"Begirt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... saw a peacock with a fiery tail I saw a comet drop down hail I saw a cloud begirt with ivy round I saw a sturdy oak creep on the ground I saw a pismire swallow up a whale I saw the sea brimful of ale I saw a Venice glass full six feet deep I saw a well filled with men's tears that weep I saw men's eyes all in a flame of fire I saw a house high as the moon and higher I saw the ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... far happier than I: for he could hope, nor hope in vain—the destined vessel at last arrived, to bear him to countrymen and kindred, where the events of his solitude became a fire-side tale. To none could I ever relate the story of my adversity; no hope had I. He knew that, beyond the ocean which begirt his lonely island, thousands lived whom the sun enlightened when it shone also on him: beneath the meridian sun and visiting moon, I alone bore human features; I alone could give articulation to thought; and, when I slept, both day and ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... With the lines that begirt thee, And the red-coated saints domineer; Who with liberty fool thee, While a monster doth rule thee, And thou feel'st what before ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... tales of the Spanish Main. That segment of continent washed by the tempestuous Caribbean, and presenting to the sea a formidable border of tropical jungle topped by the overweening Cordilleras, is still begirt by mystery and romance. In past times buccaneers and revolutionists roused the echoes of its cliffs, and the condor wheeled perpetually above where, in the green groves, they made food for him with their ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... throne * Whither my longings wander free; There 'twixt two pillars man shall find * Benches of high-built tracery. It hath specific qualities * Drive sanest men t' insanity; Full mouth it hath like mouth of neck * Or well begirt by stony key; Firm lips with camelry's compare * And shows it eye of cramoisie. An draw thou nigh with doughty will * To do thy doing lustily, Thou'll find it fain to face thy bout * And strong and fierce in valiancy. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... for all the beasts of the Quah-Davic; and, ere it went by, the lair under the hemlocks was surrounded by many lynx tracks. But to neither red cow nor black calf did tracks carry much significance, and they had no thought for the perils that begirt them. Once, indeed, even the two panthers came, and turned upon them pale, bright, evil eyes. But they did not come very near. The cow shook her horns at them defiantly; and the calf shook his broadening, curly forehead at them; and wild were ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... impassioned outcry that she might not die young nor he die young; that the struggles and hardships of life, now seeming to be ended, might never begirt him or her so closely again; that they might grow peacefully old together. To-morrow then, he would see her; no, not tomorrow; it was long past midnight now. He got down on his bare knees beside the bed with his face buried in his hands and ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... murmur rose to clamors loud. But not a glance from that proud ring Of peers who circled round the King, With Douglas held communion kind, Or called the banished man to mind; 685 No, not from those who, at the chase, Once held his side the honored place, Begirt his board, and, in the field, Found safety underneath his shield; For he, whom royal eyes disown, 690 When was ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... me to her silent couch; And I looked in upon my darling dead. Mine—O mine in heaven forevermore! God's angel sweetly smiling in her sleep; How beautiful—how radiant of heaven! The ring I gave begirt her finger still; Her golden hair was wreathed with immortelles; The lips half-parted seemed to move in psalm Or holy blessing. As I kissed her brow, It seemed as if her dead cheeks flushed again As in those happy days beneath the pines; ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... gigantic wooden frame, on which two hundred carpenters have been busy for above six months," ever since Christmas last. Two hundred carpenters; and how many painters I cannot say: but they have smeared "six thousand yards of linen canvas;" which is now nailed up; hung with lamps, begirt with fire-works, no end of rocket-serpents, catherine-wheels; with cannon and field-music, near and far, to correspond;—and is now (evening of the 24th June, 1730) shining to men and gods. Pinnacles, turrets, tablatures, tipt with various ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... me your hands. For since you were wroth against him, and banished him from the land, he being a man disherited, hath helped himself with his own hands, and hath won from the Moors the Castle of Alcocer. And the king of Valencia sent two kings to besiege him there, with all his power, and they begirt him round about, and cut off the water and bread from us so that we could not subsist. And then holding it better to die like good men in the field, than shut up like bad ones, we went out against them, and fought with them in the open field, and smote them and put them to flight; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... secretly opened, and they slowly and spitefully crept forth into the pouring rain. They were coming over to me (I thought) to demand satisfaction for my looking at the housekeeper, when they plunged into a recess in the architecture under my window and dragged out the puniest of little soldiers, begirt with the most innocent of little swords. The tall glazed head-dress of this warrior, Straudenheim instantly knocked off, and out of it fell two sugar-sticks, and three or four large ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... six men rushed to the wall, and setting up against it a bench, on which rungs had been nailed, climbed over. They were not shot at, perhaps because the sentries, not expecting such an attempt, had taken refuge from the cold in their boxes. On the thick ice that begirt the island they crossed over on the north side and gained the mainland. Captain Robinson, of Westmoreland, and three others with him, hiding in the daytime and traveling at night, after enduring many hardships arrived in Canada, where they were clothed and fed and supplied ...
— Reminiscences of a Rebel • Wayland Fuller Dunaway
... of that beloved form, Benignant, bland, and blessing all, Comes one begirt with fire and storm, The raging shell, the hissing ball! Type of the Prince of Peace, no more, Evoked by those who bear His name, THE FIEND, in place of SAINT of yore, Now ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... long, the lonely mountains left, I moved, 495 Begirt, from day to day, with temporal shapes Of vice and folly thrust upon my view, Objects of sport, and ridicule, and scorn, Manners and characters discriminate, And little bustling passions that eclipse, 500 As well they might, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... betook himself to what pastime he pleased. Not a few opened their shops. Others gathered round an astrologer,—a personage no longer to be seen in the cities of the west,—who had taken his stand on the Riva degli Schiavoni, and there, begirt with zone inscribed with cabalistic characters, and holding in his hand his wizard's staff, was setting forth, with stentorian voice, his marvellous power of healing by the combined help of the stars and his drugs. By the way, why ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... of a gentle ascent from the bottom; a dangerous and impassable marsh, not more than fifty feet broad, begirt it on almost every side. The Gauls, having broken down the bridges, posted themselves on this hill, in confidence of their position, and being drawn up in tribes according to their respective states, held all the fords and passages of that marsh with ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... Major Lawrence, whose comprehensive mind was prepared for every emergency, had troops moved to their assistance from Peshawur and Jullundur. The revolt, however, spread in every direction. Peshawur was begirt, with disciplined and fanatical enemies, and at last, early in November, Major Lawrence and family had to fly for their lives from that place, the troops in the garrison having mutinied on the approach of Chuttur Singh and his army. Major and Mrs. Lawrence, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... broad and solid foundations, which had, during periods not very remote, been contemplated more as an affecting memorial of the past, than as a strength which should be available in time to come, has of late, while tyranny made progress, been somewhat approached, as it stands begirt with its gigantic bulwarks, surmounted with the banner of the Covenant, manifestly high above all other means of defending the Church; and it faithfully promises a vantage-ground, noble from its commanding altitude, and unassailable within its high defences, to which all in the land who love the ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... spectacle of a self-isolated people, begirt with the active life and thought of our eager times, yet sharing neither. Here is an empire that is content to live in the past: having rich resources it neglects to develop them; a productive soil but niggard crops. Amidst a veritable Lebanon of forestry it ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... Jacob's star which made the sun To dazzle if he durst look on, Now mantled o'er in Bethlehem's night, Borrowed a star to show Him light! He that begirt each zone, To whom both poles are one, Who grasped the zodiac in His hand And made it move or stand, Is now by nature man, By stature but a span; Eternity is now grown short; A King is born without a court; The water thirsts; the ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... come Sardanapalus To show what in a chamber can be done; Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed Shall in its downfall be as in its rise. Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt With leather and with bone, and from the mirror His dame depart without a painted face; And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio, Contented with their simple suits of buff, And with the spindle and the flax their dames. O fortunate women! and each one ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... round, fence in, hedge round; picket; corral. enfold, bury, encase, incase^, pack up, enshrine, inclasp^; wrap up &c (invest) 225; embay^, embosom^. containment (inclusion) 76. Adj. circumscribed &c v.; begirt^, lapt^; buried in, immersed in; embosomed^, in the bosom of, imbedded, encysted, mewed up; imprisoned &c 751; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws. They send us bound ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... she—where—in this whirlwind of the national fate? where was her frail life hidden? was she still in this Paris, so soon to be 'begirt ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... their thatch anchored down by stones, showing what winds must sweep along those unsheltered tracts. The desolate solitude began to weary the volatile pair into silence; ere the mountains rose closer to them, they crossed a bridge over a stony stream begirt with meadows, and following its course came ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... their wont, the crowd Till murmurs rose to clamours loud. But not a glance from that proud ring Of peers who circled round the King With Douglas held communion kind, Or called the banished man to mind; No, not from those who at the chase Once held his side the honoured place, Begirt his board, and in the field Found safety underneath his shield; For he whom royal eyes disown, When was his ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... of this sex, constitutionally gifted with strong and enduring affections, sequestered from man's peculiar temptations, and summoned by unnumbered considerations, to meditate on heaven, be other than pious, other than a beacon-light on the rock-begirt coast of human life? What can she offer at the judgment-seat of Christ, if she have denied him on earth? To every young ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... he was answer'd by Priam, the aged and godlike: "If 'tis thy will that I bury illustrious Hector in honour, Deal with me thus, O Peleides, and crown the desire of my spirit. Well dost thou know how the town is begirt, and the wood at a distance, Down from the hills to be brought, and the people are humbled in terror. Nine days' space we would yield in our dwelling to due lamentation, Bury the dead on the tenth, and thereafter the people be feasted; On ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... mellah, and of South Africa in their tents by the diamond mines: the Jews of the New World in great free cities, in Canadian backwoods, in South American savannahs: the Australian Jews on the sheep-farms and the gold-fields and in the mushroom cities; the Jews of Asia in their reeking quarters begirt by barbarian populations. The shadow of a large mysterious destiny seemed to hang over these poor superstitious zealots, whose lives she knew so well in all their everyday prose, and to invest the unconscious shunning sons of the Ghetto with something of tragic grandeur. The gray dusk palpitated ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Monterey peninsula, and the noise no longer only mounts to you from behind along the beach towards Santa Cruz, but from your right also, round by Chinatown and Pinos lighthouse, and from down before you to the mouth of the Carmello river. The whole woodland is begirt with thundering surges. The silence that immediately surrounds you where you stand is not so much broken as it is haunted by this distant, circling rumour. It sets your senses upon edge; you strain your attention; you are clearly and unusually conscious of small sounds near at hand; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the year, by proud oppression driven, When transatlantic liberty arose, Not in the sunshine and the smile of Heaven, But wrapped in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes, Amidst the strife of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... friendship in an anonymous letter of a more serious kind, written half in Latin and half in Greek. "Keep a special guard over thy health and life"—so it runs—"for it is high time. Verily thou art everywhere begirt by snares and spies; sharp poison is ready for thee. The knaves durst no longer rail against thee openly. But in secret they are plotting to mingle poisonous mushrooms with thy food, as was done for the Emperor Claudius. Hence ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... to the coast of Hades; and above His life resign'd, the pledge of constant love, Calling her name in death.—Alcaeus near, Who sung the joys of Love and toils severe, Was seen with Pindar and the Teian swain, A veteran gay among the youthful train Of Cupid's host.—The Mantuan next I found, Begirt with bards from age to age renown'd; Whether they chose in lofty themes to soar, Or sportive try the Muse's lighter lore.— There soft Tibullus walk'd with Sulmo's bard; And there Propertius with Catullus shared The meed of lovesome lays: the Grecian dame With sweeter numbers woke ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... Jehovah reigns, And royal state maintains, His head with awful glories crowned, Arrayed in robes of light, Begirt with sovereign might, And rays of ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... and commands one of the most wonderful views in this wild land of unrivalled prospects. The high-road curves round the lower slope of the mountains as round the base of a sugar-loaf, and is cut at times out of the sheer rock, while a little lower it is begirt by huge trees. It forms as it were a cornice, perched three thousand feet above the valley, over which it commands a view of mountain and bay and inlet, but never a house, never a church, and the farthest point is beyond Calvi, thirty miles away. There is but one spur—a ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... and at last I got a letter from one of my friends, dated from the Arctic regions, near the mouth of Mackenzie River; the other wrote to me from among the snow-clad caps of the Rocky Mountains; while I addressed them from the swampy, ice-begirt shores of Hudson Bay. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... Russo-French alliance, and I further prove myself a patriot by throwing bright wooden balls into the mouth of a great-faced German, for which I receive the guerdon of a paper rose and a Berlin wool monkey. I purchase a ticket from a clown standing on a platform begirt by noisy cages, and partake in a raffle for a live turkey; but fortunately I am spared the task of carrying it through the Fair, and not wishing to tempt Providence again, I content myself with trying for soap. A pack of cards is spread round a wheel with an index: round goes the wheel, and ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... 'Tis a fearful light! No sun—no moon—no lights innumerable— The very blue of the empurpled night Fades to a dreary twilight—yet I see 180 Huge dusky masses; but unlike the worlds We were approaching, which, begirt with light, Seemed full of life even when their atmosphere Of light gave way, and showed them taking shapes Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains; And some emitting sparks, and some displaying Enormous liquid plains, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... seaman, who observed it from the mast, and immortalised his name. As they passed the capes, which form an entrance, they were in raptures with the scene:—the tall mouldering cliffs; the trees, which touched the water's edge; and the magnificent harbour, four miles in length, begirt ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... Quixote's whole library, and have preferred committing the curate to the flames. Your dreams, even your day-dreams, have hurried you ever far off and away from the beaten turnpike-road of life, through forests of enchantment, to rescue beauty which you never saw, from knight-begirt and dragon-guarded castles; and little thankful have you been when you have opened your eyes awake in peace to the cold light of our misnamed utilitarian day, and found all your enchantment broken, the knights discomfited, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... now cast anxious eye Upon the Satraps that begirt him round, Now doffed his royal robe in act to fly, And from his brow the diadem unbound. So oft, so near, the Patriot bugle wound, From Tarik's walls to Bilboa's mountains blown, These martial satellites hard labour ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... Point, the traditional scene of the peace between the Beavers and the Chipewyans, or between the Beavers and the Crees, as Mackenzie says, or all three, we found it to be a wide and beautiful table-like prairie, begirt with aspens, on which we flushed a pack of prairie chickens. Below it, and looking upward beyond an island, a line of timber, fringed along the water's edge with willows, sweeps across the view, met half-way by a wall of Devonian rock, whose alternate glitter and shade, in the strong sunshine ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... and set wholly on the accomplishment Of greatest things. What woman will you find, Though of this age the wonder and the fame, On whom his leisure will voutsafe an eye 210 Of fond desire? Or should she, confident, As sitting queen adored on Beauty's throne, Descend with all her winning charms begirt To enamour, as the zone of Venus once Wrought that effect on Jove (so fables tell), How would one look from his majestic brow, Seated as on the top of Virtue's hill, Discountenance her despised, and put to rout All her array, her female pride deject, Or turn to reverent ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... behold Whether by supplication we intend Address, and to begirt the Almighty Throne Beseeching ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... frostwork in the morning ray The fancied fabric melts away; Each Gothic arch, memorial-stone, And long, dim, lofty aisle, are gone; And lingering last, deception dear, The choir's high sounds die on my ear. Now slow return the lonely down, The silent pastures bleak and brown, The farm begirt with copsewood wild, The gambols of each frolic child, Mixing their shrill cries with the tone Of Tweed's dark ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... that on the 7th of June we could already see the high mountains of Kamtschatka in their winter clothing. Their jagged summits reaching to the heavens, crested with everlasting snow, which glitters in the sunbeams, while their declivities are begirt with clouds, give a magnificent aspect to this coast. On the following day, we reached Awatscha Bay, and in the evening anchored in the harbour of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... it was first laid down in the days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers in the stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any but the most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone walls that begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the "wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and the fell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their joint magic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the "wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... earnestly near the canoe he had just quitted; and presently afterwards he could distinctly hear them ascending the opposite brow of the ravine by the path he recently congratulated himself on having abandoned. To advance or to recede was now equally impracticable; for, on every side, he was begirt by enemies, into whose hands a single false step must inevitably betray him. What would he not have given for the presence of Oucanasta, who was so capable of advising him in this difficulty! but, from the ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... did the same. Then we both signed another petition carried by both parties, asking that an election be called by the judge of the county south which had jurisdiction over us, for the election of officers. And just as I had expected one side to begirt crowing over the other, and I had decided that there would be a fight, both crowds jumped into their rigs and went off over the prairie, very good naturedly it seemed to me, after ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... blended with the general elements, When thy young star o'er life's horizon hung Far from it's zenith yet low lagging clouds (Vapors of earth) obscured its heaven-born rays— Dull joys of prejudice and superstition And vulgar decencies begirt thee round; And thou didst wear awhile th' unholy bonds Of "holy matrimony!" and didst vail Awhile thy lofty spirit to the cheat.— But reason came-and firm philosophy, And mild philanthropy, and pointed out The shame it was-the crying, crushing shame, To curb within a little paltry pale ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... Close by a lake, begirt with forest, To save his soul, a Monk intent, In fasting, prayer and labours sorest His days and nights, secluded, spent; A grave already to receive him He fashion'd, stooping, with his spade, And speedy, speedy death to give him, Was all that of ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow
... the king's encampment deserves a particular chapter. He was a complete surveyor and a master in fortification, not to be outdone by anybody. He had posted his army in the suburbs of the town, and drawn lines round the whole circumference, so that he begirt the whole city with his army. His works were large, the ditch deep, flanked with innumerable bastions, ravelins, horn-works, forts, redoubts, batteries, and palisadoes, the incessant work of 8000 men for about fourteen days; besides that, the king was adding something or other to it every ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... threw back his cowl, and showed a round bullet head belonging to a man in the prime of life. His close-shaven crown, surrounded by a circle of stiff curled black hair, had something the appearance of a parish pinfold begirt by its high hedge. The features expressed nothing of monastic austerity, or of ascetic privations; on the contrary, it was a bold bluff countenance, with broad black eyebrows, a well-turned forehead, and cheeks as round and vermilion as those of a trumpeter, from which descended ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... other hangings and made very faire to look upon, ye wreaths being mostly wrought by ye young folk, they meeting together, both maides and young men, and having a merry time in doing ye work. Ye rough stalls and unbowed posts being gaily begirt and all ye corners and cubbies being clean swept and well aired, it truly did appear a meet banquetting hall. Ye scaffolds too from which ye provinder had been removed were swept cleane as broome could make them. Some seats were put up on ye scaffoldes whereon might sitt such of ye antient ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... pools abounding in oysters and fish. The palaces, strung like pearls along the shores of Istria, show how highly our ancestors appreciated its delights[872]. The beautiful chain of islands with which it is begirt, shelter the sailor from danger and enrich the cultivator. The residence of the Court in this district delights the nobles and enriches the lower orders; and it may be said that all its products find their way to the Royal city. ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... band in phalanx stood Marshall'd compact, there station'd he his powers. 675 The men of Argos and Tyrintha next, And of Hermione, that stands retired With Asine, within her spacious bay; Of Epidaurus, crown'd with purple vines, And of Troezena, with the Achaian youth 680 Of sea-begirt AEgina, and with thine, Maseta, and the dwellers on thy coast, Wave-worn Eionae; these all obeyed The dauntless Hero Diomede, whom served Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, a Chief 685 Of deathless fame, his second in command, And godlike man, Euryalus, the son Of King Mecisteus, ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... CECILIA. I thought, like Sir Andrew Aguecheek, "It is four to one she'll none of me." Nay, the odds were probably even longer. Ah, CECILIA, if these lines meet thine eyes, thou wilt know that one heart still is true. In another life, less begirt by material difficulties, we may meet amongst the asphodel, where there is no opportunity for the display of mere mechanical accomplishments. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 11, 1892 • Various
... o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love was wed with One Who did not love her better:—in her home, A thousand leagues from his,—her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy, 130 Daughters and sons of Beauty,—but behold! Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye, As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.[48] What could her grief be?—she ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... ripple, under the door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and musically expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of Arnheim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing melody; there is an ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... fearfulness, I fare, the weakling's gait, Who sees unto the watering-place two lion-whelps draw near, With cloak, instead of sword, begirt and bosom love-distraught And heart for eyes of enemies and spies fulfilled of fear, Till in to one at last I come, a loveling delicate, Like to a desert antelope, that's lost ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... Which took me reading in the sacred book, Whose leaves or white or dusky never change, Thou hast allay'd, my son, within this light, From whence my voice thou hear'st; more thanks to her. Who for such lofty mounting has with plumes Begirt thee. Thou dost deem thy thoughts to me From him transmitted, who is first of all, E'en as all numbers ray from unity; And therefore dost not ask me who I am, Or why to thee more joyous I appear, Than any other ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... around the old marble fountain near the centre,—one drawing water, several washing and beating white linen. There are barnyard fowls in plenty, bobbing their preoccupied heads as they search among the cobbles. In the foreground stands the temporarily dismantled breack, begirt with awed urchins and venerable Common Councilmen. Behind all rise the mountains. There is a pleasing effect of unsophisticated dullness about it all, that seems queerly out of place in a ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... that dies? The life begirt by death? The fame, the power that flies With the expiring breath? The good that carries ill besides, And ...
— Hymns from the East - Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the - Holy Eastern Church • John Brownlie
... the bustle and the din of men, His sinless pastime. Silver were his locks, His figure lank; his dark eye, like a hawk's, Glisten'd beneath his hat of whitest straw, Lightsome of wear, with flies and gut begirt: The osier creel, athwart his shoulders slung, Became full well his coat of velveteen, Square-tail'd, four-pocket'd, and worn for years, As told by weather stains. His quarter-boots, Lash'd with stout leather ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the rights of Third Parties),"—that is, of Electors of Bavaria, and others who may object, against it! O soul of honor, O first Nation of the Universe, was there ever such a subterfuge? Here is a field of flowering corn, the biggest in the world, begirt with elaborate ring-fence, many miles of firm oak-paling pitched and buttressed;—the poor gentleman now dead gave you his Lorraine, and almost his life, for swearing to keep up said paling. And you do keep it up,—all except ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... border stream of Epte came Rou the Norman, where, Begirt with barons, sat the king, enthroned at green St. Clair; He placed his hand in Charles's hand,—loud shouted all the throng, But tears were in King Charles's eyes—the grip of Rou was strong. "Now kiss the foot," the bishop ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... m a little treatise (De duodecim gemmis rationalis summi sacerdotis Hebrorum Liber, opera Fogginii, Romae, 1743, p. 30), a precisely similar description of the mode of finding jacinths in Scythia. "In a wilderness in the interior of Great Scythia," he writes, "there is a valley begirt with stony mountains as with walls. It is inaccessible to man, and so excessively deep that the bottom of the valley is invisible from the top of the surrounding mountains. So great is the darkness that it has the effect ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... traversed, where the people thronged, And all for Rama's coming longed, The town as fair in festive show As his who lays proud cities low.(278) He reached the palace where he heard The mingled notes of many a bird, Where crowded thick high-honoured bands Of guards with truncheons in their hands. Begirt by many a sage, elate, Vasishtha reached the royal gate, And standing by the door he found Sumantra, for his form renowned, The king's illustrious charioteer And noble counsellor and peer. To him well skilled in every part Of his hereditary art ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... with green, While round the door the perfumed woodbine's seen Shading a rustic arch; and smiling near, Like rainbow fragments, blooms a rich parterre; Grey, naked crags—a steep and pine-clad hill— A mountain chain and tributary rill— A distant hamlet and an ancient wood, Begirt the valley where the cottage stood. That cottage was a young Enthusiast's home, Ere blind ambition lured his steps to roam; He was a wayward, bold, and ardent boy, At once his parents' grief—their hope and joy. Men called him ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... you, stop here, and put it aside for some rare moment of leisure. I am about to open my heart to you, and ask you, who know the world so well, to aid me in an escape from those flammantia maenia wherewith I find that world begirt and enclosed. For look you, sir, you and my father were right when you both agreed that the mere book-life was not meant for me. And yet what is not book-life, to a young man who would make his way through the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Men of Hawaiian stock, My nation ever dear, With loins begirt for work, Strive with ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... o'er the spirit of my dream. The lady of his love was wed with one Who did not love her better: in her home, A thousand leagues from his,—her native home, She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy, Daughters and sons of beauty,—but behold! Upon her face there was the tint of grief, The settled shadow of an inward strife, And an unquiet drooping of the eye, As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... when they sought shelter in the mountains, the music of the Psalms cheered their hearts; when their blood bedewed the moss, the loud cry on Calvary sanctified their pain; when they sat on the Bass Rock begirt with waves and swept by storms, the visions, creations, and tumultuous grandeurs of Patmos were reproduced in the spiritual experience of these illuminated sufferers, by means of the Word of God. To these ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... said the flapper. They turned into a big green yard and drew up at the steps of a rambling old house begirt with wide piazzas on which tables were set. This would be the nice place where he was to give them tea and things. They descended from the car, and he was aware that they pleasantly drew the attention of many people who were already there having tea and things: the ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... imprison &c. (restrain) 751; hedge in, wall in, rail in; fence round, fence in,hedge round; picket; corral. enfold, bury, encase, incase[obs3], pack up, enshrine, inclasp[obs3]; wrap up &c. (invest) 225; embay[obs3], embosom[obs3]. containment (inclusion) 76. Adj. circumscribed &c. v.; begirt[obs3], lapt[obs3]; buried in, immersed in; embosomed[obs3], in the bosom of, imbedded, encysted, mewed up; imprisoned &c. 751; landlocked, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... sinking into splendour—without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars—illumination of all gems! By earthly nature had the effect been wrought Upon the dark materials of the storm Now pacified; on them, and on the coves And mountain-steeps and summits, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... deter ever more. But if you do enter, the condition is well known: "Talk; who can talk best here? His shall be the mouth of gold, and the purse of gold; and with my [Gr.] mitra (once the head-dress of unfortunate females, I am told) shall his sacred temples be begirt." ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... She was begirt with a flowing kirtle of deep blue, bebound with a belt bebuckled with a silvern clasp, while about her waist a stomacher of point lace ended in the ruffled farthingale at her throat. On her head she bore a sugar-loaf hat shaped like an extinguisher and pointing backward ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... the crown Of a high mountain which look'd down Afar from its proud natural towers Of rock and forest, on the hills— The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers And shouting ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... written, because his eyes were weak. He was superstitious, like Dr. Johnson, yet he had lucid intervals of common sense, when he laughed at the superstitions of his disciples. Like Dr. Johnson, he was always begirt by disciples, men and women, Bozzys and Thrales. He was so full of honour and charity, that his house was crowded with persons in need of help and friendly care. Though he lived so much in the clouds and among ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang
... follow and the characters which surround them or succeed. Constance and Katherine rise up into remembrance apart from their environment and above it, stand clear in our minds of the crowded company with which the poet has begirt their central figures. In all other of his great tragic works,—even in Hamlet, if we have grace and sense to read it aright and not awry,—it is not of any single person or separate passage that we think when we speak of it; it is to the whole masterpiece ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... triumphal arch This music sounded like a march, And with its chorus seemed to be Preluding some great tragedy. Sirius was rising in the east; And, slow ascending one by one, The kindling constellations shone. Begirt with many a blazing star, Stood the great giant Algebar, Orion, hunter of the beast! His sword hung gleaming by his side, And, on his arm, the lion's hide Scattered across the midnight air The golden ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... weight of meaning, a terror and a splendor as of Heaven itself? His existence there as man set him beyond the need of gilding. Death, Judgment, and Eternity: these already lay as the background of whatsoever he thought or did. All his life lay begirt as in a sea of nameless Thoughts, which no speech of a mortal could name. God's Word, as the Puritan prophets of that time had read it: this was great, and all else was little to him. To call such a man "ambitious," to figure ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... foreigner, begirt with the arms and the wealth of almost all the West; let us, by endeavouring to defer the battle for our profit, make him a prey to famine, which is all inward malady; and he will find it very hard to conquer a peril among his own ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... contrived to get sent out of the territory, and is gone to Florence. I was not present, the pit having been the scene of altercation; but on being sent for from the Cavalier Breme's box, where I was quietly staring at the ballet, I found the man of medicine begirt with grenadiers, arrested by the guard, conveyed into the guard-room, where there was much swearing in several languages. They were going to keep him there for the night; but on my giving my name, and answering for his apparition next morning, he was permitted ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... these mountains, to protect them (the Touaricks) and their posterity from the inroads of the Turks, and Gog and Magog, from the east. "These are," say they, "our eastern doors (barriers)." Scarcely any breaks or gorges are found in this chain. Beyond the suburb, begirt with sand groups, stands the palace of the Governor, which from hence looks like a line of fortifications, with a tower or two rising above its battlements. There reigns, king and priest, Haj Ahmed, the lord of all he surveys. Sahara around has ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... frenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by the collar. He was attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether similar to my own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt about the waist with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask of black silk ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... at Thebes and Ilium, on each side Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds In fable or romance of Uther's son, Begirt with British and Armoric knights; And all who since, baptized or infidel, Jousted in Aspramont or Montalban, Damasco, or Marocco or Trebisond, Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, When Charlemain with all his peerage fell ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... my Lord, that is a desperate course; They have begirt you round about the house; Their meaning is to take you prisoner, And so to ...
— Cromwell • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... thy reigne, The Gods are angry with thy lustfull ease, Thy priuate pleasure is the Empires paine, To please your selfe you all the world displease: The Sophy, German, and the King of Spaine, Begirt thy safety with the ribbes of death. Then worthy Prince, your wonted valour cease, And take my counsel, though it ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... and the awe gather'd icily o'er me, So far from the earth, where man's help there was none! The one human thing, with the goblins before me— Alone—in a loneness so ghastly—ALONE! Deep under the reach of the sweet living breath, And begirt with the broods ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... and the birds sang while the work went on, and far down the pike they could see other prone trees with busy choppers clearing limbs and entangling foliage from the highway. A band of men begirt with axes, cords and other implements passed on their way to the school house where a ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... with an universal murmur of applause, in which even the ladies could not refrain from joining. While the cavalcade were getting to horse, Sir William Ashton, a man of peace and of form, censured his son Henry for having begirt himself with a military sword of preposterous length, belonging ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... high priest rang like a trumpet-peal above the roofs of the city. Then Jerusalem was all begirt and overflooded with song. Maidens, white robed, were singing in distant vineyards; people were singing in the streets; trained devotees were whirling and dancing and chanting psalms in the court of the Temple, while priest and Levite followed, ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... unconsciously watched those distant woolly masses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet, which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting—of the gray mass showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof pricked the sky. Then the wind, like a strong ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Anselmus' woe; but shouldst thou never have even dreamed such things, then will thy quick fancy, for Anselmus' sake and mine, be obliging enough to inclose itself for a few moments in the crystal. Thou art drowned in dazzling splendor; all objects about thee appear illuminated and begirt with beaming rainbow hues; all quivers and wavers, and clangs and drones, in the sheen; thou art floating motionless as in a firmly congealed ether, which so presses thee together that the spirit in vain gives orders to the dead and stiffened body. Weightier and weightier the mountain ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... abandon his undertaking—to die disgraced and deserted! Under these circumstances, could I, he urged upon me, forsake him? could I, 'a gentleman from England,' who had been his friend, and knew the goodness of his heart, could I leave him surrounded and begirt with enemies? It was possibly foolish, it was perhaps imprudent, but it accorded with my best feelings; and I resolved not to abandon him without at any rate seeing the probabilities of success; and it must always ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... spot that Albion's waters lave! Hail, beauteous isle! thou gem of perfumed green, Fancy's gay region, and enchantment's scone. Here where luxuriant Nature pours, In frolic mood, her choicest stores, Bedecking with umbrageous green And richest flowers the velvet scene, Begirt by circling ocean's swell, Enrich'd by mountain, moor, and dell; Here bright Hygeia, queen of Health, Bestows a ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle |
