"Blithe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I hear a murmur on the meads,— Where as of old my children seek my face,— The low of kine, the peaceful tramp of steeds, Blithe shouts of men in many a pastoral place, The noise of tilth through all my goodliest land; And happy laughter of a dusky race Whose brethren lift them from their ancient toil, Saying: 'The year of jubilee has come; Gather the gifts of Earth with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... young lady was at home. Oh! them were blithe times, when young Lord Hope came a courting, and we could see them driving like turtle doves through the park and down the village; or, walking along by the hedges and gathering hyacinths and violets. ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... the strong spring round him grew Stronger, and all blithe winds that blew Blither, and flowers that flowered anew More glad of sun and air and dew, The shadow lightened on his soul And brightened into death and died Like winter, as the bloom waxed wide From woodside on to riverside And ...
— The Tale of Balen • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... best when one can get in a corner, next to some old woodwork rubbed and shiny with age. Shandygaff, we found, was not unknown to the servitor; and the cider that we saw Endymion beaming upon was a blithe, clear yellow, as merry to look at as a fine white wine. Very well, very well indeed, we said to ourselves; let the world revolve; in the meantime, what is that printed in blackface type upon the ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... blithe and breathing air, Into the solemn wood, Solemn and silent everywhere! Nature with folded hands seemed there, Kneeling at her evening prayer! Like ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva[192] smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus[193] yields; There the blithe Bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare:[fv] Art, Glory, Freedom fail, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... lies through dell and dingle, Where the blithe fawn trips by its timid mother, Where the broad oak, with intercepting boughs, Chequers the sunbeam in the green-sward alley— Up and away!—for lovely paths are these To tread, when the glad Sun is on his throne Less pleasant, and less safe, when Cynthia's ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go, Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works hard for its living, But the child that's born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... moral to be adduced from Graham's waking the next morning. He roused, reluctantly enough, but blithe and hungry. He sang as he splashed in his shower, chose his tie whistling, and went down the staircase two steps at a ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... the spirit in her eyes. This she touched with her finger tips. But her look was bent upon the second, the portrait of a young man whose attitude, defying the conventional pose of old-fashioned photography, showed how blithe and merry and full of life ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... "How blithe soe'er his manner, / how fair soe'er is he, Well could he cause of sorrow / to stately woman be, If he gan show his anger. / In him may well be seen He is in knightly virtues / a thane ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... the said J. Augustus Redell. He was a blithe, joyous creature, still in the sunny thirties, and what he didn't know about the lumber business—particularly the marketing of lumber products—could be tucked into anybody's eyes without impairing their eyesight. Mr. Redell had fought his way up from office boy with the Black Butte Lumber ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... the Rose of Love entwine Round the cheek-flushed god of wine: As the rose its gaudy leaves Round our twisted temples weaves, Let us sip the time away, Let us laugh as blithe as they. ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... smoothing down its frock, which she fancied had got ruffled,—smoothing it down with a sort of fearful tenderness, the doll all the while staring her full in the face with its blue bead eyes. Waife, seated near her, was trying to talk gayly; to invent fairy tales blithe with sport and fancy: but his invention flagged, and the fairies prosed awfully. He had placed the dominos before Sir Isaac, but Sophy had scarcely looked at them, from the languid heavy eyes on which the doll so stupidly fixed its own. Sir Isaac himself seemed spiritless; he was aware ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... journey pass all the quicker. I came down here today with a stout young fellow, who overtook me this side of Moffat. He was somewhat out at elbow, and I looked askance at him at first; but he turned out a blithe companion, and we got on well together. He could troll a good song, and my own voice is not wanting in power. It was curious that he also was from Dunbar, though not immediately; having, it would seem, wandered for some time, on ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... with her. If their reception of her differed from that they had given to Kate, it was nevertheless kindly—almost gay. They leaped to the conclusion that Miss Morrison was designed to enliven them. And so it proved. She threw even the blithe Marna Cartan temporarily into the shade; and Dr. von Shierbrand, who was accustomed to talking with Kate upon such matters as the national trait of incompetence, or the reprehensible modern tendency of coddling ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... bestowing her blithe affections upon either of us. But one day she let out to me an inkling of what she preferred in a man. It was tremendously interesting to me, but not illuminating as to its application. I had been tormenting her for the dozenth time with the statement and catalogue ...
— Options • O. Henry
... celebrated May royally in 1275, inviting all their friends to a blithe gathering. At this festa Dante Alighieri met Beatrice, the little daughter of his host, and the long dream of his life began, for he idealized her loveliness ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... said Davie to himself in the greatest distress; yet somehow when he came to think of it, it seemed to be with a great deal of hope since Dr. Marks was to be appealed to. And when breakfast-time came, and with it Joel so blithe and hungry, David fell to on his own breakfast with ...
— Five Little Peppers at School • Margaret Sidney
... up the road from Ghent to Melle in blithe ignorance, we three women. The day before, the enemy had held the ...
— Golden Lads • Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
... the drawing-room, Margrave and Strahan were both there. The former was blithe and genial, as usual, in his welcome. At dinner, and during the whole evening till we retired severally to our own rooms, he was the principal talker,—recounting incidents of travel, always very loosely strung together, jesting, good-humouredly enough, at Strahan's sudden hobby for building, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... in high spirits to see me so blithe, and he surveyed with pride the figure that I made, vowing that I should prove a worthy son of my father ere ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... exceedingly relieved, "blithe am I to see you, lad. You will tell us the truth of this ill news that has upturned the auld province. By your gloomy face I see that the major part is overtrue. The Earl is dead, and he awes me for twenty-four peck of wheaten meal, forbye ten firlots of ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... did you see, my Mary, All up on the Caldon-Low?" "I saw the blithe sunshine come down, And I ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... brightly with David Dubbs. The sun, preceded down the court by hustling winds that knocked at every citizen's door and demanded admittance for their oncoming master, had left at each house a gift of golden cheerfulness. The sky above was so blithe and blue that it smiled down at even so insignificant a crack as David Dubbs's court must have appeared to it; and the cold was a ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... many a hill and many a dale, . . . . in heat or cold, Through many a wood, and many an open road, In sunshine and in shade, in wet and fair, Drooping or blithe of heart, as might befall, My best companions now the driving winds, And now the 'trotting brooks' and whispering trees— And now the music of my own sad steps, With many a short-lived thought that passed between ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... him all day long And hear his wild, spontaneous song, Before my window in his cage, A blithe canary sits and swings, And circles round on golden wings; And startles all the vicinage When from his china tankard He takes a dainty drink To clear his throat For as sweet a note As ever yet was ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... already. He was the monarch, she his consort. Classifying others, the Empress found herself classified. He was her liege, and she might not even enter his presence unannounced. But how much happier was she in the blithe sailor prince who came a-wooing, who wooed for love, in accordance ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... laid away, To be quickly found on the following day. Then, ere she starts, so blithe and gay, She tarries a moment ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... at life ye've taen the grue, An' winnae blithely hirsle through, Ye've fund the very thing to do - That's to drink speerit; An' shune we'll hear the last o' you - An' blithe to hear it! ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... we can hardly doubt that a woman pleads for women, was first printed in 1502 in Richard Arnold's Chronicle. Nut-brown was the old word for brunette. There was an old saying that "a nut-brown girl is neat and blithe by nature." ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... went to visit at Coldback, and there he saw Unna, and was pleased with her, for she was a blithe woman and a bonny. The end of it was that he asked her in marriage of Eric; at which Brighteyes was glad, but said that he must know Unna's mind. Unna hearkened, and did not say no, for though Asmund was somewhat gone in years, still he was an upstanding ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... Dr. Lindsay isn't so bad, after all?" There was no time for explanation. She passed on into the jeweller's with another smile on her mobile face. He had to do his stammering to himself, annoyed at the quip of triumph, at the blithe sneer, over his young vaporings. This trivial annoyance was accentuated by the effusive cordiality of the great Lindsay, whom he met in the elevator. Sommers did not like this camaraderie of manner. He ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and to inhale the perfume of the climbing roses on the balcony overlooking the lake, wherein gold-fish darted to and fro among the water-lilies; or expect to see the King, from the steps of the little mill where he lodged, exchange blithe greetings with the maids of honour as they tripped gaily to the laiterie to play at butter-making, or sauntered across the rustic bridge on their way to gather ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... Bacchus, being beautiful throughout[868] with trees and green foliage and flowers of all kinds, and it breathed a soft and gentle air, laden with scents marvellously pleasant, and producing the effect that wine does on those who are topers; for the souls were elevated by its fragrance, and gay and blithe with one another: and the whole spot was full of mirth and laughter, and such songs as emanate from gaiety and enjoyment. And Thespesius' kinsman told him that this was the way Dionysus went up to heaven by, and by which he afterwards took up Semele, and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... slept, and also to the rooms which he called his "chambers" in the city. A little silence overspread the group of guests from the Kenyons' house. Other visitors, of whom there were not many, looked blithe enough; but gloom was plainly visible on the faces of the bride's friends. And a little whisper soon ran from group to group—"The ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and four-four time, continuing to the end of the stanza. The melody, with its slurred syllables and beautiful modulations was almost blithe in its brightness, while the strong musical bass and the striking chords of the "counter," chastened it and held the anthem to its due solemnity of tone and expression. Then the fugue ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... when thrilling joy repaid A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears! The heart-sick faintness of the hope delayed, The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears That tracked with terror twenty rolling years— All was forgot in that blithe jubilee. Her downcast eye even pale Affliction rears, To sigh a thankful prayer amid the glee That hailed the Despot's fall, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... and soiled and torn! Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears! Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn, That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears! What far delight has cooled the fierce desire That like some ravenous bird was strong ...
— Poems & Ballads (Second Series) - Swinburne's Poems Volume III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... from the trader's gate, induced him to stop, scrutinize, turn, and, with searching eyes, to cross diagonally the road in the direction of the stables, then again to retrace his steps and return to the eastward side. Just as he concluded his search, and once more went briskly on his way, a blithe voice hailed him from an upper window, and the radiant face and gleaming white teeth of Nanette Flower appeared between the opening blinds. One might have said he expected both the sight ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... with you to the end of the world, all the more as you are now sick and sad, and when I saw you first you were blithe and well. If I must leave you, I hope at least ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... writing of Western stories or musical verse which sung the joys of galloping blithely off to the sky-line. He had just been galloping off to a sky-line that was always just before and he had not been blithe; nor did the memory of it charm. Of a truth, the very thought of things Western made him ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... at full speed after Mrs Merryboy, senior, who had an inveterate tendency, when attempting to reach Mrs Frog's bower, to take a wrong turn, and pursue a path which led from the garden to a pretty extensive piece of forest-land behind. The blithe old lady was posting along this track in a tremulo-tottering way when captured by Bob. At the same moment the breakfast-bell rang; Mr Merryboy's stentorian voice was immediately heard in concert; silvery shouts from the forest-land ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... Almighty; for, as Emerson says: "In the woods we return to reason and faith. Then I feel that nothing can befall me in life—no disgrace, no calamity (leaving me my eyes)—which Nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground—my head bathed by the blithe air and uplifted into infinite space—all mean egoism vanishes. . . . I am the lover of ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... sun rises bright in France, And fair sets he; But he hath tint the blithe blink he ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... as he thought it, for now was he come to his place, And there he stood by his father and met Siggeir face to face, And he saw him blithe and smiling, and heard him how he spake: "O best of the sons of Volsung, I am merry for thy sake And the glory that thou hast gained us; but whereas thine hand and heart Are e'en now the lords of the battle, how ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung • William Morris
... any rate, to say of sea-life: a man is pre-eminently conscious of a Soul. I feel, remembering the blithe positivism of my early note, that I am here scarcely consistent. As I stood by the rail this morning at four o'clock—the icy fingers of the wind ruffled my hair so that the roots tingled deliciously, and a low, greenish ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... and his party, who came in at ten, taking their seats on a dais at one side of the crowded floor. The Prince sat with his hands folded before him, like one in a reverie. Beside him were the Duke of Newcastle, a big, stern man, with an aggressive red beard; the blithe and sparkling Earl of St Germans, then Steward of the Royal Household; the curly Major Teasdale; the gay Bruce, a major-general, who behaved himself always like a lady. Suddenly the floor sank beneath the crowd of people, who retired in some disorder. Such a compression of crinoline ...
— Eben Holden - A Tale of the North Country • Irving Bacheller
... spring flowers marked the brown earth about the trees, and a beautiful magnolia, white as a bride, shed its shell-like petals in an angle beneath a window; the gold of the berberis glowed at the end of the path; and the greenery was blithe as a girl in clear muslin and ribbons. The blackbirds chattered and ran, and in turn flew to the pan of water placed for them, and drank, lifting their heads with exquisite motion. The trees rustled in the cold wind; the sky was white along the embankment, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... to Ewbert, and he denied it with blithe derision, but she said that he need not tell her, and in confirming herself in it she began to relax her belief that old Ransom Hilbrook had preyed upon him. She even went so far as to say that the only intellectual companionship he had ever had in the place was that which he found in ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, Of the Nymphs are paramours: Through the caves and forests wide They have snared them mid the flowers; Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, Now they dance and leap alway.— Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... in her holland gown, apron, and cap, recalling and revelling in? The silly vanities and child's play of the past. Well, what harm was there in them? These had been blithe moments while they lasted, which had set young hearts bounding, young feet skipping, and young voices laughing and singing in a manner which was natural, and not to be forbidden lest ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... little maiden,—as blithe and merry in her coarse cotton frock and bare feet as though the cotton were choicest satin. She was as pretty too. No frock could spoil that charming little face framed in thick chestnut curls, or hide the graceful movements which would have made her remarkable ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... the axe to see them writhe, Bellow like calves, fall dead like flies; Such bonny sights, and sounds so blithe, With rapture ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... at her needle there In that small room stair over stair, All fancies blithe and debonair She deftly wrought on fabrics rare, All clustered moss, all drifting snow, All trailing vines, all flowers that blow, Her daedal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... own. The night is starry and cold, my friend, And the New Year blithe and bold, my friend Comes up to ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... fret, The terror of the grave, torment you yet? Can you make sport of portents, gipsy crones, Hobgoblins, dreams, raw head and bloody bones? Do you count up your birthdays year by year, And thank the gods with gladness and blithe cheer, O'erlook the failings of your friends, and grow Gentler and better as your sand ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... was to see this gallant company riding beneath the trees; and pleasant was it, also, to listen to the blithe sound of their voices, amid which Anne Boleyn's musical laugh could be plainly distinguished. Henry was attended by his customary band of archers and yeomen of the guard, and by the Duke of Shoreditch and his followers. On reaching the haye, the king dismounted, and assisting ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... stand upon the old familiar spot: One feels long vanished memories steal o'er him; The other sees, yet recognizes not His blithe companion in ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... foliage and flowers. The chief ornament of the walls was a large and indifferent copy of Raphael's "St. Cecilia;" there were, too, several gouache drawings of local scenery: a fiery night-view of Vesuvius, a panorama of the Bay, and a very blue Blue Grotto. The whole was blithe, sunny, Neapolitan; sufficiently unlike a sitting-room in Redheck House, Bartles, Lancashire, which Mrs. Baske had in her ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... the word—so here goes! I am determined to be blithe and keep the salt of humor sprinkled thick across the butter-crock of concession. Dinky-Dunk watches me with a guarded and wary eye and Pauline Augusta does not always approve of me. Yesterday, when I got on Briquette and made that fire-eater jump the two rain-barrels put end to end ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... need a heart of flint To watch the blithe lambs caper o'er the lea, And, watching them, refrain from thoughts of mint, Of new potatoes, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 10, 1892 • Various
... clouds, strain up the steep. She loosely holds the reins, her golden hair, Its strings outspread by the sweet morning breeze[,] Blinds the pale stars. Our rural tasks begin; The young lambs bleat pent up within the fold, The herds low in their stalls, & the blithe cock Halloos most loudly to his distant mates. But who are these we see? these are not men, Divine of form & sple[n]didly arrayed, They sit in solemn conclave. Is that Pan, [36] Our Country God, surrounded by his Fauns? And who is he whose crown of gold ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... watching over her child. It is quiet, happy noon; the sunlight, broken by the tall roofs in the narrow street, comes yet through the open casement, the impartial playfellow of the air, gleesome alike in temple and prison, hall and hovel; as golden and as blithe, whether it laugh over the first hour of life, or quiver in its gay delight on the terror and agony of the last! The child, where it lay at the feet of Viola, stretched out its dimpled hands as if to clasp the ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... to life and liberty, and no bird in the sky, no deer on the mountain, felt more blithe and happy than he soon began ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... fro, from table to hearth, bustled buxom Mrs. Bassett, flushed and floury, but busy and blithe as the queen bee of this busy little ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... one in Orkney or Zetland could recite Ossian with more passion and tenderness, and he enjoyed his little triumph over the youngsters who emulated him. No one could sing a Scotch song with more humor, and few of the lads and lassies could match Peter in a blithe foursome reel or a rattling strathspey. Some, indeed, thought that good Dr. Ogilvie had a more graceful spring and a longer breath, but Peter always insisted that his inferiority to the minister ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... generations young Never dies at halyards the blithe chorus sung; While in sands, sounds, and seas where the storm-petrels cry, Dropped mute around the globe, these halyard singers lie. Short-lived the clippers for racing-cups that run, And speeds in life's career many a ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville
... mould are ever indulged, are but poor in comparison with the rich abundance of the same in which some more delicately-constituted organisms habitually revel. If we would understand of what development emotional delight is capable, we should watch the skylark. As that 'blithe spirit' now at heaven's gate 'poureth its full ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... of sun and rain, Uncertain as a child's quick moods; And I shall never pass again So blithe a ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons
... than all the rest put together. Taken all in all, it would have been hard to find a merrier crowd than that which sped over the smooth yellow road on this perfect summer day, and many a bird, balancing himself on a blossoming twig, ceased his ecstatic outpouring of melody to listen to the blithe chorus of these earth birds, as they sang, "Hey Ho for Merry June," and "Let the Hills and Dales Resound," each machineful trying its ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... So they were blithe and joyous together. But a seven days thence was the Allmen's Mote gathered to the wood-side without Meadhamstead, and thronged it was: and there Goldilind stood up before all the folk and named Sir Geoffrey for Earl to ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris
... that while the full enjoyment of La Fontaine must always be reserved for those who can read him in French, it might be possible at least to convey something of his originality and blithe spirit through the medium of light verse. In making the attempt I am fully aware of my temerity, and the criticism it will invite. To excuse the one and to meet the other I have taken refuge in the term "adaptation"—even though ...
— Fables in Rhyme for Little Folks - From the French of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a very old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigor ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... three playmates were gaily talking, singing snatches of blithe little songs, as they sped along the beach, on the ...
— Princess Polly's Gay Winter • Amy Brooks
... is couched in my breast, Making a Phoenix of my faintful heart: And though his fury do enforce my smart, Ay blithe am I to honor ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... the greatest of the monks and the hermits and the holy men were not of this kind. In their love of God they were blithe of heart, and filled with a rare sweetness and tranquillity of soul, and they looked on the goodly earth with deep joy, and they had a tender care for the wild creatures of wood and water. But Thomas had yet much to learn of the beauty ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... plantations of God a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed in the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of universal being circulate through me; I am a part or particle of God. I am the lover ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... should be glad to leave you," he said, "and somehow I am sorry. Odd that we can never properly gauge our emotions. I feel that you will be a very blithe and active gentleman in time, and there are not so many left in ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... cried the Story Girl, blithe, triumphant. "Last night, just at twelve, he began to lick his paws. Then he licked himself all over and went to sleep, too, on the sofa. When I woke Pat was washing his face, and he has taken a whole saucerful of milk. Oh, isn't ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... trees rise Before young eyes, Abloom with tempting cheer; Blithe voices sing, And blithe bells ring, For ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... about, or, surviving the far-cast invisible death, were spitted for soldiers' rations. And with men, the church-yard and the fields, and even the running streams, were choked. Only birds of the air, of all the living, had remained free of their element, floating over the battling below them, as blithe as if men had not sown the lower ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... all a-row Before their Queen in seemly show. No more I'll sing Buxoma brown, Like goldfinch in her Sunday gown; Nor Clumsilis, nor Marian bright, Nor damsel that Hobnelia hight. But Lansdown fresh as flowers of May, And Berkely lady blithe and gay, And Anglesea, whose speech exceeds The voice of pipe or oaten reeds; And blooming Hyde, with eyes so rare, And Montague beyond compare. Such ladies fair wou'd I depaint In roundelay or ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... off,—not crestfallen, but blithe. One word had shunted my ideas upon a new track. She called this nondescript—which might, or might not, be the dried and warped disk of a sunflower that had cast its seeds—"dead." What should hinder me from making it alive? It looked like a hedgehog, or some other animal. It should be an ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields; There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare; Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... not of clouds, or weeping rain, Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light Engendered, hangs o'er Eildun's triple height: Spirits of Power assembled there complain For kindred Power departing from their sight; While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain, Saddens his voice again and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes; Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true Ye winds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... or more, beyond the prime of a blithe April day, The Northman's mailed "Invincibles" steamed up fair Charleston Bay; They came in sullen file, and slow, low-breasted on the wave, Black as a midnight front of storm, and silent ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... beheaded, and, according to the barbarous practice of even much later times, exposed their heads for the edification of the surrounding lieges high upon the castle walls. Randolph himself soon after arrived and, says the same chronicler, was "right blithe" to see the goodly show of heads "that flowered so weel that wall" - a ghastly warning to all treacherous or plundering "misdoaris." From what occurred on this occasion it is obvious that Kenneth either did not attempt or was not able to govern his people with a firm hand ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... "As blithe a peer," said Smith, "as ever turned night to day. Nay, it shall be an overflowing bumper, an you will; and I will drink it super naculum.—And how stands ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... unusually severe and to Persis seemed well-nigh endless. Though Celia had escaped the attack of pneumonia anticipated by the doctor, her long hours of exposure, coupled with the shock, had told on the sensitive child, and it was months before she seemed her usual blithe, audacious self. Without question Celia sorely missed her vanished play-fellow, and Persis, who had postponed her entering school for another year, because she did not feel that the child was strong enough for the confinement ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... of solid stone A mighty temple has been cored By nut-brown children of the sun, When stars were newly bright, and blithe Of song along the rim of dawn— ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... now; so the three women looked as much as they liked, wondering if the poor dear boy was satisfied with the life he had chosen, and getting tenderly pitiful over the losses he might learn to regret when it was too late. His dreams seemed to be pleasant ones, however; for once he laughed a blithe, boyish laugh, good to hear; and when he woke, he rubbed his blue eyes and stared about, smiling like a newly ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... forgetting, Then I remember not; And if forgetting, recollecting, How near I had forgot! And if to miss were merry, And if to mourn were gay, How very blithe the fingers ...
— Poems: Three Series, Complete • Emily Dickinson
... With dance and song the woods resound: The hatchet's buried in the valley; No foe profanes our hunting-ground! The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver, The verdant hills with song-birds ring, While our bark-canoes the river Skim like swallows on the wing. Mirth pervades the land and water, Free ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... stream that rings us, ness and bay, The nation's old sea-soul beats blithe and strong; The black foam-breasters taste Biscayan spray, And where 'neath Polar dawns the narwhals throng:— Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee, Or village-moot, when thane with churl ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... of the custom of dancing in large bands and accompanying the figure of the dance with song. "If the people," says M. Pitre, "find out who is the composer of a canzone, they will not sing it." Now in those lands where a blithe peasant life still exists with its dances, like the kolos of Russia, we find ballads identical in many respects with those which have died out of oral tradition in these islands. It is natural to conclude that ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... undertone to RANNVEIG, looking out meanwhile to the left) Mother, come here— Come here and hearken. Is there not a foot, A stealthy step, a fumbling on the latch Of the great door? They come, they come, old mother: Are you not blithe and thirsty, knowing they come And cannot be held back? Watch and be secret, To feel things ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... productions of the country, purchase their clothing equipage and domestic utensils from the whites. They seem to be free from want or desires. No cruel enemy to dread; nothing to give them disquietude but the gradual encroachments of the white people. Thus contented and undisturbed, they appear as blithe and free as the birds of the air, and like them as volatile and active, tuneful and vociferous. The visage, action, and deportment of the Seminoles form the most striking picture of happiness in this life; joy, contentment, love, and friendship, without guile or affectation, seem inherent in ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... gentleman, of good family, but of mercantile connexions, such as her father, if living, would have disdained. Her married life was, however, perfectly unclouded, her ample means gave her the power of dispensing joy, and her temperament was so blithe and unselfish that no pleasure ever palled upon her. Cheveleigh was a proverb for hospitality, affording unfailing fetes for all ages, full of a graceful ease and ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day round and round in the same ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... quite soon; the horse in gait and temper turned out perfection—all spring and spirit, elastic in his motion, walking fast and easily, and cantering with a light, graceful swing as soon as one pressed the reins on his neck, a blithe, joyous animal, to whom a day among the mountains seemed a pleasant frolic. So gentle he was, that when I got off and walked he followed me without being led, and without needing any one to hold him he allowed me to mount on either side. In addition to the charm of his movements ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... the stubbled corn The blithe quail pipes at morn, The merry partridge drums in hidden places, And glittering insects gleam Above the reedy stream, Where busy ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... flung her, asleep sideways, head on arm ... Softly, softly, I stept over her, got out, and went running at a cautious clandestine trot. The morning was in high fete, most fresh and pure, and to breathe was to be young, and to see such a sunlight lighten even upon ruin so vast was to be blithe. After running two hundred yards to one of the great broken bazaar-portals, I looked back to see if I was followed: but all that space was desolately empty. I then walked on past the arch, on which a green oblong, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... you see? Why, with a trip and a courtesy, As if to say,—"Good day, good day," Out steps a tiny bird! And though no soul were near to hear He'd pipe that same blithe word. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... hangs heavily; and the tall chorister is by no means so blithe, or so majestic in the toss of his head, as in the morning. A boy in the next box tries to provoke you into familiarity by dropping pellets of gingerbread through the bars of the pew; but as you are not accustomed to that way of making acquaintance, ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... The blithe young year is upward steering. Wild winter dwindles, disappearing; The short, short days are growing longer, Rough weather yields and warmth is stronger. Since January dawned, my mind Waves hither, thither, love-inclined For one whose will ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... strange events in the life of the village which I heard: the other two must be passed by; they would take long to tell and require a good pen to do them justice. To me the best thing in or of the village was the vicar himself, my put-upon host, a man of so blithe a nature, so human and companionable, that when I, a perfect stranger without an introduction or any excuse for such intrusion came down like a wolf on his luncheon-table, he received me as if I had been ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... Dove Dulcet, the poet, came into our kennel and found us arm in arm with a deep demijohn of Chester County cider. We poured him out a beaker of the cloudy amber juice. It was just in prime condition, sharpened with a blithe tingle, beaded with a pleasing bubble of froth. Dove looked upon it with a kindled eye. His arm raised the tumbler in a manner that showed this gesture to be one that he had compassed before. The orchard nectar began to sluice ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... gold or silver. And then King Mark sent unto Sir Marhaus, and did him to wit that a better born man than he was himself should fight with him, and his name is Sir Tristram de Liones, gotten of King Meliodas, and born of King Mark's sister. Then was Sir Marhaus glad and blithe that he should fight with such a gentleman. And so by the assent of King Mark and of Sir Marhaus they let ordain that they should fight within an island nigh Sir Marhaus' ships; and so was Sir Tristram put into a vessel both his ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... Nigel Loring's blithe and elastic spirit was chilled as he lay that night in the penal cell of Waverley and pondered over the absolute ruin which threatened his house from a source against which all his courage was of no avail. As well take up sword and shield to defend himself against the ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rather hear the town's voice crying out her fancy to friendly hearts. Thus—let me run the figure to death—if Luca's blue-eyed medallions are the crop of the wall, they are also the soul of Florence, singing a blithe secular song about gods whose abiding charm is the art that made them live. And if the towers and domes are the statelier flowers of the garden, lily, hollyhock, tulip of the red globe, so they are Florence again as she strains forward and up, sternly defiant in the Palazzo Vecchio, bright and ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... out. She was not a nature that was easily alarmed or daunted; beneath her look of delicate fragility was a very sturdy confidence, and she had the implicit sense of security instinct in the kitten whose blithe days have known nothing but kindness. Yet she felt herself tremendously experienced ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... and lamentations over him, and no less by the old carline's bewailing for his days that he would so surely shorten, yet this was not by a many the last time he strayed from the stead away into peril. On a time he was missing again nightlong, but in the morning came into the house blithe and merry, but exceeding hungry, and when the good man asked him where he had been and bade him whipping-cheer, he said that he cared little if beaten were he, so merry a time he had had; for he had gone a long way up the Dale, and about twilight (this ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... if he were working for a funeral or a wedding, at an hour's notice; the next, he was dispatching his dinner at the same rate; and the third beheld him running, leaping, and playing, among his companions, as blithe as a young kid. If he had a fault, it was being too fond of his fiddle. This was his everlasting delight. One would have thought that his elbow had labor enough, with jerking his needle some thirty thousand times ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... play-mate can I see. Of the countless living things, 45 That with stir of feet and wings (In the sun or under shade, Upon bough or grassy blade) And with busy revellings, Chirp and song, and murmurings, 50 Made this orchard's narrow space, And this vale so blithe a place; Multitudes are swept away Never more to breathe the day: Some are sleeping; some in bands 55 Travelled into distant lands; Others slunk to moor and wood, Far from human neighbourhood; And, among the Kinds that ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... as some sager sing, The frolic wind that breathes the spring, Zephyr, with Aurora playing, As he met her once a-maying, There, on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, Filled her with thee, a daughter fair, So buxom, blithe, and debonair. Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks, and wreathed Smiles— Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... Mime! thou enemy of gloom, Grandson of Momus, blithe and debonair, Who, aping Pan, with an inverted broom, Can'st brush the cobwebs from the brows ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... said Mrs. Morran. "He's gaun to stretch his legs ayont the burn, and come back by the Ayr road. But I'll be blithe to tak' my tea wi' ye, Elspeth.... Now, Dickson, I'll expect ye hame on the chap ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... to nothing through delay and mismanagement. He landed, and whilst waiting for further orders from home he has joined the Rangers, in order to learn their methods of fighting. Never was hardier or braver man, or one more cheerful and blithe. Even the stern Rogers himself unbends when he is near. He has been the very life of our party since he has ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... enter in, thou freezing wind, And snap the harp-strings, one by one; It was a maiden blithe and kind: They felt her touch; their task ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... often felt depressed and martyred when obliged to go to the courts of Albany and leave his family behind him. He had lost interest in his body; his spirit, ever, by far, the strongest and the dominant part of him, seemed already struggling for its freedom, arrogant and blithe as it approached its final triumph. There is nothing in all life so selfish as death; and the colossal ego which genius breeds or is bred out of, isolated Hamilton even more completely than imminent death isolates most men. The while he gave ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... over The surge and shift of the dipping tide, And you, my rover, my blithe sea-rover, Sailing ...
— From The Lips of the Sea • Clinton Scollard
... it was she who did most of the talking; Hatton, Captain Terry's Grays, and the fight down the Platte furnishing her with abundant material for blithe comment and congratulations. His constraint and solemnity of mien she attributed to physical suffering combined with distress of mind over the charges she believed to have been laid at his door; and, while avoiding all mention of that subject, it was her earnest desire to show ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... bad to worse, but he had carefully kept all this from his adopted daughter, in the preparatory school in the Middle West. Consequently the blithe and lovable Jerkline Jo knew nothing of the state of affairs when the telegram announcing her father's death ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... Songsters, all so blithe and gay, Know ye what your carols say? How will your sweet carols fare When your nests the ...
— What Sami Sings with the Birds • Johanna Spyri
... me the man who bears a heavy load lightly, and looks on a grave matter with a blithe and cheerful eye." And Carlyle has pointed out that "One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past calculation its power of endurance. Efforts, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... sister's room, sat down and had a little cry. But the sunlight was streaming in through the pretty chintz curtains there; and its softness and its ease, its luxury and blithe content, stole into her spirit and quieted ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... pleasure that he had led in the past. Pythagoras had already forbidden the folly of spoiling the present by remorse; and he, too, did not do this. It would have been repugnant to his genuinely Greek nature. Instead of looking backward with peevish regret, his purpose was to look with blithe confidence toward the future, and to do his best to render it better and more fruitful than the months of revel which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hour later, Henry Schulte, who had been delayed beyond his wont in the village, came walking briskly along the road that led to the abode of Emerence. His heart was gay, and a blithe, merry song rose to his lips as he journeyed along. All unconscious of the dark deed that had been committed, he stood upon the rustic bridge, where he had expected to meet his betrothed, and gazed at the beauty of the landscape that ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... beans are passed away; Those onions blithe, O where are they? Once loved, lost, mourned—now vexing ILLS Your shades troop back in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce |
