"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trod; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. From the bank and from the river He flash'd into the crystal mirror, 'Tirra lirra,' by the river ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame, Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum, To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour For ever slaves ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... first state; I never meant it to appear as a book. Knowing well that I have never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it—fine mixed metaphor. I am now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sun ariseth in his majesty Who doth the world so gloriously behold, That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... the exterior of the barrel, lay it flat on a bench or board, to avoid bending it. The practice of supporting the barrel at each end, and rubbing it with a strap, buffstick, ramrod, or any other instrument to burnish it, is pernicious, ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... is Nature made for? is it for us The beautiful world is burnish'd and blent? If we had not eyes, would blossoms shine thus? If we had not nostrils, would they ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart
... phrase: "But, generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her noticing even this ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... Thine were Quarter'd not Impal'd: Both brought Your Ingots, Both toil'd at the Mint, Beat, melted, sifted, till no drosse stuck in't, Then in each Others scales weighed every graine, Then smooth'd and burnish'd, then weigh'd all againe, Stampt Both your Names upon't by one bold Hit, Then, then'twas Coyne, ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... half a prayer, and the pert secretary did the first thing that was familiar since he was seen with the company—he laid his hand on Don Ruy's shoulder and felt that the horse lost was as a brother lost, and Chico had a fancy of his own to caress it, and even burnish the silver of ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan
... rang out incisively; the reporter took off his spectacles, and began to burnish them, for his face ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... my custom to choose my own time and place for fighting, and I would thank the Duc de Nemours to wait till my men have time to shoe their horses and burnish ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... O'er the beauteous Hero's bier. Brave youth and comely 'bove compare; All golden shone his burnish'd hair; Valor and smiling courtesy Played in the sunbeams of his eye. Closed are those eyes that shone so fair And stain'd with blood his yellow hair. Scottish maidens drop a tear O'er the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... thy counsel, I will smite from him His head with sharp blue steel, and hurl it down For soaring kites to feast on. Up! all ye Who care to enkindle men to battle: rouse Our warriors all throughout the fleet to whet The spear, to burnish corslet, helm and shield; And cause both man and horse, all which be keen In fight, to break their fast. Then in yon plain Who is the ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... though, like most of us, she only faced the situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to George—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory—his voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... evil-smelling. Then comes the third group, and it too has a drift. Unknown as the names in it are, it is the epoch of restoration, and its 'bright consummate flower' is 'Jesus who is called the Christ.' He will be a better David, will burnish again the tarnished lustre of the monarchy, will be all that earlier kings were meant to be and failed of being, and will more than bring the day which Abraham desired to see, and realise the ideal to which 'prophets and righteous men' unconsciously were ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... fate, Not long ago, when ships of Greece were met At Aulis, charg'd with evil freight for Troy, And we, around a fountain, to the Gods Our altars rear'd, with faultless hecatombs, Near a fair plane-tree, where bright water flow'd, Behold a wonder! by Olympian Jove Sent forth to light, a snake, with burnish'd scales, Of aspect fearful, issuing from beneath The altars, glided to the plane-tree straight. There, on the topmost bough, beneath the leaves Cow'ring, a sparrow's callow nestlings lay; Eight fledglings, and the parent bird the ninth. All the eight nestlings, utt'ring ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... 'agony piled sufficiently high' (as the Americans say), or the colours dashed on to the canvas with the proper amount of daring. Still, I fear, they must be satisfied with what is offered: my palette affords no brighter tints; were t to attempt to deepen the reds, or burnish the yellows, I ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... forsakes, The chosen youth her earliest beam awakes, The bounding steed, the highly scented hound, 170 Nets, toils, and spears, the palace court surround. A favour'd band within the royal gate, The Queen who still delay'd, respectful wait. In purple trapping, burnish'd gold array'd, Proud on the foaming bit, her courser play'd; 175 She comes; the court her graceful steps surround; Her Tyrian vest, embroider'd fringes bound; Her quiver gold, with gold her hair enlac'd, ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire
... boy, if he be present, to keepe it: if not, he puts it vp into his Saptargat, that is to say, his foure square budget, which they vse to cary about with them for the sauing of all such prouision, and wherein they lay vp their bones, when they haue not time to gnaw them throughly, that they may burnish them afterward, to the end that no whit of their food may ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... the sun: thro' the dense leaves a spot Of splendid light drinks up the dew; the breeze Which late made leafy music dies; the day grows hot, And slumbrous sounds come from marauding bees: The burnish'd river like a sword-blade shines, Save where 'tis ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... when it suiteth me," said Mr Headley coolly. "He wotteth well that Hillyer hath none who can burnish plate armour ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... purpose, which shalbe hereafter spoken of in place: but because we haue alleaged before that ornament is but the good or rather bewtifull habite of language and stile and figuratiue speaches the instrument wherewith we burnish our language fashioning it to this or that measure and proportion, whence finally resulteth a long and continuall phrase or maner of writing or speach, which we call by the name of stile: we wil first speake of language; then of stile, ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... perfection in your calling—being sure that it is Nature's calling. Then let your dreams become beliefs; let your imaginings develop into faith. Complete the process by resolving to make that belief come true. Then go ahead and make it come true. Keep your resolution bright. Never let it rust. Burnish it with work—untiring, unhasting, ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... meals, and when serving at table, a wise man's advice on the books his little Jack should read, the best English poets,—then Gower, Chaucer, Occleve, and Lydgate,—not the Catechism and Latin Grammar. It was very pleasant to come off the directions not to conveye spetell over the table, or burnish one's bones with one's teeth, to the burst of enthusiasm with which the writer speaks of our old poets. He evidently believed in them with all his heart; and it would have been a good thing for England if our educators since ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall
... following selections notice that the first tells us how to burnish a photograph; the second, how to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... a path, And drew a burnish'd brand, And fifteen of the foremost slew, Till back the lave ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang
... stanchions half worn-out with rust, Whereto their banner vile they trust: Why, all these things I hold them just As dragons in a missal book, Wherein, whenever we may look, We see no horror, yea delight We have, the colours are so bright; Likewise we note the specks of white, And the great plates of burnish'd gold. ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... pilot; for the post of the Blonde, and some other light ships, was between the blockading fleet and the blockaded, where perpetual vigilance was needed. This sharp service was the very thing required to improve his character, to stamp it with decision and self-reliance, and to burnish his quiet, contemplative vein with the very frequent friction of the tricks of mankind. These he now was strictly bound not to study, but anticipate, taking it as first postulate that every one would cheat him, if permitted. To a scrimpy ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... not made of glass, (for glass mirrors cannot be shown to have existed before the thirteenth century,) but of polished metals; and amongst these, silver was in the greatest esteem, as being capable of a higher burnish than other metals, and less liable to tarnish. Metallic mirrors are alluded to by Job, xxxvii. 18. But it appears from the Second Book of Moses, xxxviii. 8, that in that age, copper must have been the metal employed throughout the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... a pivot are that it shall be round and well polished. Avoid the burnish file at all hazards; it will not leave the pivot round, for the pressure is unequal at various points in the revolution. A pivot that was not perfectly round might act fairly well in a jewel hole that was ...
— A Treatise on Staff Making and Pivoting • Eugene E. Hall
... throw A holy lustre o'er his brow, And burnish with their rays of light The mass of curls that gather bright Above the haughty brow and eye Of a young boy ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... cleared his throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals. Specks and motes were ever adhering to them. He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them: he saw nothing but the ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath |
