any of the wild beasts or of the fowls, he will let chase them and take them at the windows without ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... barrens toward a spot upon the shore of the lake—the only grass plot within a radius of five hundred miles. Throwing himself down beside a low, sodded mound in the centre of the plot, he idly watched the great flocks of water fowls disport themselves upon ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... all rose and came to the church, where they found the monks awaiting them. Then, after hearing vespers, they all supped together, talking the while of many excellent stories. After supper they went, according to their wont, to disport themselves somewhat in the meadow, and then retired to rest, in order that their memories might be the sounder on ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... has been a favorite field for cranks to disport themselves upon. Ritson's particular vanity was the past participle of verbs ending in e; e.g., perceiveed. Cf. Landor's notions of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... slave-boy Abdullah, "Take now thy tambourine that we may play and sing and dance in honour of our master's guest." So he did her bidding and the twain went into the room, the lad playing and the lass following. Then, making a low conge, they asked leave to perform and disport and play; and Ali Baba gave permission, saying, "Dance now and do your best that this our guest may be mirthful and merry." Quoth Khwajah Hasan, "O my lord, thou dost indeed provide much pleasant entertainment." Then the slave-boy Abdullah standing ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... those qualities in which it excelled equally three thousand years ago. What you ought to mean is that you have a roof that is flat and has things on it that make it livable, where you can walk, disport yourself, or sleep; a house-top view of your neighbors' affairs; an airy pleasance with a full sweep of stars; a place to listen of nights to the drone of the city; a place of observation, and if you are so ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... Without this military attendance they could not in safety move even so far as the mills, where honest Wilkln Flammock, his warlike deeds forgotten, was occupied with his mechanical labours. But if a farther disport was intended, and the Lady of the Garde Doloureuse proposed to hunt or hawk for a few hours, her safety was not confided to a guard so feeble as the garrison of the castle might afford. It was necessary that Raoul should announce her purpose to Damian by a special messenger despatched ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... with short, stubby grass and here and there were big yellow patches of moss. At the foot of one hill a stream wends its way through the drooping boughs of the stunted shrubs that grow on its edges, and loses itself in a quiet pond where long-legged insects disport themselves on the leaves of the water-lilies. The sun beat down on us. The gnats rubbed their wings together and bent the slender ends of the reeds with the weight of their tiny bodies. We were alone in the tranquillity of ...
— Over Strand and Field • Gustave Flaubert
... its fields of Summer * (their wild wings rustled his guides' cymars) Looked up from disport at the passing comer, * as they pelted each other with handfuls of stars; And the warden-spirits with startled feet rose, * hand on sword, by ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... worker—would it do me harm to disport myself in the flowery mead with the butterflies? Should I feel a distaste for the bread earned by labour and pain after the honey placed, effortless, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... building, with a red-tiled roof extending over a porch or whitewashed veranda, in which drunken vaqueros had been known to occasionally disport their mustangs, did not offer a very reputable appearance to the eye of young Guest as he approached it in the gathering shadows. One or two half-broken horses were securely fastened to the stout cross-beams of some heavy posts driven in the roadway before it, and a primitive trough ...
— Maruja • Bret Harte
... so that no wonder he had grown lazy and selfish; but his native spirit was not entirely extinguished, and he assured me that a bare bone to growl over, and a little comfortable rain and mud to disport himself in like a dog, were still the greatest treats that could be offered to him. His temper had been farther soured by the spite and envy of dogs around him, who, less petted themselves, and not aware how little his petting contributed ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... coolness. On the fringed marge Full many a floweret rears its head,—or pink, Or gaudy daffodil. 'Tis here, at noon, The buskin'd wood-nymphs from the heat retire, And lave them in the fountain; here secure From Pan, or savage satyr, they disport: Or stretch'd supinely on the velvet turf, Lull'd by the laden bee, or sultry fly, Invoke the god of slumber.... * * ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... a grand procession that was not accompanied, or, rather, in great measure made up of, followers and onlookers. So in this life parade of ours, with its ever varying pageant and brilliant display, there are comparatively few who carry banners, who disport the epaulette, and the gold lace. And sometimes, we who help swell the ranks of those who watch and wait, grow discouraged, almost thinking that life is a failure because it holds no gala-day for us, nothing but sober tints and quiet duties. ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... towards the statesman who is now proudly numbered in their ranks. When he presented himself to be sworn in, it was one of the jokes of the day that Sir Walter Barttelot expected he would approach the Table making "a cart-wheel" down the floor, as ragged little boys disport themselves along the pavement when a drag or omnibus passes. Sir Walter was genuinely surprised to find in the fearsome Birmingham Radical a quietly-dressed, well-mannered, almost boyish-looking man, who spoke in a clear, admirably ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... former monarchs of the forest that filled its bed—a ditch covered with a superstratum of slimy, green water, lank weeds, and rank vegetation; and wherein, at flood time, urchin anglers could fish for eels and sticklebats, and, at ebb, the village ducks disport themselves ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... just a-risin' out of the ground," were ludicrously mistaken, in another their practical conclusion was absolutely sound; for it is in just such air, at such levels above the surface of the water, that the Anopheles most delights to disport himself. Furthermore, while all raw or misty air is "bad," the night air is infinitely more so than that of the day, because this is the time at which mosquitoes are chiefly abroad. In fact, there can be little doubt that this is part of the foundation for that rabid and unreasonable ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and Herve's day was over. Vainly did he pile parody upon parody; vainly did he seize the conductor's baton; the days of their glory had gone. Now Asnieres itself is forgotten; the modern youth has chosen another suburb to disport himself in; the ballroom has been pulled down, and never again will an orchestra play a note of these poor scores; even their names are unknown. A few bars of a chorus of pages came back to me, remembered only by me, all are gone, like Hortense and ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... streamlet, where glisten'd Fair feet of the Naiads that skimm'd The shallows; where the Oreads listen'd, Rose-lipp'd, amber-hair'd, marble-limb'd, No lithe forms disport in the river, No sweet faces peer through the boughs, Elms and beeches wave silent for ever, Ever silent ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... survey'd; Morn's fairy splendours; night's gay curtained shade, The high hoar cliff, the grove's benighting gloom, The wild rose, widowed o'er the mouldering tomb; The heaven embosom'd sun; the rainbow's dye, Where lucid forms disport to fancy's eye; The vernal flower, mild autumn's purpling glow, The summer's thunder and ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... exhibition of man's power over the fruits of the earth and the beasts of the field we cross a ravine where the forest is allowed to disport itself in ignorance of his yoke, and ascend another eminence where floral beauty, gathered from all quarters of the globe, is fed in imprisonment on its native soil and breathes its native climate. We predict that woman will seek her home among the flowers on the hill rather ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... fruit vendors linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain endeavouring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in some projecting doorway, or under the canvas blind of a cheesemonger's, where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of blight red and pale yellow ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... fight, none so quick to resent the intrusion of a respectable man into his haunts. So he had money enough to procure his peculiar garb, a "mersheen" to run with and fight for, a girl to console him, the "Old Bowery Theatre" to beguile him from his ennui, and the Bowery itself to disport his glory in, he was content. Rows were numerous in this quarter, and they afforded him all the other relaxation he desired. If there be any truth in the theories of Spiritualism, let us be sure his ghost ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... early every morning, or a Roman altar with vessels of carved stone and Corinthian vases. Here and there, in more open places, fountains and waterfalls plashed and gurgled in marble basins, throwing jets of water into the air, and enabling merry little goldfish to disport themselves, whence the stream flowed among Oriental reeds into artfully hidden lakes, where, on the tranquil watery mirror, swam beautiful white swans, which did not sing as sweetly as the poets would have us believe, but ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai |
