"Swain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soon after found out who he was; indeed, so far from attempting to disguise himself, he spoke in his own voice and in his own person. He now began to make very violent love to me, but it was rather in the stile of a great man of the present age than of an Arcadian swain. In short, he laid his whole fortune at my feet, and bade me make whatever terms I pleased, either for myself or for others. By others, I suppose he meant your husband. This, however, put a thought into my head of turning the present occasion to advantage. I told him there were ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... shyness prevented my taking part in the flirtations of the streets. Whether inviting eyes were ever thrown to me as to others, I cannot say. Sometimes, fancying so—hoping so, I would follow. Yet never could I summon up sufficient resolution to face the possible rebuff before some less timid swain would swoop down upon the quarry. Then I would hurry on, cursing myself for the poorness of my spirit, fancying mocking contempt in the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... woodland hall; and I will lie near to thee, father, and the wounded friend, lest I be needed to help thee in the night; and thou, Baron of Sunway, lie thou betwixt me and the wood, to ward me from the wild deer and the wood-wights. But thou, Swain of Upmeads, wilt thou deem it hard to lie anear the horses, to watch them if they ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... degraded from the position of train-bearer to that of ordinary "swain." The "swains" were to be dressed in smocks and the "maidens" in print dresses, and the Maypole dance was to be performed round Evangeline Fish, who was to stand in queenly attire by the pole in the middle. All the ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... foremost at our rural plays, The pride and envy of our holidays: Why dost thou sit now musing all alone, Teaching the turtles, yet a sadder moan? Swell'd with thy tears, why does the neighbouring brook Bear to the ocean, what she never took? Thy flocks are fair and fruitful, and no swain, Than thee, more welcome to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... The faithful swain took out of his pocket a short clay pipe, blew through it, filled it, and began to smoke, while Phyllis sighed at the thought of the cool liquid gliding down her throat, and with the pleasing recollection gently stroked her stomach. ...
— Liza of Lambeth • W. Somerset Maugham
... on the right-hand side; that the latter will occupy those on the left; and, generally, you find them on opposite sides in strict accordance with this idea. There is nothing to absolutely prevent an enraptured swain from sitting at the elbow of his love, and basking in the sunlight of her eyes, nor to stop an elderly man from nestling peacefully under the wing of his spouse; but it is understood that they will not do this, and will at least submit to a deed of separation during hours of worship. ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... that send a kind of guttural sound from their throats, such as the cuckoos and occasionally the blue jays. Notice the cuckoo as he utters his call, which every swain interprets as the harbinger of a coming shower, and you will observe that his throat bulges out like that of a croaking frog, and quivers at the same time in a convulsed way. It is plain that the air about to be forced from the glottis ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... gallant, swain, flame, cicisbeo, admirer, suitor, inamorato; dandy, popinjay, dude, fop, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... is Norval. On the Grampian Hills My father feeds his flocks; a frugal swain, Whose constant cares were to increase his store, And keep his only son, myself, at home. For I had heard of battles, and I long'd To follow to the field some warlike lord: And heav'n soon granted what my sire deny'd. This moon, which rose last night, round as my shield, Had not yet fill'd ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... together a good deal during that week. Anticipating her arrival, the young man's ardent imagination had again fanned what he delighted to think of as his love for her into flame. During the last months of the winter he had not played the languishing swain as conscientiously as during the autumn. Like the sailor in the song "is 'eart was true to Poll" always, but he had broken away from his self-imposed hermitage in his room at the Snow place several times to attend sociables, entertainments and, even, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... wherever he showed himself women were singularly fascinated by the sight of him; there must be something about him which vanquished them in spite of him. When at last one evening the most round-backed of all of them, a swain whose blond mustache, of irregular growth, resembled an old, worn- out toothbrush more than anything else, also confided in me that he did not know how it was, or what could really be the cause of it, but there must be something about him, etc.,—then my belief in Vilsing's singularity and my ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... to Buenos Aires a few days afterward, the cause of the old man's wrath was explained. It appeared that for some months past Madariaga had been the financial guarantor and devoted swain of a German prima donna stranded in South America with an Italian opera company. It was she who had recommended Karl—an unfortunate countryman, who after wandering through many parts of the continent, was now living with her ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... being spoken of as the slighted lover, and his blood boiled at the bare idea of Colonel Sherwood's contemptuous pity for the vain plebeian who had dared to raise his thoughts to an alliance with his beautiful, high-born daughter. He 'would show the world that he was no love-sick, despairing swain; and Miss Sherwood's vanity should never be gratified by the display of the wounds her falsehood had inflicted. He would very soon, he knew, forget the fair coquette who had trampled thus upon his most sacred feelings.' So he tried to persuade himself, but his ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... again; and we soon became aware that the stroll had not been without great results to both; since Mrs. Rose affected to be laboring under a high degree of emotion, and retired to the privacy of her apartment, while old Bill was by no means the dolorous swain of a few hours before, but, making his way among us, with his wide mouth stretching its best, proceeded formally to shake hands with one and all as though he had finally got back from a long and arduous voyage; and then, merrily calling for a certain brown ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... ha' not found un out, and do present un with a van of rosemary and bays, enough to vill a bow-pott or trim the head of my best vore-horse; we shall all ha' bride-laces and points, I see.' And again, a country swain assures his sweetheart at their wedding: 'We'll have rosemary and bayes to vill a bow-pott, and with the same I'll trim the vorehead of my best vore-horse'—so that it would seem the decorative use was not confined to the bride, the ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... ate. "By the Lord," he went on commenting, "they've not had bite or sup. Too busy with their match-making? Too delicate to feast without invitation? Which?" He pondered the puzzle. He had invited Manuela, he was sure: had he included her swain? If not, the thing was clear. She wouldn't eat without him, and he couldn't eat without his host. It was the best thing he knew ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... then my travell ever endles prove, That I can heare no tydings of my Love? In neither desart, grove, nor shadie wood Nor obscure thicket where my foote hath trod? But every plough-man and rude shepheard swain Doth still reply unto my greater paine? Some Satyre, then, or Godesse of this place, Some water Nymph vouchsafed me so much grace As by some view, some signe, or other sho, I may haue knowledge if she ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... o'clock in the morning. The lights were out in Robinson's Hall, where there had been dancing and revelry; and the moon, riding high, painted the black windows with silver. The cavalcade, that an hour ago had shocked the sedate pines with song and laughter, were all dispersed. One enamoured swain had ridden east, another west, another north, another south; and the object of their adoration, left within her bower at Chemisal Ridge, ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... tens—but transpierce the actual coin, and of them compose a necklace of whose value there can be no doubt, and whose fashion is not very variable. This may be called a fair and above-board way of doing things. The swain, as he sits by the beloved object, may amuse himself by counting the number of precious links in the chain that is drawing him into matrimony, and debate within himself, on sure data, the question whether or no he shall ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... when two young people are fond of each other no pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... with shepherds in the groves, Sung to my oaten pipe their rural loves, And issuing thence, compelled the neighb'ring field A plenteous crop of rising corn to yield; Manured the glebe, and stocked the fruitful plain (A poem grateful to the greedy swain)," &c. ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... worked for him. In the first place, Professor Swain, the examining professor—now president of Swarthmore College—was the head of Stanford's department of mathematics. In the second place, he was a Quaker, and a man who liked the right sort of ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... of leisure—although threatened with consumption—became an all-absorbing topic in two villages and three hamlets, and more than one swain, hitherto successful, felt the wind blow colder. But in a fortnight it was known that a petticoat did not make Isaac Worthington even turn his head. Curiosity centred on Silas Wheelock's barn, where ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sigh. By this time Lord Hunsdon was talking into Anne's ear and she could hear nothing of the conversation opposite, although now and again she caught a syllable from a low toneless voice. But his first agony was passed as well as her own, and she endeavoured to forget him in her swain's comments upon the political news arrived with the packet that afternoon. When tea was over and Miss Bargarny, who cultivated liveliness of manner, had engaged the poet in a discussion upon the relative merits of Shelley and Nathaniel P. Willis—astonishingly ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... to you by the assistance of our friend Warner Lewis. Poor fellow! never did I see one more sincerely captivated in my life. He walked to the Indian Camp with her yesterday, by which means he had an opportunity of giving her two or three love-squeezes by the hand; and like a true Arcadian swain, has been so enraptured ever since that he is ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... told how, last night, poor Thea, while mending her uncle's overcoat, found in the lining an old letter from America ... from some swain she had had over there ... a letter glowing with love and regret. Yes, Nunkie knew how to hold his nieces, the architect explained, laughing ... watched them like a Spanish duenna, confiscated the letters that came for them, if necessary, the old rogue, and calmed their ardors with a ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... sequestered spot of sylvan shade whence rises a Spring which tradition designates Queen Anne's. Here the limpid crystal flows in gentle, yet ceaseless streams, conveying "Health to the sick and solace to the swain." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... gradually became able to talk to him she inquired about his bride, and the enamoured swain raved to her unceasingly of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... life-blood,—the beech, its smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the body of one of those great snakes of old that used to frighten armies,—always the mark of lovers' knives, as in the days of Musidora and her swain,—the yellow birch, rough as the breast of Silenus in old marbles,—the wild cherry, its little bitter fruit lying unheeded at its foot,—and, soaring over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery-limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depths of whose aerial solitudes the crow brooded on her ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... of all kinds, for he had written Academic Prize Essays, struggled for India Companies, given dinners to Philosophes, and 'realised a fortune in twenty years.' He possessed, further, a taciturnity and solemnity; of depth, or else of dulness. How singular for Celadon Gibbon, false swain as he had proved; whose father, keeping most probably his own gig, 'would not hear of such a union,'—to find now his forsaken Demoiselle Curchod sitting in the high places of the world, as Minister's Madame, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... thought you were never coming. Did your hair require an extra half-hour? I suppose you've been tearing it out by the roots over your faithless swain." ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... Roman hosts with kindred weapons rush To battle, nor did the high gods deem it hard That twice Emathia and the wide champaign Of Haemus should be fattening with our blood. Ay, and the time will come when there anigh, Heaving the earth up with his curved plough, Some swain will light on javelins by foul rust Corroded, or with ponderous harrow strike On empty helmets, while he gapes to see Bones as of giants from the trench untombed. Gods of my country, heroes of the soil, And Romulus, and Mother Vesta, thou Who ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... think so," said the spiteful waiting-maid; "when he gave me this letter he sighed, and rolled up his eyes like a love-sick swain." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... But God alone, when first His active hand Imprints the secret bias of the soul. He, mighty Parent! wise and just in all, Free as the vital breeze or light of heaven, Reveals the charms of Nature. Ask the swain Who journeys homeward from a summer day's Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils And due repose, he loiters to behold The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds, 530 O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween, His rude expression and untutor'd airs, ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... one of loud abuse. But neither entreaties nor threats produced the slightest effect upon the delicate creature to whom they were addressed; she remained coolly in the same position, continuing to smoke with the greatest indifference, and without deigning even to cast upon her excited swain a look, far less answer him a word. He became enraged to such a pitch, that he so far forgot himself as to loosen the golden ear-rings from her ears, and threatened to take away all the finery he had given her. Even this was not sufficient to rouse the girl from her stolid calmness, and ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... In sooth, the swain's position resembled the novelist's own. Honore was also inditing oaths of fidelity to his "dear star," his "earth-angel" in far-away Russia, while worshipping at shrines more accessible. Lady Dudley may well have been, for all his denial, the Countess Visconti, ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... may feed my poodle if you like." So saying, Aunt Millie, who was spending her vacation at the farm, tied on her garden hat, and sallied forth for a walk, leaving behind her a very disappointed little swain, for Jo generally accompanied her in her rambles, and he and Aunt Millie were sworn allies. Lately she had run off several times without him, and he certainly felt quite disconsolate to-day. But he could not doubt her love ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... himself in his own eyes, that he had been idling his time and neglecting the high duties which he had taken upon himself to perform. He should have spent this afternoon among the poor at St. Ewold's, instead of wandering about at Plumstead, an ancient, love-lorn swain, dejected and sighing, full of imaginary sorrows and Wertherian grief. He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, and determined to lose no time in retrieving his character, so damaged in his ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... you leave her, Bill?" asked a gentle village swain who had been fired by the glowing picture ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... hoary-headed swain may say, "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away, To meet the sun upon the ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... Gothic days, as legends tell, A shepherd-swain, a man of low degree; Whose sires, perchance, in Fairyland might dwell, Sicilian groves, or vales of Arcady; But he, I ween, was of the North Countrie: A nation famed for song, and beauty's charms; Zealous, yet modest; innocent, ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... advise. One part for peace, and one for war contends; Some would exclude their foes, and some admit their friends. The helpless king is hurried in the throng, And, whate'er tide prevails, is borne along. Thus, when the swain, within a hollow rock, Invades the bees with suffocating smoke, They run around, or labor on their wings, Disus'd to flight, and shoot their sleepy stings; To shun the bitter fumes in vain they try; Black vapors, issuing from the ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... known to the widow of the late Colonel the aspirations of his heart, and would receive from her permission to address himself to the lady of his choice. After the lapse of a few weeks or months (as the case might be) of mutually complimentary interviews and correspondence, the swain would entreat the maid to name the day which was to make him the happiest of men. She would delay and hesitate for a becoming while; but at length, with a blush and a smile, would indicate a date too distant for the ...
— Archibald Malmaison • Julian Hawthorne
... sport that oft invites The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain: Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights In vengeance, gloating on another's pain. What private feuds the troubled village stain! Though now one phalanxed host should meet the foe, Enough, alas, in humble homes remain, To meditate 'gainst friends the secret blow, For some slight cause of ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... They swain rapidly, but seemed to make little progress. Lord Hastings, standing on the bridge of the Sylph, discovered the two forms in the water. A second boat was hastily launched, and put off ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... beauteous Sidselil, I've this to complain of thee, That thou hast ta'en another swain And broke thy ...
— The Dalby Bear - and Other Ballads • Anonymous
... swain!" laughed Greg in mock admiration. "You hop but little oftener than once a year, when Laura comes on from the home town! You throw away nearly all of the ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... poetical department we notice the Retreat, some beautiful lines by J. Montgomery; Ellen Strathallan, a pathetic legend, by Mrs. Pickersgill; St. Mary of the Lows, by the Ettrick Shepherd; Xerxes, a beautiful composition, by C. Swain, Esq.; the Banks of the Ganges, a descriptive poem, by Capt. McNaghten; Lydford Bridge, a fearful incident, by the author of Dartmoor; Alice, a tale of merrie England, by W.H. Harrison; and two pleasing pieces by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 340, Supplementary Number (1828) • Various
... heart for a whole year; and I know it takes nearly that time for a well-brought-up young lady to get over a real matrimonial disappointment. However, shy or not shy, they certainly ought to be explicit. It's too bad to miss a chance because we cannot interpret the metaphor in which some bashful swain thinks it decorous to couch his proposals; and I once knew a young lady who, happening to dislike needlework, and replying in the negative to the insidious question, "Can you sew a button?" never knew for months that she had actually declined a ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... the generous chestnut, the graceful elm—while here and there the tulip-tree reared its majestic head, the giant of the forest. Where now are seen the gay retreats of luxury—villas half buried in twilight bowers, whence the amorous flute oft breathes the sighings of some city swain—there the fish-hawk built his solitary nest, on some dry tree that overlooked his watery domain. The timid deer fed undisturbed along those shores now hallowed by the lover's moonlight walk, and printed by the slender foot of beauty; and a savage solitude ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... luver, luver dear, Her luver dear, the cause of sorrow; And I hae slain the comliest swain That eir pu'd birks ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... at the wooing breeze; And the sun, like a bashful swain, Beamed on it through the waving trees With a passion all in vain,— For my rose laughed in a crimson glee, And hid in the leaves in wait ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... offering Lloyd, she said to herself, "He is for Lloyd. They are just made for each other, and I am glad that the nicest man I ever knew happens to like the dearest girl in the world. And I hope if there ever should be 'a swain amang the train' for me, he'll be as near like him as possible. I don't know where I'd ever meet him, though. Certainly not here and most ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... deadly hatred? We might imagine such a thing to take place in the refinement and artificial air of a court, but not in a Dutch Lust Haus at Amsterdam. That evening, before his departure, did the widow present her swain with the fatal herring; and the swain received it with as many marks of gratitude and respect, as some knight in ancient times would have shown when presented with some magical ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rocking while she chats with the widow Sloper, who lives there, and whose mission in life is to cut and fit the best "go to meetin'" gowns of female Sandgate. Both dearly love to talk over all that's going on, and whether this or that village swain is paying especial attention to any one rosy cheeked lass, and if so "what's likely to come on't." Both mean well by this neighborly interest, and especially does Mrs. Sloper, who always advises plaits for stout women, "with middlin' fulness in the ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... hound, His hands to Heaven upraised: And all around on scutcheon rich, And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion lay not there. From Ettrick woods a peasant swain Follow'd his lord to Flodden ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... bench," said Dick, "and let the sunshine trickle through the trees and through us, and feel the spray in our nostrils, and delight in hanging maidenhair ferns, and watch the girls go by—the girls in pink and blue dresses, each leaning on the arm of a swain who grins. It's vastly more fun than a ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... rest? Had Cassius, that weak water-drinker, known Thee in thy vine, or had but tasted one Small chalice of thy frantic liquor, he, As the wise Cato, had approv'd of thee. Had not Jove's son,[J] that brave Tirynthian swain, Invited to the Thesbian banquet, ta'en Full goblets of thy gen'rous blood, his sprite Ne'er had kept heat for fifty maids that night. Come, come and kiss me; love and lust commends Thee and thy ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick
... trying. Tact is required to avoid fault-finding, nagging, and jealousy. A few "lovers' quarrels" do not matter—they give flavor to a romance—but scolding and criticism do. Romance dies when thoughtless quarreling enters. An engaged man should be even more of a gentleman than the courting swain; the girl with a ring on the third finger of her left hand should strive to be even more charming and feminine than the ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... the yacht, praising everything, and calling everything by a wrong name. He was to be their guest all day, and every day. They were to have enough of him, as Lesbia had observed to her chaperon, with a spice of discontent, not quite so delighted with the arrangement as her faithful swain. To him ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... sair, I doubt some happier swain Has gained my Jeanie's favor; If sae, may every bliss be hers, Tho' I can ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... little at the flight,—for he thought she perceived his chase and meant to drop him. Bill had not bad a classical education, and knew nothing of Galatea in the Eclogue,—how she did not hide, until she saw her swain was looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... of shivering Swain, Nor yet his richest gifts obtain Your smile, and soft'ning brow; Nor if a faithless Husband's rage For a gay Syren of the stage, And broken ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... I as base as is the lowly plain, And you, my Love, as high as heaven above, Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain Ascend to heaven, in honour of ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... mute silence, except when the interrupted breathing of their sucking infants informed us of the unhealthy state of these innocent partakers in their parents' punishments. The matron read; I could not refrain from tears. The women wept also; several were under the sentence of death. Swain, who had just received her respite, sat next me; and on my left hand sat Lawrence, alias Woodman, surrounded by her four children, and only waiting the birth of another, which she hourly expects, to pay the forfeit of her life, ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... give the banquet. I had not written the 'MARK TWAIN' distinctly; it was a fresh name to Eastern printers, and they put it 'Mike Swain' or 'MacSwain,' I do not remember which. At any rate, I was not celebrated and I did not give the banquet. I was a Literary Person, but that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she saw that on her left Asad-ed-Din, with Marzak, Biskaine, and one or two other officers, was again occupying the divan under the awning. Her eyes sought Sakr-el-Bahr, and presently they beheld him coming up the gangway with his long, swinging stride, in the wake of the boat-swain's mates who were doling out the meagre evening meal ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... is in the sterile soil Deserted by the rustic swain Because it yields not for his toil The recompense he would obtain. By wall and ledge, and rock, and mound, Where'er neglect and ruin reign In greatest beauty there 'tis found, To cheer and clothe ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... stone before your eyes The body of a lover lies; In life he was a shepherd swain, In death a victim to disdain. Ungrateful, cruel, coy, and fair, Was she that drove him to despair, And Love hath made her his ally For spreading ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... PLUVIUS, Sluicer, full-spout, Downpour diluvious, Pumped on the Drought. Checked, aloud crying, The voice of the Swain; The rootcrops be dying, From ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... an interpreter to act as chorus in the intervals between the dialogues. The story of the wooing of Gerd is in this form: how Frey sat in the seat of Odin and saw a fair maid in Jotunheim, and got great sickness of thought, till his swain Skirnir found the cause of his languishing, and went to woo Gerd for him in Gymi's Garth. Another love-story, and a story not unlike that of Frey and Gerd, is contained in two poems Grgaldr and Filsvinnsml, ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, But in another country, as he said, Bore a bright golden flow'r, but not in this soil; Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... cared far more about Charlie than about the ballot. Olive Chancellor wondered how Mrs. Farrinder would treat that branch of the question. In her researches among her young townswomen she had always found this obtrusive swain planted in her path, and she grew at last to dislike him extremely. It filled her with exasperation to think that he should be necessary to the happiness of his victims (she had learned that whatever they might talk about with her, it was of him and him only that they discoursed among themselves), ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... with an imitation quid, and his mouth with a large assortment of dammes. Garnish with two broad-swords and a hornpipe. Boil down a press-gang and six or seven smugglers, and (if in season) a bo'swain and large cat-o'-nine-tails.—Sprinkle the dish with two lieutenants, four midshipmen, and about seven or eight common sailors. Serve up with a pair of epaulettes and an admiral in a white wig, silk stockings, smalls, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... some interesting scribblings on the walls of this chapel. On the shelf for books is a representation of a Cromwellian soldier with a dog, apparently in pursuit of a deer. There are also scribblings with devices, dating to 1630-1634. One love-sick swain described an equilateral triangle with a [Symbol: Cross] rising from the vertex, and then inscribed the initials of his fiancee and also ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... the receptacle occasionally serves for a little gold watch, or some other trinket, which is suspended to the neck by a collar of hair, decorated with various ornaments. When they dance, the fan is introduced within the zone or girdle; and the handkerchief is kept in the pocket of some sedulous swain, to whom the fair one has recourse when she has occasion for it. Some of the elderly ladies, like myself," added she, "carry these appendages in a sort of work-bag, denominated a ridicule. Not long since, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... medieval le bon. This adjective, used as a personal name, gave also Bunn and Bunce; for the spelling of the latter name cf. Dance for Dans, and Pearce for Piers, the nominative of Pierre (Alternative Origins, Chapter I), which also survives in Pears and Pearson. Swain may go back to the father of Canute, or to some hoary-headed swain who, possibly, tended the swine. Not all the Seymours are St. Maurs. Some of them were once Seamers, i.e. tailors. Gosling is rather trivial, but it represents the ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... unto rose; My love to thy love Tenderly grows. Rend not the oak and the ivy in twain, Nor the swart maid from her swarthier swain. ...
— The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... soliloquy was cut short by a sound of lamentation, which, as he went on, came to him in louder and louder bursts. He was attracted to the spot whence the sounds proceeded, and had some difficulty in discovering a doleful swain, who was ensconced in a mass of fern, taller than himself if he had been upright; and but that, by rolling over and over in the turbulence of his grief, he had flattened a large space down to the edge of the forest brook near which he reclined, he would have remained ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... Gil Blas from Spain? 520 Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine? Were ducks discomforted by rain? How did Britannia rule the main? Was Jonas coming back again? Was vital truth upon the wane? Did ghosts, to scare folks, drag a chain? Who was our Huldah's chosen swain? Did none have teeth pulled without payin', Ere ether was invented? Whether mankind would not agree, 530 If the universe were tuned in C? What was it ailed Lucindy's knee? Whether folks eat folks in Feejee? Whether his name would end with T? If Saturn's rings were two ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... lover, poet, or astronomer, Shepherd, or swain, whoever may behold, Feel some abstraction when they gaze on her: Great thoughts we catch from thence (besides a cold Sometimes, unless my feelings rather err); Deep secrets to her rolling light are told; The ocean's tides and mortals' brains ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... who far from town in rural hall, Like me, were wont to dwell near pleasant field, Enjoying all the sunny day did yield— With me the change lament, in irksome thrall, By rains incessant held; for now no call From early swain invites my hand to wield The scythe. In parlour dim I sit concealed, And mark the lessening sand from hour-glass fall; Or 'neath my window view the wistful train Of dripping poultry, whom the vine's broad leaves Shelter no more. Mute is the mournful plain. Silent the swallow ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... Heart in favour of him. Sir, Your Opinion and Advice in this Affair, is the only thing I know can turn the Ballance; and which I earnestly intreat I may receive soon; for till I have your Thoughts upon it, I am engaged not to give my Swain a final Discharge. ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... my lady had its fulfilment while yet the spinetter was striking out the final chords of the minuet. A lady dropped her kerchief, and I was before her swain in stooping to pick it up. As I bowed low in returning the bit of lace to its owner, a voice that I had learned to know and love ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Mason, "the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him." To reconstitute the poem with this original ending gives an interesting structure. The first three quatrains evoke the fall of darkness; four stanzas follow presenting the rude forefathers in their narrow graves; eleven ...
— An Elegy Wrote in a Country Church Yard (1751) and The Eton College Manuscript • Thomas Gray
... which we already take leave of the genuine love of the pastoral life, springing from an intimate knowledge of and delight in nature, and see world-weariness arraying itself in the sentimental garb of the imaginary swain. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... friend," said the king to the old shepherd, "what fair swain is that talking with your daughter?" "They call him Doricles," replied the shepherd. "He says he loves my daughter; and, to speak truth, there is not a kiss to choose which loves the other best. If young Doricles can get her, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... fiances to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman. The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain; with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently recovered to do so, had declared the already debilitated match at an end. The kitchen-maid, rendered desperate, had told him the ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... bachelor profest, At love and lovers laughs, And o'er the bowl with reckless jest, His pretty spinster quaffs; Then, whilst all sobbing, Janet cries "She scorns the scornful swain!" With angry haste her wheel she plies, And—snaps the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... always was, to know him. He has made a great and splendid figure in history, and his weaknesses, though they make his character less worthy of respect, make it more interesting as a study. Such a blooming old swain I never saw; hair combed with exquisite nicety, a waistcoat of driven snow, and a star and garter ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... by goodness hath such kingdoms gain'd? Who hath so long his people's peace maintain'd? Their swords are turn'd to scythes, to coulters spears, Some giant post their antique armour bears: Now, where the wounded knight his life did bleed, The wanton swain sits piping on a reed; And where the cannon did Jove's thunder scorn, The gaudy huntsman winds his shrill-tuned horn: Her green locks Ceres doth to yellow dye, The pilgrim safely in the shade doth lie, Both Pan ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... life, also, the right man seemed to offer, and the blossom of love opened with a dear prophetic fragrance in her heart. But as her father was soon after struck with palsy, she told her lover they must wait a little while, for her first duty must be to the feeble old man. But the impatient swain went off and pinned himself to the flightiest little humming-bird in all Soitgoes, and in a month was married, having a long life before him for bitterness and repentance. After the father died, Kindly remained at home; and when Nathan returned, years after, they made ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... afar— Rogers, with a smiling eye Told the joys of "Memory," Southey, with his language quaint, Describing daemon, sinner, saint— Wordsworth, of the simpler strain, Clare, the young unletter'd swain— Wiffen, who in fairy bowers, Culls blossoms in "Aonian hours," Shone like a star in dusky skies, When first the evening shades arise. Barton, the gentle bard, was there, And Hemans, tender as she's fair— And Croly, whose bright genius beams Ever on virtue's fairest themes; With Burns, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... shrinking for distress, But always resolute in most extremes. He then that is not furnish'd in this sort Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight, Profaning this most honorable order, And should, if I were worthy to be judge, Be quite degraded, like a hedge-born swain That doth presume to ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... swain discarded calls thee shrew; Would'st thou, girl, prove the charge untrue, Marry the fool who long hath wooed, And all will swear thou art ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 572, October 20, 1832 • Various
... oftentimes would busied be, And pluck for him the blushing Strawberry, Making from them a bracelet on a bent, Which for a favour to this swain they sent." ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... him a story which in her youth she had heard narrated by Mr Andrew Reid, minister of Kirkbean. It is a case of true love crossed by the interference of cruel relations. The swain leaves the country for several years—gets on—remembers the old love, and returns to fulfil his vows. It happens that on the day of his return the loved one dies. He is on his way to her house in the dusk ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton |
